I've worked on DEC equipment since 1972. First system was a DEC PDP-8. Since then I've gone up through the numbers of
PDP's : 8-9-10-11-12-14-15-16 (Yes there were PDP 14's and 16's - Industrial controllers).
Then in 1980 I got a VAX 11/780. 6 of them to be exact.
I maintained a seismic data processing center with the VAXes pulling data off of tri-density Telex tape units and sending the data to FPS-100's and Varian plotters. Wuff-Wuff-Wuff...feel all that raw i/o crunching power !!!
I'm on the equipment maintenance side of things. I program when I have to or when I think I can make it work better.
My current employer thinks my time would be better spent learning about HP-UX and the boxes it runs on instead of OpenVMS. I have the OpenVMS
CSE and the HP-UX CSA certs.
I also like turning old VAX VLC boxes into interesting cases. Current case involves using a Apple iMAC case and a LCD display. Real trick is converting the RGB synch on green to a real VGA output for the LCD screen. LM1881 circuit seems to work so far. I also have a AXPPCI SBC
VAX 3100-40 & Alpha 400/266. OpenVMS 7.3, VMS 5.5, and Tru64 and RH linux are up at one time or another.
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!
