Saw a reference to somone many in the OpenVMS community should know: Rich Marcello. Rich was common at many DECUS events and was the Vice President of Business Critical Systems. So what's he been up to lately?
It was a surprise to me, that Rich is also an accomplished musician and author. Not something I ever realized during those late evenings at DECUS talking technology with the VP's. You can check out some of his music on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/Marcellorich and it's very impressive work. He's go a new book coming out next year, so that will be worth a look.
While not a globally popular editor, it's definitely one with a proud following and useful features. If you'd like to continue to use TECO, especially in environments that were TECO-challenges, check this:
http://almy.us/teco.html
TECO is available for a wide variety of platforms, with a distribution for any likely desktop of choice!
I found an audio file of Terry Shannon when he spoke at the Dallas/Ft. Worth DFWDays in 1998. I thought that Hobbyists would find it interesting to hear Terry Shannon/Charlie Matco/Cedric Zool speak on the DEC/Compaq merger, Alpha Wildfire, IA64, and other OpenVMS related topics.
And check out part where is says "In addition, the OpenVMS Hobbyist Program offers kits containing OpenVMS Base O/S software and selected Layered Products via download." I know this is something that's been asked about on several occasions, and HP has finally taken it to heart. This should also allow the Hobbyist Program to provide a lot more Layered Products that previously available.
HP has decided to take ownership of delivering licenses for Hobbyist users, making it an official Customer Engagement function. As such, Hobby Licenses will no longer be available through this site. Details of the HP's delivery of licenses to Hobbyist Users is still under development and I hope that they will have an announcement soon.
I've been involved and hosting licensing for the Hobbyist Program for nearly 15 years. Hard to believe that it's been that long. And many of you have been around since the beginning. Few products in this industry have that kind of customer retention.
I'd really like to thank Pat Jankowiak and Mark Gorham for making the Hobbyist Program possible. Sue Skonetski and Stephen Hoffman for all their technical assistance over the years. Ian Miller, Bruce Claremont, and John Malmberg for helping admin the site. Thanks to all the various Chapters from around the world for their support. And of course, all the Hobbyists who have enjoyed the program.
And of finally, I would like to thank my colleague, my friend, and the Best Man at my wedding, John Wisniewski. He spent a lot of time convincing the Digital VP's that this was a good thing.
Here's to another 15 years!
David Cathey aka HobbyistOne
HP OpenVMS Technical Update Days - Singapore 28th -29th April 2011
Dear OpenVMS enthusiasts,
Please join HP OpenVMS Technical Update Days for 2011.
During this 2-day event the OpenVMS engineering team and its partners will:
• Address critical technical issues to help drive higher productivity
• Discuss innovative solutions and best practices
• Provide a Strategy Update for OpenVMS and HP Integrity Servers
OpenVMS Technical Update Days is also an ideal platform for networking with other OpenVMS users.
Welcome to V16 of the OpenVMS Technical Journal. It is indeed a great pleasure in bringing this edition of the Technical Journal to all the VMS enthusiasts around the world. We trust that you will find all the articles informative and useful.
In VTJ v16, I am sure you will find all articles will be of interest to you. We have enlisted the articles in VTJ v16 below :
· Archive Backup System and Data Protector: Leading OpenVMS Backup Solutions, Deepa R Shenoy
· MIKADO, a Virtual VAX based on a Real-time Operating System, Dr. Robert Boers, CEO & Founder Stromasys
· OpenVMS Guest Troubleshooting, Bhadresh Udani
· OpenVMS RAD Support on Integrity Systems, Shyamalendu Sarkar, Durga Prasad and Narayanan
· Data Encryption Using Archive Backup System, Nagendra Shastry
We would appreciate your feedback not only on this issue but the OpenVMS Technical Journal as a whole.
If you would like to submit an article for the next issue please click here. Thank you for your continued support, and a big thanks to all the authors who contributed for this edition of VTJ v16.
Got pointed to this recent DEFCON presentation on OpenVMS. We're glad to see after all this time, there's still references to OpenVMS at DEFCON. The foray into the Lions Den by a group of Dallas folks is even mentioned in the talk. But, it's an excellent example that even one of the most secure operating systems can still be compromised by bad coding. And even from within OpenVMS Engineering. In particular, the TCP/IP team. Which managed to be bug-compatible with other similar functions. A very interesting talk.
My only critique of the session is "People still run 'finger' on OpenVMS?" Apparently so. A tip o' the hat to Dave Smith from the UK for letting me know about this.
It is with great sadness that I heard that Ken Olsen has passed away at age 84. He was surrounded by family and friends in Indiana. Ken Olsen started a revolution in the computer industry producing some of the finest and innovative products on the market. Even today, products built while he was at the helm of Digital Equipment Corporation are still running and functional. An era gone by of quality and durability which now seems all but a memory.
A memorial service is being planned at Gordon College in May to celebrate his life.
One of my favourite quotes attributed to Ken was when a reporter asked how many people worked at Digital, and Ken said "About half".
Hello everyone! We're back online! Sorry for the outage, but here in North Texas we've had a little bit of bad weather. Okay, you Canadians would call it "Fall", but it's pretty unusual here in Texas. Ordinarily it should be no problem. However the power grid folks (ERCOT) decided to have a series of blackouts because they were having problems. We got 4 of them. They were just long enough to test the limits of the UPS's, and frequent enough to cause havoc on our systems. You should always have a backup, but unfortunately, both the primary and secondary DS10L systems suffered a CPU fan failure. Part #74-60847-01. The same fan on both, so I couldn't even trade parts between them to get a working system.
However, thanks to a rapid shipment from Island Computers, I was able to get everything back up and running quickly.
malmberg August 04 2022 No more VAX hobbyist licenses. Community licenses for Alpha/IA64/X86_64 VMS Software Inc. Commercial VMS software licenses for VAX available from HPE.
ozboomer July 20 2022 Just re-visiting.. No more hobbyist licenses? Is that from vmssoftware.com, no 'community' licenses?
valdirfranco July 01 2022 No more hobbyist license...sad
mister_wavey February 12 2022 I recall that the disks failed on the public access VMS systems that included Fafner
parwezw January 03 2022 Anyone know what happened to FAFNER.DYNDS.ORG? I had a hobbyist account here but can longer access the site.
gtackett October 27 2021 Make that DECdfs _2.1A_ for Vax
gtackett October 27 2021 I'm looking for DECdfs V2.4A kit for VAX. Asking here just in case anyone is still listening.
MarkRLV September 17 2021 At one time, didn't this web site have a job board? I would love to use my legacy skills one last time in my career.
malmberg January 18 2021 New Hobbyist PAKs for VAX/VMS are no longer available according to reports. Only commercial licenses are reported to be for sale from HPE
dfilip January 16 2021 Can someone please point me to hobbyist license pak? I'm looking for VAX/VMS 7.1, DECnet Phase IV, and UCX/TCPIP ... have the 7.1 media, need the license paks ... thanks!