OpenVMS Resources: VAX • Alpha • Itanium • x86-64

Confusion between VMS (software) and VAX (hardware)

A very brief overview of major highlights:

• In 1977 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) introduced the 32-bit VAX-11 architecture as a successor to the 16-bit PDP-11. (VAX-11 could run PDP-11 application software in PDP emulation mode) At the same time, DEC introduced the VMS operating system for VAX-11 causing the world to think of the pair as one.
• In the mid-to-late 1980s, DEC experimented with RISC technologies by building systems around chips from MIPS. At this same time they were working on two skunk-works projects:
  • porting VMS to Intel's IA-32 family (80386, 80486)
    • this project was cancelled causing the human talent to go to Microsoft to produce Windows-NT
  • building their own RISC chip which would be called Alpha
• In the early 1990s DEC released systems based upon Alpha along with a revamped OS known as OpenVMS (version 7.0)
  comment: from the time on, whenever I mention that "I work on OpenVMS" someone will say "I thought VAX was dead".
• DEC was sold to Compaq in 1998
• During merger talks with HP in 2001, Compaq (a huge Intel customer) announced their plans to phase out Alpha in favor of Intel's new 64-bit enterprise chip called Itanium or IA-64 (Intel Architecture 64-bit).
  • Compaq sold all Alpha intellectual property to Intel (along with ~ 300 Alpha engineers)
  • Compaq merged with HP (did HP negotiations have anything to do with Alphacide?)
• HP pre-released OpenVMS-8.0 for Itanium on 2003-06-30 for internal use as well as third-party developers
• HP pre-released OpenVMS-8.1 for Itanium on 2003-12-18 for internal use as well as third-party developers
• HP released OpenVMS-8.2 for Itanium and Alpha on 2005-01-13
• HP released OpenVMS-8.3 for Itanium and Alpha on 2006-06
• HP released OpenVMS-8.4 for Itanium and Alpha on 2010-06
• HP announces no more development of OpenVMS on 2012-06 (do you see the pattern here?)
• On 2014-07-31 HP announced they have licensed OpenVMS source code to a new company named VMS Software Inc (VSI) who intend to:
  • complete OpenVMS qualifications on Poulson
  • port/qualify OpenVMS to 8-core Kittson when that chip is released by Intel in 2017
  • port/qualify OpenVMS to x86-64
• In the middle of 2015 HP split into two companies: HP (to handle the consumer business like PCs and printers) and HPE (HP-Enterprise to handle corporate customers)
  • since many people saw Compaq as a PC company, wouldn't this action be interpreted as undoing portions of the HP-Compaq merger? Perhaps
• On 2016-02-09 HPE and Intel announced their plans to go ahead with the successor to Poulson called Kittson
  • Intel's Itanium to live on as HPE commits to new servers with the chip
    http://www.pcworld.com/article/3031703/hardware/intels-itanium-to-live-an-as-hpe-commits-to-new-servers-with-the-chip.html
• HPE announced that Kittson will debut mid-2017
  • http://www.computerworld.com/article/3098270/data-center/hpes-itanium-server-refresh-should-come-in-mid-2017.html
• HPE totally exits the VMS/OpenVMS business in 2019. VMS Software Inc (VSI) is now the only game in town.

Prism/Mica/Emerald/GEM (the birth of Alpha and Windows-NT)

In the mid 1980s DEC started the Prism project to develop RISC technology which would eventually succeed their CISC-based VAX. Dave Cutler headed Prism (hardware) as well as Mica (software) which would attempt to port VMS to RISC. In July 1988, DEC killed Prism and Mica so they could build systems based upon RISC chips from MIPS. Dave Cutler resigned the following month in August 1988. In October 1988 Dave Cutler, as well as ~40 of his DEC staff, were hired by Microsoft to incorporate VMS 4.x concepts into a new 32-bit GUI OS which became known as Windows-NT (new technology). This technology later morphed into Windows-2000, Windows-XP, Windows Server Edition 2003, etc.

The remainder of my research has been moved here:

• Dave Cutler, Prism, Mica, Emerald, etc.
• Windows-NT is VMS re-implemented the truth is out there!

The DEC Alpha CPU (successor to VAX)

Alpha Links

• DEC Alpha Info (Wikipedia)
• XBITLABS: The History of Alpha Processors: Facts and Comments (includes chipset info)
• Alpha: The History in Facts and Comments (mirror)
• Digital Technical Journal
  • https://vmssoftware.com/resources/digital-technical-journal/
  • http://www.dtjcd.vmsresource.org.uk/ (recently re-scanned in 2016)

My First Alpha

Our skunk works has just (99.11.30) been asked to attempt a trial port of some OpenVMS applications from VAX to Alpha. We acquired six AlphaServer 4100 machines (with DUNIX 4.1 installed) from a cancelled project within our company and now one of them is in my lab. We also scooped up two AlphaServer 2100 machines.

This specific machine is an AlphaServer 4100 5/300 which was manufactured in 1996. It contains a single 21164 (EV5) CPU running at 300 MHz with 2 MB of cache and 256 MB of RAM. Five modules can be installed in the CPU chassis (one for the PCI/EISA interconnect and four for CPU's). Because of the clock speed I thought this machine might be a bit of a dog but it "seems" much faster than my VAX-6430 (at least it boots up five times faster).

The disk subsystem is based upon MYLEX configurable RAID controllers which connect to five "storage works" arrays (each filled with six 4-GB SCSI drives). Since all RAID functions are handled in hardware, the CPU can pay more attention to running the OS and apps. The controller can be modified with a configuration program to support RAID-1 (mirroring), RAID-0 (striping), RAID-10 (one plus zero) and RAID-5 (complete multiple disk redundancy).

All the chassis boards (except CPU and memory) are either PCI or EISA based so these machines are considerably less expensive than the VAXs they are about to replace.

Intel Itanium (successor to DEC Alpha)

Itanium Links

• http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Itanium
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tukwila_(processor)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poulson_(processor)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kittson_(processor)
• http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/itanium/itanium-processor.html
• Intel Corp (recent news)
  • Itanium EOL 2021 (HPE will support until 2025)
    • https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/30/end_of_itanium_shipments/

My First Itanium

Itanium rx2800-i2

Intel releases Tukwila (February 8, 2010)

• Tukwila is now officially known as Itanium 9300
• (mostly) 4-core hyper-threaded packages (software sees 8)
• 2 billion transistors
• support for DDR3 memory
• replaces 20-year old FSB (front side bus) with QPI (quick path interface) previously known as CSI (common system interface)
  Note: this technology came from DEC Alpha 21464 (EV8) which was cancelled in 25 June 2001 (yep, it took 8.5 years for that technology to percolate into this release)
• News:
  • http://www.tgdaily.com/networking-brief/48339-intel-itanium-outsells-amd-opteron
  • http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9153618/After_delays_Intel_rolls_out_Tukwila_chip
  • http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/02/16--and-48-core-monster-chips-on-tap-at-next-weeks-isscc.ars
  • http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2008/02/intel-shows-off-tukwila-first-2-billion-transistor-cpu.ars
  • http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/08/itanium_9300_rollout/

Intel releases Poulson (November 8, 2012)

• Poulson is now officially known a Itanium 9500
• 8-core hyper-threaded packages (software sees 16)
• 3.1 billion transistors
• moves from VLIW to a more conventional (RISC) pipeline.
  • www.realworldtech.com/poulson/
  • www.realworldtech.com/?s=poulson
  • http://search.theregister.co.uk/?q=poulson
• Even though they began work on migrating/qualifying OpenVMS on Poulson, HP announced they will not complete the work (thus leaving OpenVMS with no future)
• On 2014.07.31 HP announced they have licensed OpenVMS source code to a new company named VMS Software Inc (VSI) who intend to:
  • complete OpenVMS qualifications on Poulson
  • port/qualify OpenVMS to 8-core Kittson when that chip is released by Intel in 2017
  • port/qualify OpenVMS to x86-64

Intel releases Kittson (2017)

Intel's Itanium to live on as HPE commits to new servers with the chip

• http://www.pcworld.com/article/3031703/hardware/intels-itanium-to-live-an-as-hpe-commits-to-new-servers-with-the-chip.html
• http://www.computerworld.com/article/3098270/data-center/hpes-itanium-server-refresh-should-come-in-mid-2017.html
• http://ark.intel.com/products/family/451/Intel-Itanium-Processor (specs)
• https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/05/23/last-itanium-long-last/ (specs)

Intel will EOL Itanium in 2021

• www.anandtech.com
• www.theregister.co.uk
• www.extremetech.com

Recommended OpenVMS Books

Writing VAX/VMS Applications Using Pascal

• Published 1991 by Digital Press
• Author: Theo De Klerk
• this rare gem contains some of the best descriptions and examples of OpenVMS system calls from a high level language
• I've found it relatively easy to translate these examples to other languages like HP-BASIC and HP-C
• This out-of-print book is still available from www.bookfinder.com
• highly recommended for programmers

Writing Real Programs in DCL, Second Edition

• Published 1998-1999 by Digital Press
• Authors: Steve Hoffman and Paul Anagnostopoulos
• Caveat: Just as it is nearly impossible to acquire a copy of the Apple II Red Book (1978) by Steve Wozniak, you will not find available copies of Writing Real Programs in DCL unless you are willing to fork over $150^.00 to $500^.00 to the used book market. I personally do not own a copy but have been able to read it online at work since my employer has a paid up subscription to www.books24x7.com (just search the titles for "DCL")

DEC Is Dead, Long Live DEC: The Lasting Legacy of Digital Equipment Corporation (2003, 2004) by Edgar H. Schein

Digital Equipment Corporation achieved sales of over $14 billion, reached the Fortune 50, and was second only to IBM as a computer manufacturer. Though responsible for the invention of speech recognition, the minicomputer, and local area networking, DEC ultimately failed as a business and was sold to Compaq Corporation in 1998. [HP bought, er, merged with, Compaq in 2002]. This fascinating modern Greek tragedy by Ed Schein, a high-level consultant to DEC for 40 years, shows how DEC's unique corporate culture contributed both to its early successes and later to an organizational rigidity that caused its ultimate downfall.

• introduction
  1. Purpose and Overview
  2. Three Developmental Streams: A Model for Deciphering the Lessons of the DEC Story
• part one: The Creation of a Culture of Innovation: The Technology, Organization, and Culture Streams are One and the Same
  3. Ken Olsen, the Scientist-Engineer
  4. Ken Olsen, the Leader and Manager
  5. Ken Olsen, the Salesman-Marketer
  6. DEC's Cultural Paradigm
  7. DEC's "Other" Legacy: The Development of Leaders (by Tracy C. Gibbons)
  8. DEC's Impact on the Evolution of Organization Development
• part two: The Streams Diverge, Causing an Organizational Midlife Crisis
  9. The Impact of Changing Technology (by Paul Kampas)
  10. The Impact of Success, Growth, and Age
  11. Learning Efforts Reveal Cultural Strengths and Rigidities
  12. The Turbulent 1980s: Peaking but Weakening
      • DEC Launches Three PCs
      • Gordon Bell's Departure and its Consequences
      • Turmoil in the Engineering Organization: Competition with IBM, and PRISM, Aquarius, and Alpha [and MIPS]
  13. The Beginning of the End: Ken Olsen's Final Efforts to Save DEC
• part three: Lessons and Legacies
  14. Obvious Lessons and Subtle Lessons
  15. The Lasting Legacy of Digital Equipment Corporation
• Appendixes
  1. DEC's Technical Legacy
  2. DEC's Manufacturing: Contributions Made and Lessons Learned (by Michael Sonduck)
  3. DEC, the First Knowledge Organization (a 1991 Memo by Debra Rogers Amidon)
  4. Digital: The Strategic Failure (by Peter DeLisi)
  5. What Happened? A Postscript (by Gordon Bell) <<< This is a 'must read'

OpenVMS System Management Guide (second edition)

• Published December-2003 by Digital Press/HP
• Authors: Lawrence Baldwin, Steve Hoffman, David Miller
• 656 pages
• Available from various sellers including Amazon
• conversational boot, common system disk, retransmit limit, login command procedures, bootable environment, device control libraries, autostart queues, system dump file, system login procedures, standalone backup, system startup procedures, datalink address, default version limit, default boot device, installing freeware, restart control, product authorization key, user login procedure, node eqs, default login directory, cumulative incremental backup, system logical names, manual boot, full image backup, volume shadowing
• Additional References, Disabled Stopped, Digital Press, System Manager's Manual, Bus Model Name Nickname, Management Station, Oracle-Rdb, Digital Equipment Corporation, Ethernet Basics, Identifying Resource Dependencies, Monitoring Application Performance, Qualifier Keyword Meaning, Controlling the Queue Manager, Managing Accounts, Monitoring Hardware Errors, Page Read, Reducing Login Time, Security-Related Login Parameters, Sue Rosselet, System Dump-File Considerations, System Memory Resources, System-Startup Sequence, Using File Expiration Dates, Cluster Configurations, Configuring Default Boot Control Flags

 Rdb: A Comprehensive Guide - Third Edition

• Published 1999 by Digital Press (Butterworth-Heinemann)
• Authors: Lilian Hobbs, Ian Smith, Ken England
• a must-have book for anyone using or supporting Oracle-Rdb
• this edition is very SQL oriented (probably a good thing) but...
  contains very little information about RDO (which is only bad if you need to maintain some very old Rdb applications still using RDO). Earlier editions may differ from this statement.

 TP Software Development for OpenVMS

• Published 1994 by CBM Books (101 Witmer Road, Horsham, PA. 19044)
• Author: John M. Willis
• this rare gem covers "transaction processing" on OpenVMS. Topics include: ACMS (Application Control Management System), CDD/Repository, DECforms, SQL, Rdb. High level program examples are in COBOL.
• highly recommended for business applications developers and "Oracle-Rdb" programmers

OpenVMS Community

Professional Associations

• Digital Equipment Corporation User's Society
  • North America
    • www.decus.org
    • www.connect-community.org
    • decus.ca (DECUS Canada)
    • DECUSLIBrary.COMpendium http://decuslib.com

Encompass LISTSERV

OpenVMS News Group Info

Note: newsgroups are accessed with a news reader on port 119. Alternatively you may use a browser like so:
https://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.vms

OpenVMS Freeware, Shareware, and Generally Cool Info

Freeware from the good folks at VSI (VMS Software Inc)

• https://vmssoftware.com/products/list/ - VSI provided
• https://vmssoftware.com/community/freeware/ - third party

Freeware

• https://theberrymans.com/
• http://decuslib.com/freeware/
• http://antinode.info/dec/index.html
• http://www.process.com/psc/resources/openvms-resource-center/ - includes a cool search tool
• http://antinode.info/dec/index.html
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnv/files/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/vms-ports/
• ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/openvms/ - lots of old stuff including freeware libraries 4 through 8

Other

• After Compaq took over DEC, they moved all OpenVMS Documents (remember the orange/gray wall-of-binders?) onto a single CD-ROM which could be used on Windows. Since then, HP has added so much more information that one CD-ROM is now three. Click web-docs if you don't have your own resources
• DEC94MDS archived technical manuals
  • http://decdoc.itsx.net/dec94mds/ DEC document list
• eight-cubed.com - Programming Examples very high quality "C" demos for OpenVMS
• Articles by Roland Hughes
  • https://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/stdoptional/
  • https://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/smart-pointers/
• www.potsoft.com (Phil Ottewell) which includes:
  • "Intro to C" (C programming from a VMS perspective)
    alternate source: https://web.archive.org/web/20131206110138/http://pottsoft.com/c_course/course.html (via the WayBack Machine)
  • C++ STL Tutorial alternate source: https://web.archive.org/web/20131206104013/http://pottsoft.com/stl/stl.htmlx (via the WayBack Machine)
• www.hoffmanlabs.org by Stephen Hoffman
• Macro Programming by Hunter Goatley
  • https://hunter.goatley.com/macro-made-easy/
• Arne Vajhoj
  • https://www.vajhoej.dk/arne/articles/vmsdbx.html
• Ghostscript for OpenVMS by Mark Berryman (can be used to generate PDFs)
  • http://decuslib.com/decus/pcsi_kits/ghostscript-v0854/
  • https://theberrymans.com/php_kits/ (also, PHP, MariaDB, etc)
• www.process.com (TCPware, MultiNet, etc.)
• PARSEC (the company, not the measurement of stellar distance)
  • www.parsec.com/os/openvms/
  • www.parsec.com/os/openvms/undocumented.php Undocumented  VMS features and DCL commands
• DEC Rainbow 100
• VAXarchive.org and mirror
  • PDP-11 Archive and links
• pdp-11.trailing-edge.com PDP-11 archives
• PDP FAQ
• metalab.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/ freeware archives includes: RT-11, RSX-11, RSTS/E, etc.
• www.vt100.net - VT Terminal Programming + User Guides
• http://www.jcameron.com/vms/tuning.htm

Miscellaneous OpenVMS Links

• www.openvms.org
• www.saiga.com produces many cool (but not for free) OpenVMS utilities including HITMAN and FERRET

My Links

• Visit my OpenVMS demo page (everything is free of charge)
• My "VAX to Alpha" porting diary
• My "Alpha to Itanium" porting diary
• OpenVMS vs. UNIX - antagonists or sisters? (UNIX is older)
• Windows-NT is VMS re-implemented the truth is out there!
• Recommend Good Books (DEC - VAX - Windows-NT)
• Click RISCy C/C++ Code to read a DECUS article discussing problems that might arise when writing C and C++ programs for RISC architectures
• Technological Change (in my life)