INFO-VAX Sat, 01 Mar 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 122 Contents: Re: 6-core CPU on the horizon Re: 6-core CPU on the horizon Re: Leap Year Re: Leap Year RE: Long term archiving of VMS stuff Re: Microsoft pro says OpenVMS best OS ever invented! Re: Swapping new disks into a shadow set Re: Swapping new disks into a shadow set Re: Swapping new disks into a shadow set Re: Wide drives on VAXstation 4000-60 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 04:48:33 -0800 (PST) From: Neil Rieck Subject: Re: 6-core CPU on the horizon Message-ID: On Feb 29, 1:33 pm, JF Mezei wrote: > Neil Rieck wrote: > > My point exactly. When OpenVMS stops laying (large enough) golden eggs > > for HP, they will sell it off to a smaller company rather than put the > > source code into the public domain which would allow an Open Source > > community to keep it alive and current. > > Here is how I see it happening: > > HP progressively reduces development of VMS with more and more emphasis > put on supporting new IA64 hardware. > > Eventually HP announces end of development for VMS, like it did for MPE. > > Patches would be issued if new IA64 is still produced from that point > onwards. > > HP will continue to sell support for VAX VMS, Alpha VMS and those few > IA64 VMS sites. This is raw profit for them. Remember that there is a > credible commitment to continue to rpovide support for 5 years after the > announcement of end of development of VMS. HP isn't about to let > someone else have those raw profits of support contracts. > > Only after that period, if the support contracts are not worth > continuing, would HP consider telling its remaining customers to seek > some alternate support provider (Such as Bruden). And it is not clear > that Bruden would be given sources to VMS. > > Remember that at the time HP will push its remaining customers over to > Bruden or some other place like Mentec, HP will have made damned sure > that VMS is not ressucitable (can't be brought back to life) and that it > will never come back to compete against HP. At that point, no outfit > would be willing to undertake to restart development on VMS. > Most people in this group possess a passion for technology similar to technology company founders like Ken Olsen, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Mike Lazaridis, Thomas Watson, Henry Ford, etc. Most people running companies today, including HP, do not have a passion for technology and are more interested in quarterly balance sheets and executive bonuses. So looking at the "VMS Problem" from an executive point of view you've only got two options: 1) ride it into the dirt collecting as much money from it while you do so. 2) At some point deciding it has value making it worthwhile to sell to another company. Hell, you might be able to get a bonus by placing the sale on the company's balance sheet for the year. (BTW, we've all been around long enough to see large companies unable to make a decent ROI on a product while a smaller company can do so with ease) So it seems to me that a smaller company (Bruden?) could pull this off then decide to port it to other platforms like x86-64. And to your point about the 5-year commitment to customers, they could still do this by spinning off OpenVMS and then claiming that they and Bruden are partnering on this. Neil Rieck Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 05:14:10 -0800 (PST) From: Neil Rieck Subject: Re: 6-core CPU on the horizon Message-ID: <20782a16-65dd-4c09-bfad-855cde66ecdf@s37g2000prg.googlegroups.com> On Mar 1, 7:48 am, Neil Rieck wrote: > On Feb 29, 1:33 pm, JF Mezei wrote: > [...snip...] I forgot to add one interesting observation: IBM Canada offers OpenVMS system support (hardware as well as OS) in Canada which means that IBM probably offers this service world wide. (I know several of the IBM "VMS specialists" and know that they sometimes lurk here but never post) Now I don't think IBM would get involved with buying, and then developing, OpenVMS. However, IBM is one of the biggest single contributors to Linux so they must see some value in this kind of thinking. Just food for thought. Neil Rieck Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 06:10:12 -0800 (PST) From: AEF Subject: Re: Leap Year Message-ID: <0323ea87-9d10-4329-8842-2e4e46bee271@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com> On Feb 29, 6:15 pm, AEF wrote: > On Feb 29, 5:57 pm, Hein RMS van den Heuvel > > wrote: > > On Feb 29, 4:05 pm, Jim wrote: > > [...] > [...] > > OTOH, since the day of week goes through a 400 year cycle, using a > range like 2000 through 2399 is all you really need to do (and this > gives you the correct long-term distribution), which reduces the > likelihood of encountering large-year bugs. Well, for those who are curious, here are the long-term averages: $ @LEAP 2000 2399 Sunday: 13 (1340 %%) Monday: 15 (1546 %%) Tuesday: 13 (1340 %%) Wednesday: 15 (1546 %%) Thursday: 13 (1340 %%) Friday: 14 (1443 %%) Saturday: 14 (1443 %%) $ Since the days of the week repeat every 400 years, these are the long- term averages. Note that you can choose ANY 400 year interval and you will get the same results. Notice also that Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday have equal probabilities for being leap day. And the remaining four break down into pairs of equal probability. AEF [...] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 06:14:45 -0800 (PST) From: AEF Subject: Re: Leap Year Message-ID: On Feb 29, 10:49 am, Hein RMS van den Heuvel wrote: > On Feb 28, 6:18 am, "The Mip" wrote: > [...] > 3) $ if ('p1'/4)*4 .ne. 'p1' .or. - ('p1'/100)*100 .eq.'p.... > > Yuck, hardcoded leapyear logic. Too easy to get wrong. F$CVTIME() has had at least one bug for large years. Division is more reliable (except, perhaps, on Intel chips!) See my other post on this for details. > Here is an DCL aided leap-year test: > > IF F$CVTIME("1-MAR-''year' -1-",,"DAY") ... ! Leap year? > > Remember Odd is True! 28 is not. > [...] Better: $ IF F$CVTIME("1-MAR-''year' -1-00",,"DAY") ! Leap year? Also better: $ IF F$CVTIME("1-MAR-''year' -1-00:00",,"DAY") ! Leap year? Why? They're more readable. It's easier to interpret quickly what it is. But being a perl fan, you obviously have little interest in readability! ;-) [...] AEF ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 17:42:10 +0000 From: "Main, Kerry" Subject: RE: Long term archiving of VMS stuff Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Arne Vajh=F8j [mailto:arne@vajhoej.dk] > Sent: February 28, 2008 7:12 PM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: Long term archiving of VMS stuff > > VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > > In article <47c622af$0$90264$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>, =3D?ISO-8859- > 1?Q?Arne_Vajh=3DF8j?=3D writes: > >> VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > >>> In article , Rich Alderson > writes: > >>>> JF Mezei writes: > >>>> > >>>> .... > >>>>> Since BACKUP save sets are essentially proprietary to VMS, one > can't > >>>>> move those savesets to a platform that will outlive VMS and > expect to > >>>>> ever be able to unpack those savesets in the future. > >>>> .... > >>>>> Any recommendation on which of those I should use, and whether > there > >>>>> might be other formats I could choose ? > >>>> Let me second the recommendation of SimH virtual disk and virtual > tape images. > >>>> If need be, package a copy of the SimH souces with them. > >>>> > >>>> Use a ZIP or StuffIt! program to compress them for space savings, > if you like. > >>>> NB: StuffIt! provides tar, zip, and other archive formats as well > as its own > >>>> proprietary ones. > >>> ...and 20 years from now do you believe that there will still be a > Weendoze > >>> box that will run this? > >> Neither tar or zip is windows specific. > > > > No, but 'tar'ring or 'zip'ping a SimH setup which will run on > Weendoze > > would imply some Weendoze specificity. > > Ah - it was the simh part. I belive simh runs on other OS's as well. > > >> (but MS would need to make a real big fuckup to ensure there will be > no > >> Windows systems around in 20 years) > > > > Like VISTA? > > Vista is only selling 10 million copies per months, which is below > expectations. > > But a company does not go down by *only* selling 10 million licenses > per months. > > Arne Don't believe the rhetoric. A company selling that many copies per month also does not decide to slash the cost of the product world wide in order to stimulate demand. (beware wrap) - February 28, 2008. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/Microsoft-Slashes-Some-Windows-Vista-Price= s/ " While the bad news around Windows Vista continues for Microsoft, the good news for U.S. PC users who want the operating system is that the price of several retail versions and upgrades has been cut by as much as 20 percent.= " According to various reports, most of the new copies per month are new PC's where the buyer either does not have a choice or does not know better. (see earlier discussion about gamers buying new PC's, but then putting XP on them after they are purchased. Regards Kerry Main Senior Consultant HP Services Canada Voice: 613-254-8911 Fax: 613-591-4477 kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom (remove the DOT's and AT) OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 05:59:59 -0800 (PST) From: AEF Subject: Re: Microsoft pro says OpenVMS best OS ever invented! Message-ID: On Feb 29, 1:37 pm, JF Mezei wrote: > ultra...@gmail.com wrote: > > On Feb 21, 7:38 pm, ultra...@gmail.com wrote: > >>http://visualstudiomagazine.com/columns/article.aspx?editorialsid=2469 > > > this thread needs to stay at the top of this group for a long time ... > > Yep, that is to be VMS' epitaph. It *WAS* better than Windows. > > I guess articles that talk about VMS in the past are perhaps better than > no articles at all. But right now, the industry talks of VMS like they > talk of Multics. Uh, not quite. Remember the disaster video? Remember when VMS was on the HP home page? Remember the Mark Hurd video with him speaking very highly of VMS? I believe there were at least two very favorable write- ups in the Computer World or something similar not too long ago. Yes there are problems. No, it's not all negative. AEF AEF ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:21:46 GMT From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan-Erik_S=F6derholm?= Subject: Re: Swapping new disks into a shadow set Message-ID: <_6ayj.4295$R_4.3127@newsb.telia.net> AEF wrote: > On Feb 29, 5:46 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" > wrote: >> tadamsmar wrote: >>> I will be replacing the 2 physical disk drives in a shadow set >>> shortly. >>> The easiest way I can think of is to: >>> 1. Dismount dka100: >>> 2. Power down >>> 3. Swap out dka100: >>> 4. Reboot on dka0: >>> 5. Merge the shadow set >>> 6. Dismount dka0: >>> 7. Power down >>> 8. Swap out dka0: >>> 9. Reboot on dka100: >>> 10. Merge the shadow set >>> Is there a better way? >> I think you could skip the power downs and reboots! In my experience, >> RZ series disks are "hot swapable". > > Not on my Storage Works shelves/pedestals/towers or whatever the hell > they're called. (Just what *are* they called?) I tried that on a test > system and got several disk and SCSI bus errors. I've never done it > again since. You need shelves/pedestals/towers/whatever that support > hot swaps. > > AEF I've done that several times on BS350/356 shelfs. You usualy get a "mount verification" and probably log a few SCSI errors, but I've never seen anything that the system didn't recover from without problem. If it was *my* system, I'd probably just make a dism/swap/remount on each disk (letting a full shadow copy finish between the two swaps, of course). Jan-Erik. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 06:01:32 -0800 (PST) From: AEF Subject: Re: Swapping new disks into a shadow set Message-ID: <6132e4ac-95fb-4ddb-9db5-19a27cef64a8@p73g2000hsd.googlegroups.com> On Feb 29, 10:08 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" wrote: > AEF wrote: > > On Feb 29, 5:46 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" > > wrote: > > >>tadamsmar wrote: > > >>>I will be replacing the 2 physical disk drives in a shadow set > >>>shortly. > > >>>The easiest way I can think of is to: > > >>>1. Dismount dka100: > >>>2. Power down > >>>3. Swap out dka100: > >>>4. Reboot on dka0: > >>>5. Merge the shadow set > >>>6. Dismount dka0: > >>>7. Power down > >>>8. Swap out dka0: > >>>9. Reboot on dka100: > >>>10. Merge the shadow set > > >>>Is there a better way? > > >>I think you could skip the power downs and reboots! In my experience, > >>RZ series disks are "hot swapable". > > > Not on my Storage Works shelves/pedestals/towers or whatever the hell > > they're called. (Just what *are* they called?) I tried that on a test > > system and got several disk and SCSI bus errors. I've never done it > > again since. You need shelves/pedestals/towers/whatever that support > > hot swaps. > > > AEF > > The HSZxx and HSJxx controllers supported hot swaps. The HSZ40 had a > button that you pushed in order to "quiesce the bus", after pushing that > button and waiting a short period, you got a visual indicator that it > was safe, for the next 30 seconds, to remove and, optionally, swap a > disk. I don't recall what you did on the HSJs or the HSZ50s. > > In a former life I was the junior man in the systems group and had the > privilege of hiking over to the data center and doing these hot swaps. OK, so then it had nothing to do with the fact that they were RZ disks. I have plenty of RZ disks. They're only hot swappale in my equipment if you don't mind the hardware errors that are produced. AEF ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 06:04:15 -0800 (PST) From: AEF Subject: Re: Swapping new disks into a shadow set Message-ID: On Mar 1, 5:21 am, Jan-Erik S=F6derholm wrote: > AEF wrote: > > On Feb 29, 5:46 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" > > wrote: > >> tadamsmar wrote: > >>> I will be replacing the 2 physical disk drives in a shadow set > >>> shortly. > >>> The easiest way I can think of is to: > >>> 1. Dismount dka100: > >>> 2. Power down > >>> 3. Swap out dka100: > >>> 4. Reboot on dka0: > >>> 5. Merge the shadow set > >>> 6. Dismount dka0: > >>> 7. Power down > >>> 8. Swap out dka0: > >>> 9. Reboot on dka100: > >>> 10. Merge the shadow set > >>> Is there a better way? > >> I think you could skip the power downs and reboots! In my experience, > >> RZ series disks are "hot swapable". > > > Not on my Storage Works shelves/pedestals/towers or whatever the hell > > they're called. (Just what *are* they called?) I tried that on a test > > system and got several disk and SCSI bus errors. I've never done it > > again since. You need shelves/pedestals/towers/whatever that support > > hot swaps. > > > AEF > > I've done that several times on BS350/356 shelfs. You usualy > get a "mount verification" and probably log a few SCSI errors, > but I've never seen anything that the system didn't recover > from without problem. Well, I'd certainly not hot swap even then unless there were some pressing need. I'm not terribly fond of Mount Verifications. I once had trouble with a system occasionally and spontaneously having its system disk go into Mount Verification mode. Response was rather poor! AEF > > If it was *my* system, I'd probably just make a dism/swap/remount > on each disk (letting a full shadow copy finish between the two > swaps, of course). > > Jan-Erik. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2008 09:20:24 -0500 From: "Stanley F. Quayle" Subject: Re: Wide drives on VAXstation 4000-60 Message-ID: <47C91FD8.2679.1948192D@infovax.stanq.com> On 29 Feb 2008 at 0:23, Chris Scheers wrote: > I have a need to set up a VAX test environment with 4GB drives. > [...] [hardware pain omitted] > Can anyone provide a suggestion on how to get this to work? Is there > some switch setting I am missing? You could "switch" to an emulation solution and ditch all the hardware... #include --Stan Quayle Quayle Consulting Inc. ---------- Stanley F. Quayle, P.E. N8SQ Toll free: 1-888-I-LUV-VAX 8572 North Spring Ct., Pickerington, OH 43147 USA stan-at-stanq-dot-com http://www.stanq.com/charon-vax.html "OpenVMS, when downtime is not an option" ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.122 ************************