https://raymii.org/s/tags/vax.xml RSS feed for tag vax on Raymii.org https://raymii.org/s/blog/After_47_years_OpenVMS_gets_a_package_manager_VSP.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/After_47_years_OpenVMS_gets_a_package_manager_VSP.html As of the 18th of February, OpenVMS, known for its stability and high-availability, 47 years old and ported to 4 different CPU architecture, has a package manager! This article shows you how to use the package manager and talks about a few of its quirks. It's an early beta version, and you do notice that when using it. A small list of things I noticed, coming from a Linux (apt/yum/dnf) background: There seems to be no automatic dependency resolution and the dependencies it does list are incomplete. No update management yet, no removal of packages and no support for your own package repository, only the VSI official one. Service startup or login script changes are not done automatically. Packages with multiple installer files fail and require manual intervention. It does correctly identify the architectures, has search support and makes it way easier to install software. The time saved by downloading, manually copying and starting installation is huge, so even this early beta is a very welcome addition to OpenVMS. Mon, 17 Mar 2025 20:33:00 GMT Mon, 17 Mar 2025 20:33:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/Tetris_from_1992_on_OpenVMS_x86_in_2024.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/Tetris_from_1992_on_OpenVMS_x86_in_2024.html Since [DECWindows / CDE](/s/blog/OpenVMS_x86_E9.2-3_fixes_CDE_and_adds_Guest_Console.html) now works on OpenVMS x86 (from 9.2-3 onwards) there is much fun stuff to do. Back in 2021 I wrote an article on the [CDE desktop on Alpha / AXPbox](/s/blog/OpenVMS_CDE_Desktop_remote_x_axpbox.html) and also an article on how to run [CDE on modern linux, since it's still developed](/s/blog/The_Common_Desktop_Environment_CDE_is_still_developed_in_2021.html#toc_6). Both articles included a game, **GENERIC-TETRIS** from 1992, [written by Qiang Alex Zhao](https://web.archive.org/web/20240815073318/https://sites.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/qiang.a.zhao/Games.html). After getting the (remote) desktop working I wanted to compile and run Tetris to continue this lineage, from VAX, to Alpha, to Linux/CDE, to x86 VMS. I haven't got an Itanium to run it on, but if anyone has one left willing to send this way, feel free to contact me. This article includes the precompiled tetris binary for OpenVMS x86 and instructions to compile the source. The code required some minor modifications which I'll also cover, but that's not surprising for code that hasn't changed much since 1992 to be compiled in 2024. This article also shows you how to install curl on OpenVMS. Sun, 18 Aug 2024 14:33:00 GMT Sun, 18 Aug 2024 14:33:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_x86_E9.2-3_fixes_CDE_and_adds_Guest_Console.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_x86_E9.2-3_fixes_CDE_and_adds_Guest_Console.html I'm a big fan of OpenVMS. You can [read all my OpenVMS articles here](/s/tags/openvms.html). Since the [licensing changes](https://web.archive.org/web/20240814192656/https://vmssoftware.com/about/news/2024-03-25-community-license-update/) to the Hobbyist Program, I applied and was included in to the Ambassador Program. A new update of the X86 field test is released and this includes to major changes for hobbyists. One is a new feature, the Guest Console, which makes installing easier by no longer requiring a serial port and fiddling with Putty or your telnet client and the second is a fix to the C/C++ compiler which, (probably by accident), fixes CDE and DECWindows. The [Common Desktop Environment (CDE)](/s/blog/The_Common_Desktop_Environment_CDE_is_still_developed_in_2021.html) is still under development and can be installed on Linux quite easily. This post shows the two new features, the Guest Console and CDE working. Wed, 14 Aug 2024 23:58:00 GMT Wed, 14 Aug 2024 23:58:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_Getting_Started.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_Getting_Started.html OpenVMS on x86 is now available for hobbyists! Almost a year after [the official release](/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_will_be_released_tomorrow.html). This is a part 1 of my getting started guide, showing you how to install OpenVMS on VirtualBox on Windows 10/11. More parts will follow, documenting license installation, network setup, ssh, application installation etc. Tue, 11 Apr 2023 22:30:00 GMT Wed, 14 Aug 2024 23:57:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/The_sad_state_of_Alpha_emulators_for_OpenVMS.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/The_sad_state_of_Alpha_emulators_for_OpenVMS.html OpenVMS 7.3 was the last version for the VAX architecture. All later versions (like 8.4) are only available for the Alpha CPU architecture or Intel's Itanium platform. Since I don't want hardware running, which is suprisingly hard to get in The Netherlands, Alpha machines, I want to be able to run it in an emulator. simh is the best open source VAX emulator, but it does not support Alpha. My adventure with es40, the only open source Alpha emulator (development halted 10 years ago) ended prematurely since it crashes all the time. The only other available options are FreeAXP, Charon-AXP, vtAlpha and EmuVM AlphaVM. Only FreeAXP is available as a free (but not open source) download, Charon had a personal version but that is nowhere to be found nowdays, vtAlpha doesn't offer a trial or free version and EmuVM Alphaserver also stopped with their free version. In this article I'll go over my adventure with FreeAXP and EmuVM. Mon, 30 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT Fri, 30 Jun 2023 22:31:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_Installing_HAProxy.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_Installing_HAProxy.html This article shows you how to install HAProxy on OpenVMS 9.2 for x86. I've often used HAProxy in my career as a sysadmin and find it a very useful tool. HAProxy is an open source, fast, reliable load balancer for TCP and HTTP-based applications. This guide assumes you've set up your OpenVMS system via [my guide](https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_Getting_Started.html) and the [second part](https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_Getting_Started_part_2.html) of my guide, that will give you a fully licensed OpenVMS installation with networking and SSH access. Since I've used HAProxy so very often to set up high-available clusters and load balancers, I was surprised but happy to see it ported to OpenVMS. This guide shows the setup but also a few OpenVMS specific quirks, like file paths and troubleshooting error messages / logs. Wed, 19 Apr 2023 22:30:00 GMT Wed, 19 Apr 2023 22:30:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_Getting_Started_part_3.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_Getting_Started_part_3.html OpenVMS on x86 is now available for hobbyists! Almost a year after [the official release](/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_will_be_released_tomorrow.html). This is a part 3 of my getting started guide. Part 2 ended with a working network setup and SSH access. In part 3 we'll do something very exciting, installing the WebUI, a web based management interface for OpenVMS. I'll also share a few smaller tidbits, like how to use the interactive text editor via an `ssh` session and how to use `unzip`. Sun, 16 Apr 2023 22:30:00 GMT Sun, 16 Apr 2023 22:30:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_Getting_Started_part_2.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_Getting_Started_part_2.html OpenVMS on x86 is now available for hobbyists! Almost a year after [the official release](/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_will_be_released_tomorrow.html). This is a part 2 of my getting started guide. [Part 1](https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_Getting_Started.html) ended with an installed system, this part continues with automatic startup, activating the license files (PAKs) and setting up networking including SSH access. Sat, 15 Apr 2023 22:30:00 GMT Sat, 15 Apr 2023 22:30:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_is_finally_available_for_hobbyists.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_is_finally_available_for_hobbyists.html OpenVMS x86 is now available for (most) hobbyists! Almost a year after [the official release](/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_will_be_released_tomorrow.html) most hobbyists can now login to the [Service Portal](https://sp.vmssoftware.com) to download their copy of OpenVMS 9.2 for x86, `X86E921OE.ZIP` and the PAK (license) files (`x86community-20240401.zip`), valid until April 2024. Sun, 09 Apr 2023 23:59:00 GMT Tue, 11 Apr 2023 22:29:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_will_be_released_tomorrow.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_will_be_released_tomorrow.html On July 8th, a few days ago, I saw the following post on the VMS Software Inc (VSI) blog, titled 'Release of OpenVMS V9.2 for x86 Scheduled for July 14, 2022'. That is tomorrow! I'm so excited, I can't wait to start playing around with it. This short post goes over the announcement and the status of the community license, and hopes to make you just as enthusiastic as I am for the coming release! Wed, 13 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT Thu, 14 Jul 2022 20:27:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_reset_SYSTEM-password.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_reset_SYSTEM-password.html This short post shows you how to reset the SYSTEM account password on a single OpenVMS 8.4 ALpha machine via the serial console. You need physical access to the machine and the procedure looks a lot like linux and appending `init=/bin/bash` to the GRUB commandline to boot into single user mode. It is tested on the AXPbox Alpha emulator, I forgot my password after not using it for a month. Wed, 03 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT Wed, 03 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_CDE_Desktop_remote_x_axpbox.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_CDE_Desktop_remote_x_axpbox.html Last year November, I posted on a new OpenVMS related project, AXPbox, the open source Alpha emulator, a fork of es40 by Tomáš Glozar. Last week I put together the first official release of AXPbox, one of the changes being in the network code, making it more stable, thus being able to run a remote X session. Meaning, you can run the CDE desktop and enjoy everything the OpenVMS GUI has to offer. This article shows you how to run the CDE GUI in a remote X session, including switching between the old Motif look and the new DECWindows and how to run Tetris. Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/AXPBox-version-1.0.0-released.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/AXPBox-version-1.0.0-released.html Last year November, I posted on a new OpenVMS related project, AXPbox, the open source Alpha emulator, a fork of es40 by Tomáš Glozar. I got involved a bit in the project, submitting a few patches here and there, editing the Wiki and thus now have contributer rights on the github repository. After discussing a bit back and forth with Tomáš, I put together the first official release of AXPbox, very exciting news. The release can be found here on github. This article has the release notes and a bunch of screenshots of OpenVMS inside AXPbox running GUI applications over the network. Sat, 23 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT Sat, 23 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Installing_OpenVMS_8.4_Alpha_in_AXPbox_with_networking.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Installing_OpenVMS_8.4_Alpha_in_AXPbox_with_networking.html In my previous article I announced the fork of the `es40` emulator to `AXPbox` by Tomáš including bug fixes and rework allowing it to install OpenVMS 8.4 without problems. Since then I've contributed a few patches and doc updates, now NetBSD boots as well (the patches for netbsd were from other es40 forks). I've also looked into getting networking setup, since that is a bit of a tedious process due to pcap and linux, pcap being used for network emulation. SIMH (among others, a great VAX emulator) suffers from the same problems with networking. This guide will show you how to install AXPbox and get OpenVMS 8.4 ready and running with networking inside AXPbox. It's a rather long guide with a lot of information and output. Wed, 04 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT Sun, 08 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/Exciting_OpenVMS_Alpha_emulation_news_es40_has_been_forked_to_axpbox.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/Exciting_OpenVMS_Alpha_emulation_news_es40_has_been_forked_to_axpbox.html Back in 2018 I was playing around with OpenVMS a lot, as it continues on the legacy of the PDP-8 and PDP-11. OpenVMS 7.3 on the VAX emulated via SIMH runs perfectly, OpenVMS 8.4 for Alpha was kind of a disaster, or, the es40 emulator was. Real hardware is available via IslandCo, but shipping to the Netherlands is horribly expensive. The only options back then for emulation of Alpha were FreeAXP or AlphaVM, both paid, closed sourced products with watered down free versions. Nothing wrong with that, it enables us to play around, and now that OpenVMS is in the hands of VMS Software with an x86 port coming along we may hope for a bright future ahead for OpenVMS. VSI currently provides a hobbyist version, but it's a FreeAXP bundle for Windows only. Recently I got an email from Tomáš regarding his fork of the es40 emulator, axpbox. This short post is intended to give this emulator more visibility and exposure, since I find this to be amazingly cool and exciting. It lists the bugs fixed and new features, which allow OpenVMS 8.3 and 8.4 to install perfectly. Wed, 28 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT Wed, 28 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/Multiple_passwords_for_one_user_UIC_uniqueness_and_the_system_password_on_OpenVMS.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/Multiple_passwords_for_one_user_UIC_uniqueness_and_the_system_password_on_OpenVMS.html In the book I bought about OpenVMS for the previous post on filesystems, 'Getting Started with OpenVMS by M. Duffy', I've read a few interesting things in the chapter that introduces user accounts and system login. Namely that a user can have multiple passwords, that user ID's are not unique and that there can be a system password. This article goes in to those three topics. Sun, 13 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT Sun, 13 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_Mount_ISO_and_execute_scripts.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_Mount_ISO_and_execute_scripts.html I'm playing around with OpenVMS on Alpha using a trial of AlphaVM Basic, but was not able to copy paste in my Hobbyist License. I suspect Putty pasting too quickly, so I had to get the license script on the OpenVMS, without using the network. In this article you'll learn some OpenVMS filesystem history, how OpenVMS handles line endings and in the end I get my license installed by creating an ISO with the script on it. Tue, 08 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT Tue, 08 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/File_locking_grep_and_process_killing_on_OpenVMS.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/File_locking_grep_and_process_killing_on_OpenVMS.html On the DECUS OpenVMS system there is no curl or wget installed. I wanted to download a remote `C` file to play around with the compiler and some simple Hello World code, to get a feel of the build system. After a bit of searching around the internet I was not able to find a command like curl or wget to download a remote file. But, the searches led me to the OpenVMS port of curl, which, I hoped, might be able to run on the DECUS system. Just like on a linux system, running the binary under my user account, not install it system wide. This ended up to be another adventure in which I figured out how to trace a locked file to a process, grep the output of a process on OpenVMS and kill a process. I did not get curl to work or compile my code, yet. Sun, 06 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT Sun, 06 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/Installing_the_es40_AlphaServer_emulator_0.18_on_Ubuntu_16.04_and_trying_to_install_openVMS_8.4_on_es40.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/Installing_the_es40_AlphaServer_emulator_0.18_on_Ubuntu_16.04_and_trying_to_install_openVMS_8.4_on_es40.html OpenVMS 7.3 is the latest version of OpenVMS for the VAX architecture. Since the DECUS system uses OpenVMS 8.4 there were some version differences. I could not set my 'BACKSPACE=DELETE' on 7.3. The hobbyist license also covers the Alpha and Itanium versions of OpenVMS so I want to try the Alpha version, which is consequently also 8.4, the latest release. This article describes my attempt to compile and install the es40 open source Alpha emulator on Ubuntu 16.04 and subsequently the installation of OpenVMS Alpha. The emulator is not under active development since 2008, and the installation of OpenVMS fails. OpenVMS does boot however, very very slowly. Tue, 24 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT Tue, 24 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/Small_OpenVMS_titbits.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/Small_OpenVMS_titbits.html Here are some small titbits I found out this week on the DECUServe OpenVMS system. Not enough to write a blogpost on their own, but collected together. Sun, 22 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT Sun, 22 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_7.3_install_log_with_simh_vax_on_Ubuntu_16.04.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_7.3_install_log_with_simh_vax_on_Ubuntu_16.04.html Using a guide I was able to install OpenVMS 7.3 for VAX on simh on Ubuntu 16.04. This is a copy-paste of my terminal for future reference. This is not one of my usual articles, a guide with comprehensive information an background. Just a log of my terminal. Mon, 16 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT Mon, 16 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/File_versioning_and_deleting_on_OpenVMS.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/File_versioning_and_deleting_on_OpenVMS.html I'm now a few weeks into my OpenVMS adventure and my home folder on the [DECUS](http://decus.org) system is quite cluttered with files. More specifically, with different versions of files, since OpenVMS by default has file versioning built in. This means that when you edit a file, or copy a file over an existing file, the old file is not overwritten but a new file with a new version is written. The old file still is there. This is one of the best things in my humble opinion so far on OpenVMS, but it does require maintenance to not have the disk get filled up fast. This article goes into the PURGE and DELETE commands which help you deal with file versioning and removal. Sun, 15 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT Sun, 15 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/Backspace_and_delete_key_behaviour_on_OpenVMS.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/Backspace_and_delete_key_behaviour_on_OpenVMS.html While working on the DECUServe OpenVMS system I found out quickly that pressing BACKSPACE moves the cursor on the shell to the beginning of the line instead of deleting the character to the left of the cursor. This made me very aware of my typing, since when I made an error I had to retype the entire line (the terminal is in insert mode it seems). After reading through some documentation it seems that is default behaviour but there are terminal options to change it. Mon, 09 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT Mon, 09 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/SSH_public_key_authentication_on_OpenVMS.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/SSH_public_key_authentication_on_OpenVMS.html My OpenVMS adventure continues, after my rabbit hole of folder removal, this time I actually get public key authentication working with OpenSSH so that I don't have to type my password to login. Thu, 05 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT Thu, 05 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/Delete_a_directory_in_OpenVMS.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/Delete_a_directory_in_OpenVMS.html My OpenVMS adventure continues, in this small item I talk about the removal of folders on OpenVMS. As you might expect, different than on linux. This rabbit hole got started when I made a typo in the creation of a folder, which I created in the process of SSH public key authentication. Pubkey auth still doens't work but my OpenVMS knowledge increased. Tue, 03 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT Tue, 03 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/My_second_OpenVMS_-_MAIL.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/My_second_OpenVMS_-_MAIL.html Last week I registered myself with the DECUServe OpenVMS system. I found out how to navigate the filesystem and create files and folders, it was awesome. This week I learned how to use the OpenVMS MAIL program to read and reply to an email I got from George Cornelius, another user on the DECUServe system. Sun, 01 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT Sun, 01 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://raymii.org/s/blog/My_first_OpenVMS.html?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=raymii&utm_campaign=tagrss https://raymii.org/s/blog/My_first_OpenVMS.html Last week I registered myself with the DECUServe OpenVMS system. I also registered with HP as an OpenVMS hobbyist and got OpenVMS 7.3 for VAX. This small blog item describes my first steps with the hosted DECUS OpenVMS system. I'm excited since I now know how to create folders, navigate the filesystem and edit files. Oh and I had a nice chat with another OpenVMS user via the PHONE program. Sat, 31 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT Sat, 31 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT