Jon says normal commercial prices so too expensive for most Dave On Fri, 13 Mar 2020, 7:46 am Ray Jewhurst, <raywjewhurst at gmail.com> wrote:

Probably ?if you have to ask you can?t afford it? territory ? From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of Paul Koning Sent: 12 March 2020 18:58 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] long term paks Can anyone translate "normal commercial prices" into numbers? paul On Mar 12, 2020, at 2:51 PM, Dave Wade <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com <mailto:dave.g4ugm at gmail.com> > wrote: Jon says normal commercial prices so too expensive for most Dave On Fri, 13 Mar 2020, 7:46 am Ray Jewhurst, <raywjewhurst at gmail.com <mailto:raywjewhurst at gmail.com> > wrote: I haven't received an email from them yet but I wonder if the offer will time sensitive or if we wait until December 31st 2021 when the final free hobbyist licenses expire. Ray On Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 2:41 PM Bill Cunningham <bill.cu at suddenlink.net <mailto:bill.cu at suddenlink.net> > wrote: I just received an email from the HPE program. I guess they are going to have long term PAKs they are selling to hobbyists. So I guess I am out. There is someone named Jon you can get these from. I believe Jon Feldman. Bill

I'm suspect? "normal commercial prices" == "bring your wallet" Go see what prices are for SAS to see what I mean. On 3/12/20 2:58 PM, Paul Koning wrote:

I?m still having difficulty in envisaging a situation where VSI (and Stromasys and other commercial purveyors of VAX and Alpha emulators) can actually generate any new business even if/when VSI produce a port of VMS to x86/64. Are VSI going to bother doing JIT, or even one-time translation of VAX and Alpha images to x86/64. I got the impression that VAX to Alpha image translation wasn?t that great for anything particularly sophisticated. VAX and Alpha legacy software and its maintenance are probably as locked into now obsolete layered products as they are the hardware (real/emulated). New potential customers buying x86/64 hardware or cloud capacity are going to take a look at Windows and Linux, having already discounted the several orders of magnitude higher costs of VMS if the somewhat opaque VSI marketing rituals haven?t already put them off. I know what Windows Server 2019 will cost me, up front or hosted, on a range of platforms or providers within about 15 minutes of looking. I haven?t the faintest idea with VMS ? neither HPE nor VSI will tell me until I jump through hoops and then it?ll be after ?72 hours? of evasion and horse-trading. No thanks. Keith From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of David Moylan Sent: 13 March 2020 11:32 To: hecnet at update.uu.se Subject: Re: [HECnet] long term paks Hobbyist users who wish to use their VAXen beyond December 2021 will need to obtain ?alternative? licensing. Cheers, Wiz!! Sent from my iPhone On 13 Mar 2020, at 7:47 am, Thomas DeBellis <tommytimesharing at gmail.com<mailto:tommytimesharing at gmail.com>> wrote: ? I'm suspect? "normal commercial prices" == "bring your wallet" Go see what prices are for SAS to see what I mean. On 3/12/20 2:58 PM, Paul Koning wrote: Can anyone translate "normal commercial prices" into numbers? paul On Mar 12, 2020, at 2:51 PM, Dave Wade <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com<mailto:dave.g4ugm at gmail.com>> wrote: Jon says normal commercial prices so too expensive for most Dave On Fri, 13 Mar 2020, 7:46 am Ray Jewhurst, <raywjewhurst at gmail.com<mailto:raywjewhurst at gmail.com>> wrote: I haven't received an email? from them yet but I wonder if the offer will time sensitive or if we wait until December 31st 2021 when the final free hobbyist licenses expire. Ray? On Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 2:41 PM Bill Cunningham <bill.cu at suddenlink.net<mailto:bill.cu at suddenlink.net>> wrote: I just received an email from the HPE program. I guess they are going to have long term PAKs they are selling to hobbyists. So I guess I am out. There is someone named Jon you can get these from. I believe Jon Feldman. Bill

I should add, however, that even IBM has come to understand the value of having people understanding and adoring their operating systems and maximizing the knowledgeable user base.? Otherwise, finding people to do maintenance can be problematic (== $$$) or impossible. My understanding is that while you can't get the most current version of the various 390 based OS's, you can get older ones for free for hobbyist usage.? OK... In other words, buzz is a good thing.? Perhaps we can hope that VSI will figure that out.

I don't know if that's the whole story; it's not just that monster OS/360.? I believe also DOS/360, DOS/VS, MVS, VM/370, and TSS/370; I don't know about TPF.? MTS would be cool (but it isn't IBM). I believe the z versions of the above have to be licensed, even for Hercules.? There was some class action about allowing this, but I don't know how it all turned out.? That's surprising given the Amdahl decisions. Yes, I have a very large dent in my skull from a lawyer in our company about copyrights.? This was even for firmware that would never see the light of day. A number of sources for Tops-20 assemble the copyright right into the executable in low memory so that if you try to type it out, you first get the text (followed by gibberish).? Use of GLXLIB will force this.? I'm not sure if it is in Galaxy or the EXEC, but one of my favorite comments of the aforementioned code is, "Somebody could steal Tops-20!!"

Hello! You are indeed correct there Thomas, The entire collection of operating systems for the S/360 in the form of what OS/360 contains are freely available, because IBM never bothered to assert their interests, they in fact allowed one of the authors to "own it", he then turned around and made it freely available to the entire Hercules community. The same is true for all of those except for TPF, even the first versions IBM wrote about the same time as VM/370 Release 6 sadly is copyrighted. Release 6 never was by the way, and so a goodly amount is available to us. It's the cost included items that are not there. As for what's happening with regards to VMS and its relations, I do not know. Here's something that I can relate to, I ran an AT&T PC6300, and shortly after they made the mistake of buying NCR, I needed to track down some spares and also a memory expansion board, the responding individual did not want to believe I was asking about a PC not one of the cash registers...... I eventually resolved my problems. I still miss that machine and its relations. However..... Let's continue the discussion. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 4:52 PM Thomas DeBellis <tommytimesharing at gmail.com> wrote:

Is there a TCPNJE stack for it? I ask because in the last few weeks I have connected a bunch of my HECnet nodes also to HNET the global mainframe network using JNET and FUNET/NJE as well as a SDL Hyperion VM/SP with TCP/NJE mods ... IBM stuff is refreshingly challenging to one?s way of thinking :)

On 15 Mar 2020, at 1:03 am, Supratim Sanyal <supratim at riseup.net> wrote: I haven?t touched any IBM stuff at all but I?ve seen reference to HNET in moshix?s videos. I might check this out at some stage. Do you have any pointers to any HNET information pages? Cheers, Wiz!!

I love the *concept* of VMS being ported to Intel. As a hobbyist it?s very exciting. If VSI has a suitable hobbyist program for this, I?d take it all for a spin. But I?m concerned about the business viability of all of this. Nobody would consider VMS as a new platform for a new deploy. This is obviously targeted for legacy, on-prem, historical applications that can?t be retooled otherwise. I get the whole ?a new hardware platform extends the life of my application? thing, but I wonder how much of this workload really still exists ? or that should continue to exist in its current shape or form. The largest example of VMS production usage that I know about is Ticketmaster. They still have VMS machines running on simh today, however they were forced to migrate large portions of their stack across to more modern infrastructure (think Kubernetes, Tectonic, CoreOS, Docker, AWS) in order to keep their business moving and evolving. Even for a client such as this, I doubt they would move any remaining legacy VMS machine away from the current platform across to Intel native. All technology has a use by date at which time it?s only of interest to enthusiasts, hobbyists, collectors and the like. Just because you can keep it working isn?t always an excuse to keep it alive. We constantly see new technology evolving which offers newer and more modern solutions to legacy issues. There is also the associated training and devops cost for anyone new who works on a legacy platform. You should avoid this at all costs when there are more people available who can work on modern infrastructure. I?m dealing with this at the moment with one of my clients who uses a PICK based accounting/invoicing system. They are down to one consultant who can work on this platform. Nobody wants to know about it. The company needs to move away from this platform, but doesn?t want to spend any money. They will eventually be forced to do this ? and it?s going to happen at an inconvenient time when something major breaks. I love all technology, and I?ll continue playing with VMS and other deprecated home computing platforms such as the TRS-80. I grew up with this stuff, so there is an internal (hobbyist) desire to keep using them, but I?d never consider them options for any new business related applications. Cheers, Wiz!! From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Thomas DeBellis Sent: Saturday, 14 March 2020 7:08 AM To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] long term paks I think part of this is valid. However... The VAX to Alpha emulation was an ongoing effort and I recall that what was published about it was quite interesting (I think this was mid-1990's). Recall that the Alpha was the fastest chip in the world at the time; 300 Mhz. Nearly incomprehensible... That was plenty of speed to get your VAX code working. With gigahertz speeds, it seems to me that not only would emulation of Alpha be usable, but that emulation of Alpha emulating VAX would be usable. The value-add of x86_64 VMS is that you can keep running VAX software; the sources might not exist. You may have invested many, many man-years in development and this is a cheaper alternative to porting. That is certainly the case in many instances on z/OS. It is not about the cheaper hardware. Microsoft has a different sales model that is largely consumer driven; if you don't respond quickly then people go elsewhere. For commercial systems, hoops are de rigueur. Believe me, you just don't walk in and pick up an IBM mainframe (or you didn't anyway). In some ways, VSI, Stomasys and the others are acting in a perfectly ordinary manner (that we as hobbyists do not appreciate). ________________________________ On 3/13/20 3:49 PM, Keith Halewood wrote: I?m still having difficulty in envisaging a situation where VSI (and Stromasys and other commercial purveyors of VAX and Alpha emulators) can actually generate any new business even if/when VSI produce a port of VMS to x86/64. Are VSI going to bother doing JIT, or even one-time translation of VAX and Alpha images to x86/64. I got the impression that VAX to Alpha image translation wasn?t that great for anything particularly sophisticated. VAX and Alpha legacy software and its maintenance are probably as locked into now obsolete layered products as they are the hardware (real/emulated). New potential customers buying x86/64 hardware or cloud capacity are going to take a look at Windows and Linux, having already discounted the several orders of magnitude higher costs of VMS if the somewhat opaque VSI marketing rituals haven?t already put them off. I know what Windows Server 2019 will cost me, up front or hosted, on a range of platforms or providers within about 15 minutes of looking. I haven?t the faintest idea with VMS ? neither HPE nor VSI will tell me until I jump through hoops and then it?ll be after ?72 hours? of evasion and horse-trading. No thanks. Keith From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of David Moylan Sent: 13 March 2020 11:32 To: hecnet at update.uu.se Subject: Re: [HECnet] long term paks From what I have heard, it?s full commercial rate with no discounts. Think $20K plus per instance licensed. Hobbyist users who wish to use their VAXen beyond December 2021 will need to obtain ?alternative? licensing. Cheers, Wiz!! Sent from my iPhone On 13 Mar 2020, at 7:47 am, Thomas DeBellis <tommytimesharing at gmail.com> wrote: ? I'm suspect? "normal commercial prices" == "bring your wallet" Go see what prices are for SAS to see what I mean. On 3/12/20 2:58 PM, Paul Koning wrote: Can anyone translate "normal commercial prices" into numbers? paul On Mar 12, 2020, at 2:51 PM, Dave Wade <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com> wrote: Jon says normal commercial prices so too expensive for most Dave On Fri, 13 Mar 2020, 7:46 am Ray Jewhurst, <raywjewhurst at gmail.com> wrote: I haven't received an email? from them yet but I wonder if the offer will time sensitive or if we wait until December 31st 2021 when the final free hobbyist licenses expire. Ray? On Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 2:41 PM Bill Cunningham <bill.cu at suddenlink.net> wrote: I just received an email from the HPE program. I guess they are going to have long term PAKs they are selling to hobbyists. So I guess I am out. There is someone named Jon you can get these from. I believe Jon Feldman. Bill

Not as soon as you might think. They are still made. And they can be made at home, with practice. Transistors are harder, and with VLSI you're dependent on the manufacturers to keep manufacturing. I remember some years ago a company that specialized in making and selling obsolete germanium transistors. paul

Hello! According a to a quote, reliable source,. unquote, tunnel diodes are also being made in the same fashion. And Paul those might be made for the same reason that a company in MA makes ICs that are older then their sales force, as replacement parts. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 10:26 PM Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:

If you go to the license renewal page, they will issue you with the license expiring 31st December 2021 today. I would personally recommend that you go and get the licenses right away and not leave it until license renewal time. You will receive exactly the same file. I don?t know exactly when the HP Hobbyist Lab will cease their operations. Cheers, Wiz!! Sent from my iPhone