The thing i miss most about VAX VMS....

[BrilloPad]

the ability to quickly record keystrokes and replay it nnnn times to edit multiple lines in a file was fantastic.

textpad does that

[Sysman]

I remember when status was having a VT420 terminal on your desk, so you could have 2 sessions open.

VT520 - those gave you copy and paste between sessions. Also limited scrollback and an alarm facility for lunch break and knock-off time.

[bogeyman]

I don't miss him, but certainly remember the utter little arse of a VAX sysadmin that used to work for me years ago (early 1990s) telling me how much better VAX systems were than IBM mainframes.

The company we worked for still uses plenty of IBM mainframes but no VAX to be seen.

There was an advert out at the time for a vacuum cleaner that said:

"Nothing sucks like a VAX". Needless to say, the MVS sysprog team made much of this.

[RichardCranium]

There was an advert out at the time for a vacuum cleaner that said:

"Nothing sucks like a VAX". Needless to say, the MVS sysprog team much of this.

You know how the corporate lawyers love to make money from the clients?

Apparently the Vax name usage between the vacuum cleaner company and Digital was all settled with a few letters. One company promised not to move into the vacuum cleaner market and the other promised not to manufacture computers.

As simple as that.

(And rather more honest than Apple Computers' promise to The Beatles not to move into the music market.)

[Sysman]

This thread reminds me of another nice thing about VAX/VMS.

You could take a system disk (complete with compilers, database programs etc.) from one VAX, shove it in any other VAX, and it would boot fine. Naturally you'd need to twiddle the start up files and change network addresses, but it was really simple to do.

[darmstadt]

This thread reminds me of another nice thing about VAX/VMS.

You could take a system disk (complete with compilers, database programs etc.) from one VAX, shove it in any other VAX, and it would boot fine. Naturally you'd need to twiddle the start up files and change network addresses, but it was really simple to do.

You can do that with IBM mainframe systems, how do you think they do DR?

[SQLTerrorist]

I don't miss him, but certainly remember the utter little arse of a VAX sysadmin that used to work for me years ago (early 1990s) telling me how much better VAX systems were than IBM mainframes.

The company we worked for still uses plenty of IBM mainframes but no VAX to be seen.

There was an advert out at the time for a vacuum cleaner that said:

"Nothing sucks like a VAX". Needless to say, the MVS sysprog team made much of this.

Drivel. VAX only deceased because its solutions were expensive and were eventually bought out by compaq, which itself was bought out. Customer loyalty for the endearing mini manufacturer died out.

If you are comparing an IBM mainframe to a VAX then you have already demonstrated ignorance of the DEC family...

[bogeyman]

Drivel. VAX only deceased because its solutions were expensive and were eventually bought out by compaq, which itself was bought out. Customer loyalty for the endearing mini manufacturer died out.

If you are comparing an IBM mainframe to a VAX then you have already demonstrated ignorance of the DEC family...

FOUND

One sockpupet. Hardly used. In desperate need of return to its owner.

[NotAllThere]

My first contract was fixing/enhancing an All-In-One application. £25 per hour!

[Sysman]

You can do that with IBM mainframe systems, how do you think they do DR?

No surprise there. Back in mainframe days we also had the DR option of getting a mainframe bureau to set up a partition for us. Sorry, don't really remember the details.

But what was it to be? Mainframes and Swindon or VAX/VMS and living in a decent part of the world? The latter won out, though I do wish I'd stayed with mainframes for a bit longer.