I recently received an Alpha Hobbyist kit from you. Let me first say how grateful I am that you have looked after this task on our behalf. You are one great guy !! I should also say that I have no problem with $50 let alone the nominal $30 you currently charge. Thank you so much for everything you do.
I should mention that I used the Hobbyist kit with the Alpha simulator (Personal Alpha) This is an awesome non-commercial product with very few limitations of any significance. I can recommend it to any hobbyist looking to run OpenVMS on a 32 bit WinXP desktop or notebook machine.
I am also mightily impressed with the "Hoff" as I see the unpaid effort he puts into the cause of helping out the rest of us OpenVMS fanboys.
I've been to the Hoffman Labs website a few times in the last couple of months to ask a question or two. Every time, Hoff has answered my questions quickly using the best of his prodigious knowledge. Not only that, Hoff isn't insulting like the "Ask the OpenVMS Wizard" who appears to do his best to discourage anyone from trying OpenVMS.
Given approval from HP, Is it worth considering making lower quality I64 media copies using "store bought" DVD-R or DVD+R media. After all, most people are probably just hoping to use the disk to complete an OpenVMS install on their hobbyist machine. perhaps many people would be quite happy to trade-off long term media durability for access to a copy of the distribution media. The other thing is that you should be fairly compensated for your valuable time. I also agree with Hoff's comments regarding "The Money" angle. You are doing nobody a disservice by expecting to be compensated for a great job.
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!
