ta2@edison.ge.com (tom allebrandi) (01/23/87)
I have a few questions about VMS releases for the MicroVaxen. My salesman's answer to these questions was no answer at all. (He could not/did not want to find out) 1) I have been told (by the DEC distributor that sold us the system) that 4.5 for the MicroVAX is somewhere in the software production pipe. Is this true? If so, when can I expect it? 2) The same source indicates that 4.5 for the MicroVAX is the (long) rumored VMS that is not different from the big system VMS. (IE the end of the two (subtlely/annoyingly) different VMSen.) Is this true? I thought that 4.5 was for the new CPU's and primarily for Low End Clusters. I had understood that the death of MicroVMS would occur at 4.6 at the earliest. 3) When (if) DEC decides that us MicroVAX folks get upgraded to real VMS, are they also going to upgrade us to a real manual set? So far, I have found the following to be the only differences between real VMS and MicroVMS. Have I missed anything important? 1) SYS$EXAMPLES is empty. (Unless you have C) 2) No object librarys for VAX-C; you have to use the sharable runtimes. 3) A lot of the HELP library is missing. Specifically, I have found RTL (help on the LIB$, STR$ etc calls) missing, SYSTEM_SERVICES (help on the SYS$calls) missing, ANALYZE/DISK (and most of the other ANALYZE) missing, and a few others. 4) MicroVMS is distributed with SYSALF setup in the belief that MicroVAXen are used as turnkey application systems. Most of this hasn't bothered us at all; we've been quite pleased that for the most part we can't really tell that we don't have full VMS there. Thanks in advance for any light anyone can shed on my questions! Tom Allebrandi ta2@edison.ge.com
LEICHTER-JERRY@YALE.ARPA (01/23/87)
I have a few questions about VMS releases for the MicroVaxen. My sales-
man's answer to these questions was no answer at all. (He could not/did
not want to find out)
1) I have been told (by the DEC distributor that sold us the system) that
4.5 for the MicroVAX is somewhere in the software production pipe.
Is this true? If so, when can I expect it?
MicroVMS V4.5 shipped sometime in late November/early December. A quick look
at some system files reveals that I installed it on my VS II on December 19th.
As I recall, it arrived here about a week earlier. (Note: This was a TK50
distribution. It's possible, if unlikely, that other distributions were
delayed.)
2) The same source indicates that 4.5 for the MicroVAX is the (long)
rumored VMS that is not different from the big system VMS. (IE the
end of the two (subtlely/annoyingly) different VMSen.) Is this true?
No.
I thought that 4.5 was for the new CPU's and primarily for Low End
Clusters. I had understood that the death of MicroVMS would occur at
4.6 at the earliest.
4.5 has a lot of patches and bug fixes, but almost no user-visible changes.
3) When (if) DEC decides that us MicroVAX folks get upgraded to real VMS,
are they also going to upgrade us to a real manual set?
I have no idea. However, if you compare the price of just the full VMS doc
set to the price of a MicroVMS license, I think you'd have to consider that
unlikely.
Besides, various government safety regulations forbid shipping a commercial
system with less total volume or weight than its documentation. :-)
-- Jerry
-------cetron%utah-ced@UTAH-CS.ARPA.UUCP (01/23/87)
1) I have been told (by the DEC distributor that sold us the system) that 4.5 for the MicroVAX is somewhere in the software production pipe. Is this true? If so, when can I expect it? I have had 4.5 for about 2 months..... 2) The same source indicates that 4.5 for the MicroVAX is the (long) rumored VMS that is not different from the big system VMS. (IE the end of the two (subtlely/annoyingly) different VMSen.) Is this true? 4.5 is not yet the same, it will be in 4.6 (and since it will all of the software used to limit the number of users will not be there, 2,4,8,16-user licensed folks will be on the honor system..... 3) When (if) DEC decides that us MicroVAX folks get upgraded to real VMS, are they also going to upgrade us to a real manual set? No, they are downgrading the VMS set to include the uVMS set. And actually for 90% of the microvax sites here, only the uVMS set is needed. Only the three 'central' management sites need the big set... -> 3) A lot of the HELP library is missing. Specifically, I have found RTL (help on the LIB$, STR$ etc calls) missing, SYSTEM_SERVICES (help on the SYS$calls) missing, ANALYZE/DISK (and most of the other ANALYZE) missing, and a few others. And there are some ADDITIONS to the VMS files for uVMS.... -ed cetron cetron%utah-ced@utah-cs.arpa cetron@utahcca.bitnet
carl@CITHEX.CALTECH.EDU.UUCP (01/26/87)
1) 4.5 for all VAXen is out. It is a set of patches to 4.4.
2) This does not mean it "VMS is VMS", just that the product checks what
kind of VAX you're on before applying patches.
3) Gee, that WOULD be nice, wouldn't it.
1) That may be.
2) Real VMS also doesn't have object libraries for VAX C.
3) While some of the help libraries (RTL, ANALYZE, for example)
are missing or deficient, the LEXICALS help library is far
superior to that on real VMS.
4) The SYSALF is indeed set up for uVMS, but can easily be deleted.
5) There are other, critical differences: e.g., UVMTHRTL instead of
MTHRTL as an installed image, different VMSIMAGES, etc.