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

[bogeyman]

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.

Should have stuck with it.

I believe IBM relaxed the restriction that all mainframes in the UK had to be located within 1.6 miles of the 'magic roundabout' in Swindon in the early 1990s.

[darmstadt]

Should have stuck with it.

I believe IBM relaxed the restriction that all mainframes in the UK had to be located within 1.6 miles of the 'magic roundabout' in Swindon in the early 1990s.

Must have done it a long time before then as the first one I worked on was back in '81 in Brentwood (followed by Folkestone, Norf and Sarf Landan and Wellingborough)

[bogeyman]

Must have done it a long time before then as the first one I worked on was back in '81 in Brentwood (followed by Folkestone, Norf and Sarf Landan and Wellingborough)

Yes, there was actually no such restriction. I made that up in response to Sysman's puzzling dilemma.

In the early/mid 1980s I traveled all over the country working on newly-commissioned datacentres for a major utility billing project (about 20 of them) installing and configuring MVS-ESA.

Utility Co. seemed to insist on putting their new datacentres in the shytiest places. Dudley was a particular highlight. Low rents I expect.

The epic post-commission lunches with the IBM engineering team made up for it to a large degree. Such things could never happen these days.

[Sysman]

Yes, there was actually no such restriction. I made that up in response to Sysman's puzzling dilemma.

Don't worry, I realised you were pulling my leg.

The dilemma was that I didn't have enough mainframe experience to get the same job/pay level elsewhere, but I needed to get out of the company I was at. The Swindon bit was only part of the story, although an important one as I hated the place.

As it turned out, the entire DP department there got closed about a year later, by which time I'd already been offered contracting work on VMS.

[MPwannadecentincome]

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

I remember the VT100 had to have a memory upgrade installed so you could get 132 column displays.

[darmstadt]

In my Jobserve mail today there was actually a job for VMS (along for one with ICL VME)