29 Jun
2001
29 Jun
'01
11:58 a.m.
So now that OpenVMS 7.3 for VAX is out I'm hoping
that the Montagar folks
will do an updated VMS Media disk. If anyone has any contacts with the
group that does that I would really like to help out. I'm pretty sure that
we could build a pretty painless and much better organized disk than the
7.2 disk is.
I know David Cathey. I'll ask him what the plan is for the next version.
But that isn't really the point of this message.
The point was made on a
previous note about a ConDist set that it had VMS 6.0 which wasn't a "good"
version of VMS because it was fairly buggy. That made me wonder if we could
come to a concensus on what "good" VMS releases were out there?
I'd say the good ones are the ones which you can get reasonable prior version
support for the V5.x and later versions. For the earlier versions, probably
the last version in the series, which any MUPs loaded.
I happen to like VMS 5.5-2H4 which was, I believe, the
last release in the
5.x line and thus pretty darn stable. It runs on pretty much every VAX and
uses the "Modern" license management facility that the Hobbyiest licenses
conform to. There is also a lot of software that runs on "5.5 and above" so
that is good too. Finally its the last release that calls itself VAX VMS
(rather than OpenVMS) which gives it a wonderful classic like feel.
Either V5.5-2 or -2H4. The "H" releases were mostly just extra hardware
support.
Then there is VMS 6.x, of which I've got images
for 6.1 and 6.2 (no 6.0 but
I opted to pass on the ConDist as well). Is there a release after 6.2 that
sits between it and the 7.x release? Given the shortness between 7.0 and
7.1 I'm going to guess that 7.0 had some serious issues and 7.2 which is
running on the VLC cluster seems quite stable. (using a patched UCX).
There wasn't a follow-up to V6.2 except for "H" releases. For V7.x, 7.2
is very stable. I'm still testing V7.3.
Thoughts? What was the best V4.x release? V3? Does
anyone have VMS 1.x and
if so what processors does it support? As I recall on the 780 at school it
looked a _lot_ like RSX-11M+ :-)
The first releases of VMS had a lot of compatibility-mode programs.
For anyone that's interested, here's the versions that Compaq is still offering
on-line patches:
ncftp /vms/vax > dir
drwxr-xr-x 7 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v5.0
drwxr-xr-x 6 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v5.0-1
drwxr-xr-x 6 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v5.0-2
drwxr-xr-x 8 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v5.1
drwxr-xr-x 7 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v5.1-1
drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 512 Feb 28 2000 v5.1-b
drwxr-xr-x 9 0 0 1024 Feb 29 2000 v5.2
drwxr-xr-x 8 0 0 1024 Feb 29 2000 v5.2-1
drwxr-xr-x 2 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v5.2-2hf
drwxr-xr-x 16 0 0 1024 Feb 29 2000 v5.3
drwxr-xr-x 12 0 0 1024 Feb 29 2000 v5.3-1
drwxr-xr-x 12 0 0 1024 Feb 29 2000 v5.3-2
drwxr-xr-x 29 0 0 1536 Feb 29 2000 v5.4
drwxr-xr-x 26 0 0 2048 Feb 29 2000 v5.4-1
drwxr-xr-x 26 0 0 2048 Feb 29 2000 v5.4-2
drwxr-xr-x 29 0 0 2048 Feb 29 2000 v5.4-3
drwxr-xr-x 49 0 0 3584 Feb 29 2000 v5.5
drwxr-xr-x 46 0 0 3584 Feb 29 2000 v5.5-1
drwxr-xr-x 81 0 0 12800 Jun 28 00:32 v5.5-2
drwxr-xr-x 58 0 0 11776 Jun 28 00:32 v5.5-2h4
drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 512 Mar 29 1999 v5.5-2-h4
drwxr-xr-x 18 0 0 5632 Jun 28 00:32 v5.5-2hf
drwxr-xr-x 11 0 0 1024 Jun 28 00:32 v5.5-2hw
drwxr-xr-x 70 0 0 9216 Oct 25 2000 v6.0
drwxr-xr-x 91 0 0 15360 Jun 28 00:32 v6.1
drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v6.1-1h1
drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v6.1-1h2
drwxr-xr-x 75 0 0 16384 Jun 28 05:31 v6.2
drwxr-xr-x 15 0 0 1024 Jun 28 00:32 v6.2-0hf
drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v6.2-1h1
drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v6.2-1h2
drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 512 Feb 10 1999 v6.2-1h3
drwxr-xr-x 56 0 0 8704 Jun 28 00:32 v7.0
drwxr-xr-x 50 0 0 10752 Jun 28 05:31 v7.1
drwxr-xr-x 27 0 0 4096 Jun 28 05:31 v7.2
drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 512 Jul 11 2000 v7.2-1
drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 512 May 9 22:31 v7.2-2
drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 512 Jun 28 00:33 v7.3
ncftp /vms/axp > dir
drwxr-xr-x 9 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v1.0
drwxr-xr-x 24 0 0 2560 Feb 29 2000 v1.5
drwxr-xr-x 13 0 0 2048 Feb 29 2000 v1.5-1h1
drwxr-xr-x 10 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v6.0
drwxr-xr-x 79 0 0 17920 Jan 24 01:30 v6.1
drwxr-xr-x 39 0 0 15360 Jan 24 01:30 v6.1-1h1
drwxr-xr-x 39 0 0 15360 Jan 24 01:30 v6.1-1h2
drwxr-xr-x 5 0 0 512 Feb 29 2000 v6.1-1h3
drwxr-xr-x 80 0 0 20992 Jun 28 00:33 v6.2
drwxr-xr-x 3 0 0 512 May 1 22:30 v6.2-1
drwxr-xr-x 44 0 0 17920 Jun 28 00:33 v6.2-1h1
drwxr-xr-x 43 0 0 17408 Jun 28 00:33 v6.2-1h2
drwxr-xr-x 42 0 0 17408 Jun 28 00:33 v6.2-1h3
drwxr-xr-x 61 0 0 10752 Jun 28 00:33 v7.0
drwxr-xr-x 57 0 0 13824 Jun 28 00:33 v7.1
drwxr-xr-x 46 0 0 13312 Jun 28 00:33 v7.1-1h1
drwxr-xr-x 40 0 0 12288 Jun 28 00:33 v7.1-1h2
drwxr-xr-x 9 0 0 11776 Jun 18 22:30 v7.1-2
drwxr-xr-x 38 0 0 8192 Jun 28 00:33 v7.2
drwxr-xr-x 22 0 0 12800 Jun 28 02:30 v7.2-1
drwxr-xr-x 14 0 0 10752 Jun 29 00:31 v7.2-1h1
drwxr-xr-x 4 0 0 512 May 9 01:31 v7.2-2
drwxr-xr-x 6 0 0 1536 Jun 28 02:31 v7.3
These were pulled from ftp.service.digital.com using a DSNLINK
account. Note that V7.2-1 and -2 were not actually released for
the VAX. For the V7.x-y releases, the -y revisions are only
released for the Alpha.
--
Eric Dittman
dittman(a)dittman.net