OTOH, what forces you to upgrade? - If you want to
cluster a VAX to an
Alpha running 6.1, that should be OK: this is the usual way to upgrade a
V6.0 on VAX was OK but short-lived; V6.1 was
somewhat better. Most people either stayed with
V5.5-2 or moved rapidly to V6.1 or V6.2.
I believe that the VAX V6.1 CDs were the
first ones that could be booted directly
into OpenVMS (rather than just being
able to boot S/A BACKUP to restore
the .B saveset).
The Hobbyist people should be able
to supply V7.3. If they cannot do so,
then I believe that you are allowed to
acquire media by any means (specifically
you can have someone copy the CD
for you).
Antonio