history is hard

On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 19:24:31 -0400, Bill Gunshannon wrote: A variant of VM/370 Release 6 is running here in front of me under Hercules running on VMS on a DEC Alphaserver 800 from 20+ years ago. I used to think that was a bit special but now one of the other guys whose system is on an NJE network with mine is running VM/370 under Hercules on a mobile phone. Many of the source file dates in VM/370 Release 6 are in 1978. Some might say that Release 6 was the "last" VM/370 but that word is just as difficult to pin down as "first" and the devil is in the detail. Release 6 seems to be the last freely available release of VM/370 though. There were one or two more updates for VM/370 but I think those were charged-for software and just after that the name was changed. If I have the sequence right, it went through a succession, of being called VM/SP, VM/XA, VM/ESA and is known today as z/VM. Under the covers though, it's all the same stuff as VM/370 and it looks like VM/370 wasn't even the original name for it. Regards, Peter Coghlan.