30 Nov
2010
30 Nov
'10
2:39 p.m.
Was it written in predominantly one language? If so, which one?
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
2:53 p.m.
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Dennis Boone wrote:
Wasn't BLISS-32 one of them?
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
Was it written
in predominantly one language? If so, which one?
The standing joke was that the development folks tried as hard as they
could to use every available translator or interpreter in the os.
3:04 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Gene Buckle
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 2:53 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: what was VMS/OpenVMS written in?
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Dennis Boone wrote:
they
Yup, it was pretty much all BLISS-32. One of my grad school profs was one of the people
who did so. He actually likes BLISS.... -- Ian
Was it
written in predominantly one language? If so, which one?
The standing joke was that the development folks tried as hard as could to use every available translator or
interpreter in the os.
Wasn't BLISS-32 one of them?
11:40 p.m.
Ian King [IanK at vulcan.com] wrote:
Yup, it was pretty much all BLISS-32. One of my grad
school
profs was one of the people who did so. He actually likes BLISS....
I still like BLISS-32 (even though my day job is C++!).
The group I worked in in DEC wrote device drivers (mostly) in BLISS.
The result of a drunken challenge one day I assume :-)
Antonio
2:57 p.m.
In article <20101130225024.C3751A580D3 at yagi.h-net.msu.edu>,
Dennis Boone <drb at msu.edu> writes:
So *not* predominantly written in C?
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
Was it written
in predominantly one language? If so, which one?
The standing joke was that the development folks tried as hard as they
could to use every available translator or interpreter in the os. 
4:04 p.m.
At 3:57 PM -0700 11/30/10, Richard wrote:
In article <20101130225024.C3751A580D3 at
yagi.h-net.msu.edu>,
Dennis Boone <drb at msu.edu> writes:
So *not* predominantly written in C?
Only in recent years has C been used that much. One place you're
likely to find a lot of C would be in DECwindows. As has been noted
MACRO-32 and BLISS-32 were two of the main languages used initially.
I tend to suspect there is a lot of truth to the 'standing joke'.
People write tools, others find them useful, they get added to the
OS. They weren't always even DEC/Compaq/HP people that wrote them.
I've personally done quite a bit of Perl programming for VMS.
Definitely not the normal language to use, but it's for my systems,
and I like Perl. I've also written other stuff in Ada, DCL, and
BASIC.
Having lots of languages to choose from is a good thing in my
opinion. I'm reminded of iOS development, where as near as I can
tell we're limited to Objective-C if writing a native app.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
Was it
written in predominantly one language? If so, which one?
The standing joke was that the development folks tried as hard as they
could to use every available translator or interpreter in the os.
2:59 p.m.
Dennis Boone [drb at msu.edu] wrote:
Richard [legalize at xmission.com] wrote:
I thought it was meant to be the RTL?
VMS/VAX was mostly MACRO-32 and BLISS although you can find other
languages there too (e.g. PL/I for MONITOR iirc).
Antonio
Was it written in predominantly one language? If
so, which one?
The standing joke was that the development folks tried as
hard as they could to use every available translator or interpreter
in the os. 
3:08 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 5:59 PM, <arcarlini at iee.org> wrote:
Dennis Boone [drb at msu.edu] wrote:
A story I heard in the mid-1980s was that the developers used every
supported language (even PASCAL and COBOL) to force marketing to leave
in the RTLs rather than sell them separately, but I've heard that
particular story debunked on this list.
Richard [legalize at xmission.com] wrote:
?> Was it written in predominantly one language? ?If so, which one?
The standing joke was that the development folks tried as
hard as they could to use every available translator or interpreter
in the os.
I thought it was meant to be the RTL? VMS/VAX was mostly MACRO-32 and BLISS although you can
find other
languages there too (e.g. PL/I for MONITOR iirc).
And I know I've seen C (for some tool that came out in the VMS 5.x
era, not originally) and COBOL and PASCAL. Probably FORTRAN, too,
but I couldn't tell you what tools were written in what languages this
far out. I do recall that I was surprised to see the messages
generated by the error log scrubber tool (forget the name at the
moment). It was one of the lesser-used languages, possibly PL/I (a
language I never personally did anything with, which is why it might
stick out in my memory).
All the fiche I ever read personally contained BLISS-32 and MACRO-32
code, but my readings were slanted towards system programming and
writing device drivers, not application code and utilities.
-ethan
4 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 5:59 PM, <arcarlini at
iee.org> wrote:
> VMS/VAX was mostly MACRO-32 and BLISS although you can find other
> languages there too (e.g. PL/I for MONITOR iirc).
And I know I've seen C (for some tool that came
out in the VMS 5.x
era, not originally) and COBOL and PASCAL. Probably FORTRAN, too,
but I couldn't tell you what tools were written in what languages this
far out. I do recall that I was surprised to see the messages
generated by the error log scrubber tool (forget the name at the
moment). It was one of the lesser-used languages, possibly PL/I (a
language I never personally did anything with, which is why it might
stick out in my memory).
The answer would vary depending on what revision you're looking at.
For 7.3ish VAX OS source proper (includes RTLs, but no translators or
layered products), on VERY casual inspection, it looks like about 3000
files of MACRO, 2900 of Bliss, 1400 of C, 155 of message definitions, 65
of Fortran, 35 of Ada, 20 of command definitions, 10 of PL/1, 10 of
Pascal, 5 of Uil, a few DCL.
I can't find any COBOL, BASIC, MODULA, CORAL, DIBOL, etc.
De
4:50 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 7:00 PM, Dennis Boone <drb at msu.edu> wrote:
?> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 5:59 PM, ?<arcarlini
at iee.org> wrote:
?> > VMS/VAX was mostly MACRO-32 and BLISS although you can find other
?> > languages there too (e.g. PL/I for MONITOR iirc).
The answer would vary depending on what revision you're looking at.
Ah. Good point. I was considering the question from the perspective
of "what language was VMS _originally_ written in", which colored my
answer.
For 7.3ish VAX OS source proper (includes RTLs, but no
translators or
layered products), on VERY casual inspection, it looks like about 3000
files of MACRO, 2900 of Bliss, 1400 of C, 155 of message definitions, 65
of Fortran, 35 of Ada, 20 of command definitions, 10 of PL/1, 10 of
Pascal, 5 of Uil, a few DCL.
Sure. I can see that.
I can't find any COBOL, BASIC, MODULA, CORAL,
DIBOL, etc.
In 7.3, I'm sure that's now true. I'm pretty sure I remember some
COBOL and BASIC back in the 4.x and 5.x days, but I can't promise that
my memory is 100% correct.
-ethan
5:51 p.m.
At 7:50 PM -0500 11/30/10, Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 7:00 PM, Dennis Boone <drb
at msu.edu> wrote:
Ethan, I'm pretty sure your memory is correct. Something else to
consider is just what does a source CD contain the source for? I've
never seen one. :-( But as I understand it, you have the basic OS,
some of the other components aren't included from what I've heard.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
For 7.3ish VAX OS source proper (includes RTLs,
but no translators or
layered products), on VERY casual inspection, it looks like about 3000
files of MACRO, 2900 of Bliss, 1400 of C, 155 of message definitions, 65
of Fortran, 35 of Ada, 20 of command definitions, 10 of PL/1, 10 of
Pascal, 5 of Uil, a few DCL.
Sure. I can see that.
I can't find any COBOL, BASIC, MODULA,
CORAL, DIBOL, etc.
In 7.3, I'm sure that's now true. I'm pretty sure I remember some
COBOL and BASIC back in the 4.x and 5.x days, but I can't promise that
my memory is 100% correct.
11:37 p.m.
Zane H. Healy [healyzh at aracnet.com] wrote:
Ethan, I'm pretty sure your memory is correct.
Something else to
consider is just what does a source CD contain the source for? I've
never seen one. :-( But as I understand it, you have the basic OS,
some of the other components aren't included from what I've heard.
There used to be a source kit that delivered source. I believe it was
built on demand for those customers who met the necessary requirements
(i.e. huge paranoia and a handy bottomless pit of money).
What the rest of us had (unless we could SET HOST STAR:: :-)) was a
source
listings kit, which didn't have any (or much) source, just listings
output
by the various compilers. Basically the fiche but on CD.
You could often mostly go from listings to source with an editor macro
or
two (iirc there was even one ona DECUS tape somewhere) but you'd
occasionally
have to massage stuff to cope with macro expansions (and the fact that
listings
cut off at something like column 132 ...).
On top of that some particularly sensitive listings were deliberate
omitted.
Most of LMF (from V5 onwards) and some parts of LOGINOUT (in V4 at
least)
were not there (I presume other bits may have been excised too but I
never noticed).
Antonio
1 Dec
1 Dec
6:35 a.m.
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 7:50 PM -0500 11/30/10, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Was/is there an x86 version of VMS?
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 7:00 PM, Dennis Boone
<drb at msu.edu> wrote:
Ethan, I'm pretty sure your memory is correct. Something else to consider is
just what does a source CD contain the source for? I've never seen one. :-(
But as I understand it, you have the basic OS, some of the other components
aren't included from what I've heard.
For 7.3ish VAX OS source proper (includes RTLs,
but no translators or
layered products), on VERY casual inspection, it looks like about 3000
files of MACRO, 2900 of Bliss, 1400 of C, 155 of message definitions, 65
of Fortran, 35 of Ada, 20 of command definitions, 10 of PL/1, 10 of
Pascal, 5 of Uil, a few DCL.
Sure. I can see that.
I can't find any COBOL, BASIC, MODULA,
CORAL, DIBOL, etc.
In 7.3, I'm sure that's now true. I'm pretty sure I remember some
COBOL and BASIC back in the 4.x and 5.x days, but I can't promise that
my memory is 100% correct.
7:20 a.m.
At 6:35 AM -0800 12/1/10, Gene Buckle wrote:
Was/is there an x86 version of VMS?
There is an Itanium version of VMS, I believe it pretty much requires
you to have HP hardware, and I've not kept up on how much a 1U
Itanium box will cost. I'm actually starting to think about
emulation of a VAX or Alpha to have access to my VMS systems (yes, I
have real hardware, but it costs real money to keep it up and
running).
There is also FreeVMS, which I'm not sure the status of.
http://www.freevms.net/
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
7:30 a.m.
On Wed, 1 Dec 2010, Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 6:35 AM -0800 12/1/10, Gene Buckle wrote:
I'd love to have another VAX, but I can't afford to feed it. Emulation
would be nice. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
Was/is there an x86 version of VMS?
There is an Itanium version of VMS, I believe it pretty much requires you to
have HP hardware, and I've not kept up on how much a 1U Itanium box will
cost. I'm actually starting to think about emulation of a VAX or Alpha to
have access to my VMS systems (yes, I have real hardware, but it costs real
money to keep it up and running).
8:01 a.m.
At 7:30 AM -0800 12/1/10, Gene Buckle wrote:
I'd love to have another VAX, but I can't
afford to feed it.
Emulation would be nice. :)
Replacement HW costs are definitely going up. I managed to score a
pair of Compaq XP1000's (Alpha 21264 500Mhz & 667Mhz) at the low
point in their value. One now has a dead power supply, and last I
checked XP1000's go for big bucks (not sure about the PS's). I
assume drives are getting harder to find, but I have a large stash.
I have several older Alpha's dating back to a DEC3000/300LX. My VAX
hardware is a lot sparser, flakier, and my drive options more limited
(plus I don't want to run a Q-bus system 24x7 which limits me even
more).
Still the biggest roadblock on keeping the stuff running is the cost
of electricity and cooling. That's what caused me to power down
MONK, which had been running for over a decade in one form or another.
There are several emulation solutions, I'd recommend looking at SIMH
first. I'm thinking of trying it on a Mini-ITX box.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
30 Nov
30 Nov
5:57 p.m.
> I can't find any COBOL, BASIC, MODULA, CORAL,
DIBOL, etc.
In 7.3, I'm sure that's now true. I'm
pretty sure I remember some
COBOL and BASIC back in the 4.x and 5.x days, but I can't promise that
my memory is 100% correct.
Given the RSX heritage, I wouldn't be surprised if some BASIC code came
across. I was actually almost surprised not to find MODULA, but a bit
of googling suggests my memory of a DEC compiler is erroneous. I would
only expect to find COBOL in some kind of reporting tool, where
performance wouldn't so much.
De
6:49 p.m.
From: Dennis Boone
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 5:57 PM
>> I can't find any COBOL, BASIC, MODULA,
CORAL, DIBOL, etc.
> In 7.3, I'm sure that's now true. I'm
pretty sure I remember some
> COBOL and BASIC back in the 4.x and 5.x days, but I can't promise that
> my memory is 100% correct.
Given the RSX heritage, I wouldn't be surprised if
some BASIC code came
across. I was actually almost surprised not to find MODULA, but a bit
of googling suggests my memory of a DEC compiler is erroneous. I would
only expect to find COBOL in some kind of reporting tool, where
performance wouldn't so much.
I think you've confused RSX-11M (the basis of VMS) with RSTS/E (the version
in existence by the time VMS came to be written). RSX-11{A,B,C,D,M,S} is
very much Macro-11 oriented; I'm not sure that there is a BASIC available.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.PDPplanet.org/
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
11:32 p.m.
Dennis Boone [drb at msu.edu] wrote:
Given the RSX heritage, I wouldn't be surprised if
some BASIC
code came across. I was actually almost surprised not to
find MODULA, but a bit of googling suggests my memory of a
DEC compiler is erroneous.
There was a MODULA-2 compiler but that was from outside DEC.
I also think I remember a MODULA-3 compiler from one of the DEC research
labs.
Either way, I don't remember any Modula code on the source listings CD
(I suppose I should just spin it up and check ...)
Antonio
7:14 p.m.
Let's make sure we're not confusing the original question (at least as I
understood it): in what language was the *operating system* written? Tools may have been
(and were) written in any number of languages, but the origin of the VMS kernel was in
BLISS-32 and, of course, MACRO-32.
When I set up our VAX-11 we didn't have a license for UCX so I used CMUIP for
networking (and still do to this day). It was written in BLISS-32 but its interfaces were
spec'ed for PL/I. Wow, was that fun: I wrote a primitive text-mode browser in PL/I
just so I understood the networking APIs. I still twitch every so often. -- Ian
________________________________________
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of
Ethan Dicks [ethan.dicks at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 3:08 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: what was VMS/OpenVMS written in?
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 5:59 PM, <arcarlini at iee.org> wrote:
Dennis Boone [drb at msu.edu] wrote:
A story I heard in the mid-1980s was that the developers used every
supported language (even PASCAL and COBOL) to force marketing to leave
in the RTLs rather than sell them separately, but I've heard that
particular story debunked on this list.
Richard [legalize at xmission.com] wrote:
I thought it was meant to be the RTL? Was it written in predominantly one language? If
so, which one?
The standing joke was that the development folks tried as
hard as they could to use every available translator or interpreter
in the os. VMS/VAX was mostly MACRO-32 and BLISS although you can
find other
languages there too (e.g. PL/I for MONITOR iirc).
And I know I've seen C (for some tool that came out in the VMS 5.x
era, not originally) and COBOL and PASCAL. Probably FORTRAN, too,
but I couldn't tell you what tools were written in what languages this
far out. I do recall that I was surprised to see the messages
generated by the error log scrubber tool (forget the name at the
moment). It was one of the lesser-used languages, possibly PL/I (a
language I never personally did anything with, which is why it might
stick out in my memory).
All the fiche I ever read personally contained BLISS-32 and MACRO-32
code, but my readings were slanted towards system programming and
writing device drivers, not application code and utilities.
-ethan
4903
days inactive
4904
days old
21 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
arcarlini＠iee.org -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
drb＠msu.edu -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
geneb＠deltasoft.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
IanK＠vulcan.com -
legalize＠xmission.com -
RichA＠vulcan.com