I'm a student from Canada. I'm not in a computer-related course, and I've never used VMS before or seen any VAX or Alpha hardware, but I love computers, and more than just for the computer games. I stumbled upon a number of OpenVMS articles as I was looking for some fixes for some problems I'd been having with FreeBSD and device drivers (or to be specific, the lack of them...). I read them over and became interested in acquiring a copy and taking a spin for myself.
I may not know much right now, but I'm interested in learning. I've been trying to teach myself how to program in x86 Assembler as a prerequisite to C, Java and just for the thrill of it, FORTRAN, so if you have any book titles that you'd recommend or useful web links, please send them my way!
Someday soon, maybe for fourth year, I intend to pick up an HP Itanium server, probably one of the entry-level ones. I think it could be very useful because I keep a lot of computers around, a few of my friends do as well, and keeping files managed centrally would be a big asset to all of us. Anyways, thanks for reading my big intro, I'm looking forward to a new learning experience!
Edited by Davey on June 29 2009 00:07
VMS is extensively documented - see www.hp.com/go/oenvms/doc
and is very different to unix.
See the Guide to Programming Concepts at the above.
for some links for the beginner see
http://www.openvms.org/pages.php?page=Beginner
for some links related to software development see
http://www.openvms.org/pages.php?page=Developer
There are books -
see http://www.openvms.org/pages.php?page=Books
Edited by imiller on June 29 2009 00:35
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!
