openvms... another question

Jay, you didn't see a lot of messages from me recently because I am pretty busy with my job, which is OpenVMS support, mostly for European sites of the company I am working for. I don't think you can download everything that is on "official" VMS media. Even if you could, you would need some bandwidth and/or time: the VMS kit V7.2-1 (granted, my copy is for Alpha, not for VAX processors) is one CD for the O/S, another for the firmware (which would not be required for a VAX), one for documentation, and two for layered products. There is a separate kit, called the "Software Products Library" and "Online Documentation Library", which consists of 18 (eighteen!) CDs. If that's what you were offered, you'll certainly prefer pickup over

As the "documentation" in the kit or CD descriptions implies, you may not need manuals after you have the CDs. And, definitely no, VMS does not run on PDPs. You can currently buy it for VAX or Alpha architectures (the latter now also being on-topic), and a port to Itanium is on its way (first booted in last January). VMS does, however, have a design that is based on and closely related to RSX-11M, an operating system for PDP-11s. Hope that helps! Regards, Andreas Jay West wrote: > Ok, I know NOTHING about openVMS. However, this just came up... > > A friend of a friend offered me what he says is a complete set of

> media. No manuals, just the media. > > Several questions: > >>From what I understand, isn't there some type of hobbyist free license

> openvms? If so, not sure why I should grab the media from him if I can

> download it. Or is there a value to getting the media from him, as to it > giving me the ability to purchase a license transfer or something... in > short, is there a special reason getting "real" media is desirable? > > Lastly... he said it runs on vax's and pdp's. Not sure if he knows what