VMS architects

From: Huw Davies <H.Davies_at_latrobe.edu.au>
Date: Wed Mar 17 04:09:33 1999

At 19:17 16/03/99 -0500, Allison J Parent wrote:

>Never said he wan't there... His pride and joy was RSX-11, which was the
>foundation for the VMS filesystem. Wats forgotten is the VMS was originally
>loaded with 16bit code mostly for the utilities but some in the core. this
>was part of the roll out as the VAX-11/780 could execute PDP-11 code
>directly.

I remember the "good old days" when most of what we ran on our 11/780 was
-11 code. Time dims the memory, but I seem to recall that the only non -11
thing we ran was FORTRAN. Most other things such as DTR-11, backup and so
on we used -11 documentation to find out how it was put together. In fact,
looking at the book shelves here at home I spy a DTR-11 manual!

>The blue ribbon committe was comprized of chief and principle engineers
>and while they spec'ed the whole project and planned a great deal they
>didn't "write all the code".

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that. Just looking at the small amount of VMS
source code that I've studied closely shows the hands of about 10 different
programmers. People should try to read the source code for the VMS
scheduler and also the fancy code used to turn Virtual Memory on (this
isn't trivial...)

>It was a far larger organization that did
>that. Same was true for hardware. By the early '80s the design of the
>VAX and VMS was reduced to a DEC STD... n All vaxen were based off that
>as was VMS.

Indeed, one of the best things about VAX/VMS was the close ties between the
hardware design and the software, although with hindsight, some of the
instructions were a waste of time, the INDEX instruction immediately comes
to mind....

 Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies_at_latrobe.edu.au
 Information Technology Services | Phone: +61 3 9479 1550 Fax: +61 3 9479
1999
 La Trobe University | "If God had wanted soccer played in the
 Melbourne Australia 3083 | air, the sky would be painted green"
Received on Wed Mar 17 1999 - 04:09:33 GMT

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