Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[endlessboomcapitalism]

Like with all we know now......rewrite in ada?

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 03/05/2016 00:51, endlessboomcapitalism@gmail.com wrote:
> Like with all we know now......rewrite in ada?

What for? A poorly designed OS remains that in any language.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Olivier Henley]

On Tuesday, May 3, 2016 at 3:47:46 AM UTC-4, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> On 03/05/2016 00:51, endless...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Like with all we know now......rewrite in ada?
> 
> What for? A poorly designed OS remains that in any language.
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> Dmitry A. Kazakov
> http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

ouchh... :)

In the mean time, endlessboom..., you can look at some initiatives:

1. https://muen.sk/ 
2. http://marte.unican.es/
3. https://sourceforge.net/projects/lovelacexv6/
4. Muen can run Genome, which is written in C++, but looks really interesting and has good architecture docs: https://genode.org/

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Randy Brukardt]

"Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message 
news:ng9l30$rc9$1@gioia.aioe.org...
> On 03/05/2016 00:51, endlessboomcapitalism@gmail.com wrote:
>> Like with all we know now......rewrite in ada?
>
> What for? A poorly designed OS remains that in any language.

That's unfair: BSD was a well-designed OS when it was designed (mid-1970s). 
Consider CP/M-80 (to take one example) for an example of a poorly designed 
(assuming it was designed at all) OS. Rewriting that in Ada (or anything) 
would be bizarre.

But your real point is that it is 2016, and what is the point of recreating 
a 40-year old design? If we can't do better today (on some dimension of 
"better"), that means that CS is completely stalled since then (and that's 
clearly not true; SPARK alone disproves it). There's also the practical 
issue: If you actually wanted someone to use it, you'd need to offer 
something different. Oliver's reply gives some approaches to that problem.

                                      Randy.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 2016-05-09 22:14, Randy Brukardt wrote:
> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message
> news:ng9l30$rc9$1@gioia.aioe.org...
>> On 03/05/2016 00:51, endlessboomcapitalism@gmail.com wrote:
>>> Like with all we know now......rewrite in ada?
>>
>> What for? A poorly designed OS remains that in any language.
>
> That's unfair: BSD was a well-designed OS when it was designed (mid-1970s).
> Consider CP/M-80 (to take one example) for an example of a poorly designed
> (assuming it was designed at all) OS. Rewriting that in Ada (or anything)
> would be bizarre.

CP/M-80 wasn't an OS. The term was 'monitor', IMO.

> But your real point is that it is 2016, and what is the point of recreating
> a 40-year old design?

The design of UNIX was old from the day one. There are not many new 
concepts of OS design since then anyway. Original UNIX ignored almost 
everything of that and used the most stupid ideas instead.

> If we can't do better today (on some dimension of
> "better"), that means that CS is completely stalled since then (and that's
> clearly not true; SPARK alone disproves it).

Yes, though not really related to OS, it might be quite interesting to 
see how SPARK would influence OS implementation and conversely.

> There's also the practical
> issue: If you actually wanted someone to use it, you'd need to offer
> something different.

Theoretically so, but in reality nobody knows what people want until it 
happens. Who would ever need Android?

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

On 05/09/2016 01:14 PM, Randy Brukardt wrote:
>
> But your real point is that it is 2016, and what is the point of recreating
> a 40-year old design? If we can't do better today (on some dimension of
> "better"), that means that CS is completely stalled since then (and that's
> clearly not true; SPARK alone disproves it). There's also the practical
> issue: If you actually wanted someone to use it, you'd need to offer
> something different. Oliver's reply gives some approaches to that problem.

Unfortunately, it's 2016, and almost everything is either Windows or some flavor 
of Unix these days, neither of which is very new. Mac OS X, iOS, Android, and 
Chrome OS, to name a few, are all Yet Another Version of Unix.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"How'd you like to hide the egg and gurgitate
a few saucers of mocha java?"
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
101

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[tmoran]

There's an interesting historical view by Andrew Tannenbaum in the March
issue of CACM.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Xavier Petit]

I would love to see one of this things :
http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Unikernels
http://unikernel.org/projects/

“Unikernel” in Ada. And see Linux become what it is in his purest
essence : a big bunch of drivers. Until maybe one day, drivers will
disappear.

Until now I see PC having an hardware teamviewer, buggy secure boot
bioses preventing to reinstall OSes (have to extract hardrive),
reprogrammable firmwares everywhere.

So even the most secure and advanced OS in Ada would be totally
transparent to any government. Enjoy.

And people are still fighting the closed-source software, while
they're entirely loosing the control of their computers...

-- 
Xavier Petit

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[G.B.]

On 09.05.16 22:58, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>
>> There's also the practical
>> issue: If you actually wanted someone to use it, you'd need to offer
>> something different.
>
> Theoretically so, but in reality nobody knows what people want until it
> happens. Who would ever need Android?

One hypothesis is confirmed: people want something that

- works well enough, and

- is the less expensive alternative.

Ada sellers, again, need to understand these determining
factors, as they constrain all engineering business.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 10/05/2016 11:45, G.B. wrote:
> On 09.05.16 22:58, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>>
>>> There's also the practical
>>> issue: If you actually wanted someone to use it, you'd need to offer
>>> something different.
>>
>> Theoretically so, but in reality nobody knows what people want until it
>> happens. Who would ever need Android?
>
> One hypothesis is confirmed: people want something that
>
> - works well enough, and
>
> - is the less expensive alternative.

It cannot be confirmed being obviously wrong. Both statements are based 
on informed comparison of non-existing products under not stated 
requirements.

> Ada sellers, again, need to understand these determining
> factors, as they constrain all engineering business.

One needs talent to sell snake oil which is 90% of all software sells. 
It does not require understanding, you either have it or yo do not. And 
if you have it, it is no matter if you sell Ada or Python. So Ada will 
always be in disadvantage.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[G.B.]

On 10.05.16 12:04, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

>> One hypothesis is confirmed: people want something that
>>
>> - works well enough, and
>>
>> - is the less expensive alternative.
>
> It cannot be confirmed being obviously wrong.

It has been confirmed by a majority of winning products.
What the obvious thing you see?
Examples have been discussed here many times.
(phrase: You know, exceptions confirm the rules.)

> requirements.

Usual requirements for winning the competition:

- works well enough

- is the less expensive alternative

(There are decisions that simple don't start from all
this engineering talk about technical requirements.)

> One needs talent to sell

Yes.  That's constraining all engineering business.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 10/05/2016 12:21, G.B. wrote:
> On 10.05.16 12:04, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>
>>> One hypothesis is confirmed: people want something that
>>>
>>> - works well enough, and
>>>
>>> - is the less expensive alternative.
>>
>> It cannot be confirmed being obviously wrong.
>
> It has been confirmed by a majority of winning products.

They confirm exactly the opposite.

> What the obvious thing you see?

Quality of these products and their price, including the invisible costs 
distributed through unfair competition and social engineering programs.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[G.B.]

On 10.05.16 12:38, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

>> What the obvious thing you see?
>
> Quality of these products and their price, including the invisible costs
> distributed through unfair competition and social engineering programs.

Costs invisible, costs distributed even more so, are the very
kinds of cost that no trained MBA will need to consider.
That's a thing for the market to sort out, macro economics stuff.

Hence the twist in SPARK marketing: By using formal methods,
customers can even reduce development cost! Paradoxically
as it may seem, SPARK implies that you get a product that both
works well and by using a less expensive method of development.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Xavier Petit]

Le 10/05/2016 12:21, G.B. a écrit :
> Usual requirements for winning the competition:
>
> - works well enough
>
> - is the less expensive alternative
>
Like an iPhone ?

People want easy to use things too, and the things others have, and
shiny things... And the new things (“Ada is old” I hear sometimes), and
the things that the marketing says they want to have.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[G.B.]

On 10.05.16 13:41, Xavier Petit wrote:
> Le 10/05/2016 12:21, G.B. a écrit :
>> Usual requirements for winning the competition:
>>
>> - works well enough
>>
>> - is the less expensive alternative
>>
> Like an iPhone ?

iPhone is the very product that made apparent how other phones
did not work well enough in 2007.

Now compare C-BSD to Ada-BSD in terms of which will
show that the other does not work well enough.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Butler]

On 2016-05-10, G.B. <bauhaus@futureapps.invalid> wrote:
> On 10.05.16 13:41, Xavier Petit wrote:
>> Le 10/05/2016 12:21, G.B. a ?crit :
>>> Usual requirements for winning the competition:
>>>
>>> - works well enough
>>>
>>> - is the less expensive alternative
>>>
>> Like an iPhone ?
>
> iPhone is the very product that made apparent how other phones
> did not work well enough in 2007.

Now you've gone too far. iPhones are just about the worst _phones_ ever
sold. BlackBerry and even Nokia for that matter make much better phones in
all the things that matter with phones like not dropping calls, not
exploding, not requiring you to hold the phone a certain way for it to
possibly make a call, being able to multitask in any meaningful sense of the
word, not requiring you to carry extra batteries or chargers with you
etc. For business or personal the iPhone as a _phone_ is a great big fail.

Sure, those other companies don't make better phone-like gaming platforms or
movie players but you said "phones" and that is not accurate.

Most software and devices are sold to technically inept fashionistas and
anything that actually works or is even designed to work is not appreciated.

Bob
>

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Xavier Petit]

Le 10/05/2016 13:54, G.B. a écrit :
> iPhone is the very product that made apparent how other phones did
> not work well enough in 2007.
Yes iPhones have something other smartphones don't (according hundreds
of customers, lambda computer users) :

- Easier to use
- Quality (finition)
- “Safe value” (if you understand my google-translate english)
- Social status (just put an iPhone on the table, softly so it won't
break itself, and boom you're in)

But they don't like to have to use iTunes, and the lack (common to most
phones) of battery capacity.

Still it's expensive.

> Now compare C-BSD to Ada-BSD in terms of which will show that the
> other does not work well enough.
An Ada-BSD with the libc made of “undefined behaviors” to keep
compatibility ? And monolithic design to interact best with buggy
drivers and hardware ?

 From my pessimistic and inexperienced point of view, a lot of the
existing software should be rewritten.

So if a general usage OS written in Ada should appear, I would like to
see it like I see Ada : more advanced, stable, closer to human thinking,
not a geek toy, trully standardized, powerful, well designed. So not
something like Unix-like systems.

-- 
Xavier Petit

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Istvan Nagy]

2016. május 3., kedd 0:51:45 UTC+2 időpontban endlessboo...@gmail.com a következőt írta:
> Like with all we know now......rewrite in ada?

I really like this thread!

My point of view is more artistic(?), since i design UX/GUI/BI - part time, for printing/prepress industry.

I liked to play with the idea, that if GNU (Linux, BSD) is a world built in C, then a world built in Ada is also possible - theoretically.
(Tron is built in/on C, .... ;)


My favorite bottlenecks are: time, programmers, and working together - without pissing off each other, to do many small forks, and not getting anywhere ;)
(I like BSD - but i cant find the drivers i need. I like linux - but i am having trouble installing pe.: gnatcoll 2015. And i think the problem is "manpower".)

Finally: i think, inventing the wheel was easy (haha), but it had dependencies: why build a wheel? -> we have products to carry (apples). to have products, we need agriculture...etc.. 
Inventions are coming, when a problem is in focus.

Thank you for all your writings: i know now, an Ada-OS is possible. 
(if it can drive a plane, it could drive my raspberry too. the question is, what qualifies as an OS? and how we are going to search for this answer?)

Best Regards:
Istvan

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Randy Brukardt]

"Jeffrey R. Carter" <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.not.acm.org> wrote in message 
news:ngqtri$36t$1@dont-email.me...
> On 05/09/2016 01:14 PM, Randy Brukardt wrote:
>>
>> But your real point is that it is 2016, and what is the point of 
>> recreating
>> a 40-year old design? If we can't do better today (on some dimension of
>> "better"), that means that CS is completely stalled since then (and 
>> that's
>> clearly not true; SPARK alone disproves it). There's also the practical
>> issue: If you actually wanted someone to use it, you'd need to offer
>> something different. Oliver's reply gives some approaches to that 
>> problem.
>
> Unfortunately, it's 2016, and almost everything is either Windows or some 
> flavor of Unix these days, neither of which is very new. Mac OS X, iOS, 
> Android, and Chrome OS, to name a few, are all Yet Another Version of 
> Unix.

Exactly my point: if you want anyone to replace those (generally used 
because they're easy, cheap, and "good enough"), you have to provide 
something much better. (As the iPhone did to the smartphone market, for 
example). Making yet another copy of Unix isn't going to provide much 
interest (or value).

                                     Randy.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

On 05/10/2016 03:03 PM, Randy Brukardt wrote:
>
> Exactly my point: if you want anyone to replace those (generally used
> because they're easy, cheap, and "good enough"), you have to provide
> something much better. (As the iPhone did to the smartphone market, for
> example). Making yet another copy of Unix isn't going to provide much
> interest (or value).

This is subjective, but at the time the iPhone came out, the best smartphone was 
the Palm Pre. Compared to the iPhone, the Pre had a better UI, multitasking, an 
established app store, and a lower price. The iPhone had a bigger screen and a 
huge advertising campaign, while HP bought Palm and didn't compete with Apple's 
marketing.

Nor are smartphones the only example of Apple's marketing winning over something 
better. Most MP3 players you simply copied your music files onto them and they 
would play the files. With the iPod, you had to install iTunes and use it to 
copy your files. By default, IIRC, it also moved your files to a new location. I 
never understood why anyone would choose it.

So better will win for things that are free, but decent marketing seems like a 
better bet for things people pay for.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"People called Romanes, they go the house?"
Monty Python's Life of Brian
79

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[phil.clayton]

On Monday, 2 May 2016 23:51:45 UTC+1, endlessboo...@gmail.com  wrote:
> Like with all we know now......rewrite in ada?

Rust[1] isn't Ada but it has similar goals: it is designed to be a "safe, concurrent, practical language".

Redox OS[2] isn't BSD but is Unix-like and POSIX-ish and implemented in Rust.  I don't know much about it so I'll refer you to the 'what' and 'why':
https://doc.redox-os.org/book/introduction/what_is_redox.html
https://doc.redox-os.org/book/introduction/why_redox.html

That's not an answer to your question but I think it's sufficiently similar to be of interest.

Phil


[1] http://www.rust-lang.org/
[2] http://www.redox-os.org/

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2016-05-12, phil.clayton@lineone.net <phil.clayton@lineone.net> wrote:
> On Monday, 2 May 2016 23:51:45 UTC+1, endlessboo...@gmail.com  wrote:
>> Like with all we know now......rewrite in ada?
>
> Rust[1] isn't Ada but it has similar goals: it is designed to be a "safe, concurrent, practical language".
>

The Rust people forgot the bit about making Rust source code readable
however.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[AdaMagica]

Am Samstag, 14. Mai 2016 03:00:47 UTC+2 schrieb Simon Clubley:
> > Rust[1] isn't Ada but it has similar goals: it is designed to be a "safe, concurrent, practical language".
> >
> 
> The Rust people forgot the bit about making Rust source code readable
> however.

And they made the mistake to provide only hardware specific integer types.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Norman Worth]

On 5/2/2016 4:51 PM, endlessboomcapitalism@gmail.com wrote:
> Like with all we know now......rewrite in ada?
>
Regardless of its merits, someone actually had a project to do this a 
couple of years back.  I can see nothing in Ada that would prevent it, 
and it might be more reliable than the C patchworks we are living with 
today.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Serge Robyns]

On Monday, 16 May 2016 19:37:04 UTC+2, Norman Worth  wrote:
> On 5/2/2016 4:51 PM, endlessboomcapitalism@gmail.com wrote:
> > Like with all we know now......rewrite in ada?
> >
> Regardless of its merits, someone actually had a project to do this a 
> couple of years back.  I can see nothing in Ada that would prevent it, 
> and it might be more reliable than the C patchworks we are living with 
> today.

Back in the early 2000 I played a little with that idea and had managed to compile a piece of Ada code that booted on an x86.  There was also another group trying to do an OS but they never managed to produce anything except a few generic documents on their dream OS.  Then I got a kid and less time to spend on it.  I also considered the fact that there will be little interest of people in an OS that's build on Ada only for the sake of Ada.  People want OSes to play with or do things with, unless you're at the university and have an OS project to work on.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Luke A. Guest]

> Back in the early 2000 I played a little with that idea and had managed
> to compile a piece of Ada code that booted on an x86.  There was also
> another group trying to do an OS but they never managed to produce
> anything except a few generic documents on their dream OS.  Then I got a
> kid and less time to spend on it.  I also considered the fact that there
> will be little interest of people in an OS that's build on Ada only for
> the sake of Ada.  People want OSes to play with or do things with, unless
> you're at the university and have an OS project to work on.
> 

A microkernel is still on my todo list, would've got further about 10-15
years ago when I had a ton of interest if gnat had the 5-7 lines it needed
to build a bare metal compiler

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[endlessboomcapitalism]

On Tuesday, May 3, 2016 at 3:47:46 AM UTC-4, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> On 03/05/2016 00:51, endlessboomcapitalism@gmail.com wrote:
> > Like with all we know now......rewrite in ada?
> 
> What for? A poorly designed OS remains that in any language.
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> Dmitry A. Kazakov
> http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

is there something better in ada?
I can switch from freebsd today!

http://rmox.net/background.html like this?

amd64 pc here

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Andrew Shvets]

What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[J-P. Rosen]

Le 22/08/2016 à 02:18, Andrew Shvets a écrit :
> What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?
> 

VMS! :-)

-- 
J-P. Rosen
Adalog
2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX
Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00
http://www.adalog.fr

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 22/08/2016 07:01, J-P. Rosen wrote:
> Le 22/08/2016 à 02:18, Andrew Shvets a écrit :
>> What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?
>
> VMS! :-)

Yes, VMS was likely the best OS ever.

But designing a new OS I would consider doing it really new. No I/O, no 
files, only memory mapped persistent properly typed objects.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-22, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
> On 22/08/2016 07:01, J-P. Rosen wrote:
>> Le 22/08/2016 ?? 02:18, Andrew Shvets a ??crit :
>>> What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?
>>
>> VMS! :-)
>
> Yes, VMS was likely the best OS ever.

Close.. try another permutation of the same letters!

Hint: it's the oldest OS still in development and production, and processes
95% or more of the world's financial transactions.

> But designing a new OS I would consider doing it really new. No I/O, no 
> files, only memory mapped persistent properly typed objects.

The problem then is getting applications to run on it.

Bob

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[J-P. Rosen]

Le 22/08/2016 à 10:14, Dmitry A. Kazakov a écrit :
> But designing a new OS I would consider doing it really new. No I/O, no
> files, only memory mapped persistent properly typed objects.
Multics?

-- 
J-P. Rosen
Adalog
2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX
Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00
http://www.adalog.fr

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 22/08/2016 13:38, J-P. Rosen wrote:
> Le 22/08/2016 à 10:14, Dmitry A. Kazakov a écrit :
>> But designing a new OS I would consider doing it really new. No I/O, no
>> files, only memory mapped persistent properly typed objects.
> Multics?

I don't think Multics had typed persistent objects, especially 
user-defined ones. You cannot stull all possible types into the OS. It 
must be open-end.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[J-P. Rosen]

Le 22/08/2016 à 14:10, Dmitry A. Kazakov a écrit :
> On 22/08/2016 13:38, J-P. Rosen wrote:
>> Le 22/08/2016 à 10:14, Dmitry A. Kazakov a écrit :
>>> But designing a new OS I would consider doing it really new. No I/O, no
>>> files, only memory mapped persistent properly typed objects.
>> Multics?
> 
> I don't think Multics had typed persistent objects, especially
> user-defined ones. You cannot stull all possible types into the OS. It
> must be open-end.
> 
Multics had no files at all. All objects were stored in (virtual)
memory, organized in persistent "segments". (there was a command to list
the segments, hence called "ls"...)

Disclaimer: I heard a lot about multics, but never actually worked with it.

-- 
J-P. Rosen
Adalog
2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX
Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00
http://www.adalog.fr

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[rieachus]

On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 8:11:36 AM UTC-4, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> On 22/08/2016 13:38, J-P. Rosen wrote:
> > Le 22/08/2016 à 10:14, Dmitry A. Kazakov a écrit :
> >> But designing a new OS I would consider doing it really new. No I/O, no
> >> files, only memory mapped persistent properly typed objects.
> > Multics?
> 
> I don't think Multics had typed persistent objects, especially 
> user-defined ones. You cannot stull all possible types into the OS. It 
> must be open-end.

Um, technically, Multics had three types of files.  Boot tapes (yes the 1/2" wide tape on 12" or smaller spools), backup tapes (managed by Multics, if you deleted something you didn't mean to, go into the backup system and it should be there) and finally multi-segment files which were a way to combine segments when you needed more than a megabyte.  However, to most users all of this was irrelevant.

What is really relevant to this group is that Ada would not have existed without Multics (and e-mail).  The Ada language was developed on several Multics machines, and as a result all Ada developers knew the Multics way of thinking.  The most important thing (IMHO) that Ada got from Multics was the idea that the OS or compiler should do all the work of maintaining a consistent source tree.  I never got used to linkers, writing make files, etc.  (Multics did not require linking.  If you ran an executable, and it called another unit it would dynamically link it in. If it didn't exist?  Multics would tell you and allow you to write it, compile it, resume your program and it would use the unit you just created.)

Why wasn't there an Ada compiler for Multics?  At Honeywell Small Systems (and other names) where I worked we were tracking the development of Ada with a compiler that ran on Multics and generated code for DPS6 and other small systems.  The problem was that our compiler was intended as a systems development tool.  As a result it could ride roughshod over the OS.  Not only did it "know" how to access the OS internals, it was used to develop things like the e-mail system.  All OS internal calls could be made from within Ada/SIL (for systems implementation language).

We arranged for Dansk Datamatik to port their compiler to our system, and we validated it.  Large systems decided to also port the DDC compiler, but to GCOS-8, not Multics.  I never found out if they finished, but it was years late... 

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[John Smith]

On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 5:49:07 AM UTC-4, Bob Broderbund wrote:
> On 2016-08-22, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbo......kov.de> wrote:
> > On 22/08/2016 07:01, J-P. Rosen wrote:
> >> Le 22/08/2016 ?? 02:18, Andrew Shvets a ??crit :
> >>> What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?
> >>
> >> VMS! :-)
> >
> > Yes, VMS was likely the best OS ever.
> 
> Close.. try another permutation of the same letters!
> 
> Hint: it's the oldest OS still in development and production, and processes
> 95% or more of the world's financial transactions.
> 
> > But designing a new OS I would consider doing it really new. No I/O, no 
> > files, only memory mapped persistent properly typed objects.
> 
> The problem then is getting applications to run on it.
> 
> Bob

What's that?

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Shark8]

On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 5:50:22 PM UTC-6, John Smith wrote:
> On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 5:49:07 AM UTC-4, Bob Broderbund wrote:
> > On 2016-08-22, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbo......kov.de> wrote:
> > > On 22/08/2016 07:01, J-P. Rosen wrote:
> > >> Le 22/08/2016 ?? 02:18, Andrew Shvets a ??crit :
> > >>> What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?
> > >>
> > >> VMS! :-)
> > >
> > > Yes, VMS was likely the best OS ever.
> > 
> > Close.. try another permutation of the same letters!
> > 
> > Hint: it's the oldest OS still in development and production, and processes
> > 95% or more of the world's financial transactions.
> > 
> > > But designing a new OS I would consider doing it really new. No I/O, no 
> > > files, only memory mapped persistent properly typed objects.
> > 
> > The problem then is getting applications to run on it.
> > 
> > Bob
> 
> What's that?

MVS, maybe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MVS

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-23, Shark8 <onewingedshark@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 5:50:22 PM UTC-6, John Smith wrote:
>> On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 5:49:07 AM UTC-4, Bob Broderbund wrote:
>> > On 2016-08-22, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbo......kov.de> wrote:
>> > > On 22/08/2016 07:01, J-P. Rosen wrote:
>> > >> Le 22/08/2016 ?? 02:18, Andrew Shvets a ??crit :
>> > >>> What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?
>> > >>
>> > >> VMS! :-)
>> > >
>> > > Yes, VMS was likely the best OS ever.
>> > 
>> > Close.. try another permutation of the same letters!
>> > 
>> > Hint: it's the oldest OS still in development and production, and processes
>> > 95% or more of the world's financial transactions.
>> > 
>> > > But designing a new OS I would consider doing it really new. No I/O, no 
>> > > files, only memory mapped persistent properly typed objects.
>> > 
>> > The problem then is getting applications to run on it.
>> > 
>> > Bob
>> 
>> What's that?
>
> MVS, maybe.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MVS

We have a winner :-)

Bob

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

>>> > >>> What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?

And by the way I am a little surprised the people in here don't know about
MVS. MVS was one of the early general purpose computing systems that had
a good Ada compiler. A lot of things like Ada's tasking model and possibly
some of the storage management seem to have been based on MVS facilities.

Unfortunately I don't think there is anything past '95 available now that
Rational has been assimilated although I hope I'm wrong.

VMS is a good OS but it's far behind MVS and seems to be suffering from a
loss of (management) direction and not enough cash. It probably started
going downhill when it moved from being owned and managed end-to-end by one
company to today where it is spread across two companies for software and
another one or two for hardware.

IBM is still throwing a lot of money into z/OS and the hardware and it is
still a multibillion dollar ecosystem. I don't know what the safety critical
people use for hardware but if you have the money there isn't anything
better for safety critical than an OS that stays up 5 nines without the need
for clustering or much of anything at all on the administration side.

Bob

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 23/08/2016 10:43, Bob Broderbund wrote:

> And by the way I am a little surprised the people in here don't know about
> MVS.

Why, I worked on MVS. I just do not consider it any good, or the idea of 
virtual machine, for that matter (as compared to DEC's concept of 
virtual memory).

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[already5chosen]

On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 12:49:07 PM UTC+3, Bob Broderbund wrote:
> On 2016-08-22, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
> > On 22/08/2016 07:01, J-P. Rosen wrote:
> >> Le 22/08/2016 ?? 02:18, Andrew Shvets a ??crit :
> >>> What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?
> >>
> >> VMS! :-)
> >
> > Yes, VMS was likely the best OS ever.
> 
> Close.. try another permutation of the same letters!
> 
> Hint: it's the oldest OS still in development and production, and processes
> 95% or more of the world's financial transactions.
>

IBM MVS/zOS is ~42 y.o. It is certainly not the oldest OS still in development and production.
Here are just a few OSes that are older:
- Sperry Rand OS 2200
- Burroughs MCP
- IBM VM/CMS
- UNIX (current variants may have no code from 40+ y.o. original, but many APIs are still here).

95% figure with regard to transactions sounds very questionable. Most likely you made it up. Especially considering that there is no consensus definition for "financial transaction".

> > But designing a new OS I would consider doing it really new. No I/O, no 
> > files, only memory mapped persistent properly typed objects.
> 
> The problem then is getting applications to run on it.
> 
> Bob

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[already5chosen]

On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 12:48:41 PM UTC+3, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> On 23/08/2016 10:43, Bob Broderbund wrote:
> 
> > And by the way I am a little surprised the people in here don't know about
> > MVS.
> 
> Why, I worked on MVS. I just do not consider it any good, or the idea of 
> virtual machine, for that matter (as compared to DEC's concept of 
> virtual memory).
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> Dmitry A. Kazakov
> http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

According to my understanding, MVS/zOS has nothing to do with virtual machines, except that in practice it typically runs under hypervisor. But hypervisor is in no way a part of MVS.
V in the name  "MVS" is for "virtual storage" which is old IBM's term for virtual memory.

And yes, IBM had virtual memory working several years before VMS, but probably not before few (non-DEC) researchers managed to bolt it on top of DEC PDP-10.
Anyway, according to Wikipedia, both DEC and IBM were late to commercial virtual memory, 5-10 years behind Burroughs B5000.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Shark8]

On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 6:51:32 AM UTC-6, already...@yahoo.com wrote:
> 95% figure with regard to transactions sounds very questionable. Most likely you made it up. Especially considering that there is no consensus definition for "financial transaction".

I don't know; there's a reason that the banks and insurance companies still use COBOL -- if the numbers that the late Mr. Dewar gave in this video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yXwnk8Cr0c ) are still correct then it's quite possible that they're using MVS/zOS. (I read somewhere that mainframe sails are essentially constant and the only reason that they've been [incorrectly] characterized as dying away is because those people are looking at percent of "market-share" [even though it's ridiculous to classify the chip in a cellphone as in the same market as a high-end server].)

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

On 8/23/2016 3:43 AM, Bob Broderbund wrote:

> VMS is a good OS but it's far behind MVS and seems to be suffering from a
> loss of (management) direction and not enough cash. It probably started
> going downhill when it moved from being owned and managed end-to-end by one
> company to today where it is spread across two companies for software and
> another one or two for hardware.
>

btw,  It is possible now to run VMS on a PC (X86). There
is A.V.T company that specializes in this using
VirtualBox. I have not tried it

http://www.avtware.com/vms-tru64

"OpenVMS and Tru64 Support
OpenVMS logo vtAlpha and vtVAX virtualize the
Alpha or VAX hardware interface inside a x86 host system. As such,
they are able to run the same OpenVMS or Tru64 versions that were
supported by the original Alpha/VAX hardware."

So one does not need a VAX or Alpha hardware to run VMS now,
which is nice.

--Nasser

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 24/08/2016 06:12, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> On 8/23/2016 3:43 AM, Bob Broderbund wrote:
>
>> VMS is a good OS but it's far behind MVS and seems to be suffering from a
>> loss of (management) direction and not enough cash. It probably started
>> going downhill when it moved from being owned and managed end-to-end by one
>> company to today where it is spread across two companies for software and
>> another one or two for hardware.
>
> btw,  It is possible now to run VMS on a PC (X86). There
> is A.V.T company that specializes in this using
> VirtualBox. I have not tried it
>
> http://www.avtware.com/vms-tru64

Do they support DEC Ada?

VMS was not only the best ever OS. It also had the best ever C, FORTRAN 
and Ada 83 compilers.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[already5chosen]

On Wednesday, August 24, 2016 at 7:12:44 AM UTC+3, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> On 8/23/2016 3:43 AM, Bob Broderbund wrote:
> 
> > VMS is a good OS but it's far behind MVS and seems to be suffering from a
> > loss of (management) direction and not enough cash. It probably started
> > going downhill when it moved from being owned and managed end-to-end by one
> > company to today where it is spread across two companies for software and
> > another one or two for hardware.
> >
> 
> btw,  It is possible now to run VMS on a PC (X86). There
> is A.V.T company that specializes in this using
> VirtualBox. I have not tried it
> 
> http://www.avtware.com/vms-tru64
> 
> "OpenVMS and Tru64 Support
> OpenVMS logo vtAlpha and vtVAX virtualize the
> Alpha or VAX hardware interface inside a x86 host system. As such,
> they are able to run the same OpenVMS or Tru64 versions that were
> supported by the original Alpha/VAX hardware."
> 
> So one does not need a VAX or Alpha hardware to run VMS now,
> which is nice.
> 
> --Nasser

I see nothing new here relatively to what was available for decades, both in commercial/supported form (Stromasys Charon-Vax and Charon-AXP) and in free/unsupported SIMH.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[already5chosen]

On Wednesday, August 24, 2016 at 10:27:43 AM UTC+3, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> On 24/08/2016 06:12, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> > On 8/23/2016 3:43 AM, Bob Broderbund wrote:
> >
> >> VMS is a good OS but it's far behind MVS and seems to be suffering from a
> >> loss of (management) direction and not enough cash. It probably started
> >> going downhill when it moved from being owned and managed end-to-end by one
> >> company to today where it is spread across two companies for software and
> >> another one or two for hardware.
> >
> > btw,  It is possible now to run VMS on a PC (X86). There
> > is A.V.T company that specializes in this using
> > VirtualBox. I have not tried it
> >
> > http://www.avtware.com/vms-tru64
> 
> Do they support DEC Ada?

They emulate hardware. A software is up to you.

> 
> VMS was not only the best ever OS. It also had the best ever C, FORTRAN 
> and Ada 83 compilers.
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> Dmitry A. Kazakov
> http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Few years ago I used Ada-83 on old VMS version (5.1) running on Charon-VAX. It works, but I don't see how it is better than Gnat. My programs were rather trivial command-line utilities so it's possible that I am missing something.

Praising DEC C is strange. I think, even majority of die-hard VMSers would agree that it's not as good as just about any C compiler in wide use today,

As to Fortran, I never used it, but heard good things about it.
However it does not support modern variants of the language, which looks to me as a fatal flow.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Maciej Sobczak]

> > 95% figure with regard to transactions sounds very questionable. Most likely you made it up.
> 
> I don't know; there's a reason that the banks and insurance companies still use COBOL

Which banks?

The statistics about COBOL where made in 80's and were gathered in institutions and contracting companies in US at that time. Let's suppose that the 95% number was true in *that* context.

Now, move forward 3 decades. Those banks that were operating 30 years ago in US and are still alive very likely still use the old stuff, but this says nothing about all new banks that popped up since then, all new contracting companies that were created since then, and all whole new markets that popped up everywhere in the world, *outside of US*.

Personally, I was involved in three different systems of the "financial" category (one insurance, two trading) and the insurance company was *replacing* their old COBOL system with a new one, while the trading companies are young and do not even have any COBOL stuff to replace. I presume that my experience is not unique.

Today, everybody is blindly repeating the old statistics from that narrow old context like a universal truth. Everybody is sure that finance is done in COBOL, but I've never actually met anybody who has seen a single line of it (that of course does not mean it does not exist - but certainly shows that the market has moved a bit). Today it sounds more like an urban legend than a valid statistics.

That number today might as well be 5% instead of 95%.

> I read somewhere that mainframe sails are essentially constant

You mean - the few old US banks are periodically replacing their aging hardware, but there are no new installations and that's why the sales are constant? Sounds very reasonable.
Then it's rather 5% today.

-- 
Maciej Sobczak * http://www.inspirel.com

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Vincent]

Le mercredi 24 août 2016 09:27:43 UTC+2, Dmitry A. Kazakov a écrit :
> On 24/08/2016 06:12, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> > On 8/23/2016 3:43 AM, Bob Broderbund wrote:
> >
> >> VMS is a good OS but it's far behind MVS and seems to be suffering from a
> >> loss of (management) direction and not enough cash. It probably started
> >> going downhill when it moved from being owned and managed end-to-end by one
> >> company to today where it is spread across two companies for software and
> >> another one or two for hardware.
> >
> > btw,  It is possible now to run VMS on a PC (X86). There
> > is A.V.T company that specializes in this using
> > VirtualBox. I have not tried it
> >
> > http://www.avtware.com/vms-tru64
> 
> Do they support DEC Ada?
> 
> VMS was not only the best ever OS. It also had the best ever C, FORTRAN 
> and Ada 83 compilers.
> 

And do thing it would be possible to create a light version of OpenVMS in Ada for X86 ? Something like Linux, or its ancestor Minix, are for Unix ? What would be the gain compared to a Linux kernel ? What would prevent us for doing it ?

Regards,

Vincent

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 23:12:43 -0500, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org>
declaimed the following:

>So one does not need a VAX or Alpha hardware to run VMS now,
>which is nice.
>
	It's been run on a Raspberry-Pi -- in a two node VAXCluster yet!

http://www.rs-online.com/designspark/electronics/blog/a-raspberry-pi-vax-cluster
-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-24, Nasser M. Abbasi <nma@12000.org> wrote:
> On 8/23/2016 3:43 AM, Bob Broderbund wrote:
>
>> VMS is a good OS but it's far behind MVS and seems to be suffering from a
>> loss of (management) direction and not enough cash. It probably started
>> going downhill when it moved from being owned and managed end-to-end by one
>> company to today where it is spread across two companies for software and
>> another one or two for hardware.
>>
>
> btw,  It is possible now to run VMS on a PC (X86). There
> is A.V.T company that specializes in this using
> VirtualBox. I have not tried it

A company called VSI has some kind of arrangement with HP and is porting VMS
to x86. Eventually you will supposedly be able to run it natively.

> So one does not need a VAX or Alpha hardware to run VMS now,
> which is nice.

SIMH runs OpenVMS VAX rather nicely and is free in the best sense of the
word.

Bob

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-24, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
> On 24/08/2016 06:12, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
>> On 8/23/2016 3:43 AM, Bob Broderbund wrote:
>>
>>> VMS is a good OS but it's far behind MVS and seems to be suffering from a
>>> loss of (management) direction and not enough cash. It probably started
>>> going downhill when it moved from being owned and managed end-to-end by one
>>> company to today where it is spread across two companies for software and
>>> another one or two for hardware.
>>
>> btw,  It is possible now to run VMS on a PC (X86). There
>> is A.V.T company that specializes in this using
>> VirtualBox. I have not tried it
>>
>> http://www.avtware.com/vms-tru64
>
> Do they support DEC Ada?

OpenVMS VAX supports DEC Ada. But there is nothing newer than '83
available. It is not clear whether there will be Ada again on VMS but there
is a rumor Adacore may offer their product after VMS is ported to Intel.

> VMS was not only the best ever OS.

Saying something false over and over again won't make it true.

> It also had the best ever C

I think even the authors of C on VMS wouldn't agree with that! You could ask
in comp.os.vms. I'm pretty sure you'll be surprised at the answer, based on
your comments and my reading of fairly current discussions over there. Some
of the original guys are present.

> FORTRAN 

FORTRAN 77 _maybe_

What is great about all the VMS compilers is the common interface to systems
services. BASIC on VMS is as intrinsically powerful as any other language on
VMS. Yet, I think IBM's FORTRAN IV was certainly better than any other
FORTRAN '66 or IV compiler (including DECs) and IBM's VS FORTRAN (77) is
also certainly good. It's not clear DEC's FORTRAN 77 was better except in
the context of VMS where it had more interface, easily. You could accomplish
the same sort of thing with IBM's VS FORTRAN although you would need to do
it in assembler. DEC's Fortran kept up until F95. There is nothing newer and
it is not clear there will be although the Intel port makes it much easier
to hope. IBM has probably the best Fortran compiler around today in terms of
compliance and standards adoption, but only for POWER architecture as far as
I know.

> and Ada 83 compilers.

It was certainly very good but arguably not the best.

Bob

>

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-24, already5chosen@yahoo.com <already5chosen@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I see nothing new here relatively to what was available for decades, both
>  in commercial/supported form (Stromasys Charon-Vax and Charon-AXP) and in
>  free/unsupported SIMH. 

It's not really correct to say SIMH is unsupported. A lot of issues that
arise in SIMH are fixed very quickly and they have enough talent (including
the one of the original DEC engineers who has microcode) to do
anything. That is not necessarily true of the for-sale versions.

Bob

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-23, already5chosen@yahoo.com <already5chosen@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 12:49:07 PM UTC+3, Bob Broderbund wrote:
>> On 2016-08-22, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
>> > On 22/08/2016 07:01, J-P. Rosen wrote:
>> >> Le 22/08/2016 ?? 02:18, Andrew Shvets a ??crit :
>> >>> What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?
>> >>
>> >> VMS! :-)
>> >
>> > Yes, VMS was likely the best OS ever.
>> 
>> Close.. try another permutation of the same letters!
>> 
>> Hint: it's the oldest OS still in development and production, and processes
>> 95% or more of the world's financial transactions.
>>
>
> IBM MVS/zOS is ~42 y.o. It is certainly not the oldest OS still in
> development and production.

MVS started in 1964. That's 52 years, not 42. Bad day to play hooky from
math class?

> - IBM VM/CMS

No.

> - UNIX (current variants may have no code from 40+ y.o. original, but many
>    APIs are still here).

No. You really have no understanding of computing history. At all.

> 95% figure with regard to transactions sounds very questionable. Most
>likely you made it up. Especially considering that there is no consensus
>definition for "financial transaction". 

There is a consensus and the figure I quoted was conservative. It's
generally agreed to be in the high nineties.

Bob

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[already5chosen]

On Wednesday, August 24, 2016 at 6:15:09 PM UTC+3, Bob Broderbund wrote:
> On 2016-08-23, already5chosen@yahoo.com <already5chosen@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 12:49:07 PM UTC+3, Bob Broderbund wrote:
> >> On 2016-08-22, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
> >> > On 22/08/2016 07:01, J-P. Rosen wrote:
> >> >> Le 22/08/2016 ?? 02:18, Andrew Shvets a ??crit :
> >> >>> What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?
> >> >>
> >> >> VMS! :-)
> >> >
> >> > Yes, VMS was likely the best OS ever.
> >> 
> >> Close.. try another permutation of the same letters!
> >> 
> >> Hint: it's the oldest OS still in development and production, and processes
> >> 95% or more of the world's financial transactions.
> >>
> >
> > IBM MVS/zOS is ~42 y.o. It is certainly not the oldest OS still in
> > development and production.
> 
> MVS started in 1964. That's 52 years, not 42. Bad day to play hooky from
> math class?

No, you had a bad day in history class.
MVS first shipped in 1974 as OS/VS2 Release 2.

> 
> > - IBM VM/CMS
> 
> No.

Yes.

> 
> > - UNIX (current variants may have no code from 40+ y.o. original, but many
> >    APIs are still here).
> 
> No. You really have no understanding of computing history. At all.

I do. You don't.

> 
> > 95% figure with regard to transactions sounds very questionable. Most
> >likely you made it up. Especially considering that there is no consensus
> >definition for "financial transaction". 
> 
> There is a consensus and the figure I quoted was conservative. It's
> generally agreed to be in the high nineties.
> 
> Bob

You can believe whatever you want. I don't have to share your belief until you bring some proof.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-24, already5chosen@yahoo.com <already5chosen@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 24, 2016 at 6:15:09 PM UTC+3, Bob Broderbund wrote:
>> On 2016-08-23, already5chosen@yahoo.com <already5chosen@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> > On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 12:49:07 PM UTC+3, Bob Broderbund wrote:
>> >> On 2016-08-22, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
>> >> > On 22/08/2016 07:01, J-P. Rosen wrote:
>> >> >> Le 22/08/2016 ?? 02:18, Andrew Shvets a ??crit :
>> >> >>> What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?
>> >> >>
>> >> >> VMS! :-)
>> >> >
>> >> > Yes, VMS was likely the best OS ever.
>> >> 
>> >> Close.. try another permutation of the same letters!
>> >> 
>> >> Hint: it's the oldest OS still in development and production, and processes
>> >> 95% or more of the world's financial transactions.
>> >>
>> >
>> > IBM MVS/zOS is ~42 y.o. It is certainly not the oldest OS still in
>> > development and production.
>> 
>> MVS started in 1964. That's 52 years, not 42. Bad day to play hooky from
>> math class?
>
> No, you had a bad day in history class.
> MVS first shipped in 1974 as OS/VS2 Release 2.

Oh, I see. You want to play word games.

OS/360 developed into MVS which developed into MVS/XA which developed into
MVS/ESA which developed into OS/390 which developed into z/OS. It's the
evolution of the same OS, it's all upward compatible. It's so upward
compatible you can run object code from OS/360 on today's latest version of
z/OS.

Since you failed your computer history class you didn't know that MVS people
use MVS as a generic name for _all_ these OSs unless we have a reason not
to. Most of the time we just call it MVS. So does IBM.

Bob, who started working on MVS in 1975 after MVS was already 11 years old.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[already5chosen]

On Wednesday, August 24, 2016 at 6:53:19 PM UTC+3, Bob Broderbund wrote:
> On 2016-08-24, already5chosen@yahoo.com <already5chosen@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On Wednesday, August 24, 2016 at 6:15:09 PM UTC+3, Bob Broderbund wrote:
> >> On 2016-08-23, already5chosen@yahoo.com <already5chosen@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> > On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 12:49:07 PM UTC+3, Bob Broderbund wrote:
> >> >> On 2016-08-22, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
> >> >> > On 22/08/2016 07:01, J-P. Rosen wrote:
> >> >> >> Le 22/08/2016 ?? 02:18, Andrew Shvets a ??crit :
> >> >> >>> What would you consider to be a well designed operating system?
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> VMS! :-)
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Yes, VMS was likely the best OS ever.
> >> >> 
> >> >> Close.. try another permutation of the same letters!
> >> >> 
> >> >> Hint: it's the oldest OS still in development and production, and processes
> >> >> 95% or more of the world's financial transactions.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > IBM MVS/zOS is ~42 y.o. It is certainly not the oldest OS still in
> >> > development and production.
> >> 
> >> MVS started in 1964. That's 52 years, not 42. Bad day to play hooky from
> >> math class?
> >
> > No, you had a bad day in history class.
> > MVS first shipped in 1974 as OS/VS2 Release 2.
> 
> Oh, I see. You want to play word games.
>

It's not word games. I fully recognize that "OS/VS2 Release 2" *was* a MVS despite not being called so. But "OS/VS2 Release 1" is not a MVS, because it lacks a main feature of MVS - multiple virtual address spaces.

> OS/360 developed into MVS which developed into MVS/XA which developed into
> MVS/ESA which developed into OS/390 which developed into z/OS. It's the
> evolution of the same OS, it's all upward compatible. It's so upward
> compatible you can run object code from OS/360 on today's latest version of
> z/OS.
> 
> Since you failed your computer history class you didn't know that MVS people
> use MVS as a generic name for _all_ these OSs unless we have a reason not
> to. Most of the time we just call it MVS. So does IBM.
> 
> Bob, who started working on MVS in 1975 after MVS was already 11 years old.

Well, I can't compete with you here, back in 1975 I wasn't 11 years old myself.
But calling OS/360 versions before "VS2 Release 1" a MVS is plain wrong. That's like, bringing analogy from DEC world, to refer to RSX-11 as VMS.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Qun-Ying]

Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

> Do they support DEC Ada?
>
> VMS was not only the best ever OS. It also had the best ever C, FORTRAN
> and Ada 83 compilers.
>
I think no. I have a hobby license to running OpenVMS on Simh (as a 
Vax), the contact person from HP said I have all the necessary licenses 
to run DEC Ada, but it is not longer support and offer from HP, unless I 
could find one has a copy, I am out of luck for such a compiler. And it 
is only Ada 83.

GNAT has support for OpenVMS:
http://www.adacore.com/press/gnat-pro-now-available-for-hp-openvms-on-hp-integrity-servers/

Not sure if FSF GNAT could be cross compiled into VAX OpenVMS.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

On 08/24/2016 10:40 AM, Qun-Ying wrote:
> 
> GNAT has support for OpenVMS:
> http://www.adacore.com/press/gnat-pro-now-available-for-hp-openvms-on-hp-integrity-servers/
> 
> 
> Not sure if FSF GNAT could be cross compiled into VAX OpenVMS.

DEC contracted with AdaCore (then ACT) to provide the DEC Ada-95 compiler. This
is why GNAT recognizes all the DEC Ada(-83) pragmas, such as Passive.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"He had no conception of the instrument. He
was blowing into it."
Take the Money and Run
135

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[rieachus]

Most client side financial software today is written in SQL.  The server side software is usually written in PL/SQL.  If something looks very familiar about PL/SQL it should.  The original PL/SQL syntax and semantics was created by adding SQL statements to Ada.  The languages have diverged:  Oracle added a lot of features necessary for relational database support, and did not track or attempt to integrate Ada 95 at all.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Wed, 24 Aug 2016 15:10:07 +0000 (UTC), Bob Broderbund
<bbroderbund@broderbund.com> declaimed the following:

>What is great about all the VMS compilers is the common interface to systems
>services. BASIC on VMS is as intrinsically powerful as any other language on
>VMS. Yet, I think IBM's FORTRAN IV was certainly better than any other
>FORTRAN '66 or IV compiler (including DECs) and IBM's VS FORTRAN (77) is
>also certainly good. It's not clear DEC's FORTRAN 77 was better except in
>the context of VMS where it had more interface, easily. You could accomplish
>the same sort of thing with IBM's VS FORTRAN although you would need to do
>it in assembler. DEC's Fortran kept up until F95. There is nothing newer and

	Many moons ago, I got tasked with speeding up an application reading
mag-tape. The original port to VMS F77 ran noticeably slower than the
original PDP-11 code (Macro-11 I suspect).

	What I concluded was that the use of FORTRAN I/O on the tape was the
bottleneck -- since FORTRAN I/O is natively blocking.

	Without hitting assembly, VMS F77 allowed me to patch in a
double-buffered queued I/O function on the tape-drive OPEN() call, leaving
all the rest of the application untouched. Made for a /major/ speed-up as
the application no longer was waiting for tape I/O at each read. Instead
the tape was being read "in advance" into a second buffer while the other
buffer was being processed.

	VMS was a very nice OS -- especially for IPC (mailboxes being capable
of sharing; not like the socket interface which is mainly 1-to-1). The only
other OS I've seen that supported IPC of a similar nature had the minor
flaw that it was a global memory system [no protected memory]: AmigaOS
message ports.

	VMS ASTs and Event Flags made for very easy asynchronous I/O
processing.
-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Niklas Holsti]

On 16-08-25 03:20 , Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
> 	VMS was a very nice OS -- especially for IPC (mailboxes being capable
> of sharing; not like the socket interface which is mainly 1-to-1). The only
> other OS I've seen that supported IPC of a similar nature had the minor
> flaw that it was a global memory system [no protected memory]: AmigaOS
> message ports.

Did you compare with the "System V IPC" mechanisms, available in many 
Unices, including Linux? http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/svipc.7.html

The Sys V message-queues are sharable mailboxes, I believe.

-- 
Niklas Holsti
Tidorum Ltd
niklas holsti tidorum fi
       .      @       .

VMS and C/Ada, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2016-08-24, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
> On 2016-08-24, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
>>
>> Do they support DEC Ada?
>
> OpenVMS VAX supports DEC Ada. But there is nothing newer than '83
> available. It is not clear whether there will be Ada again on VMS but there
> is a rumor Adacore may offer their product after VMS is ported to Intel.
>

The last time I raised the GNAT on VMS x86-64 issue in comp.os.vms,
VSI said the issue was complicated and was still under discussion.
I have not heard anything else since that.

>> VMS was not only the best ever OS.
>
> Saying something false over and over again won't make it true.
>
>> It also had the best ever C
>
> I think even the authors of C on VMS wouldn't agree with that! You could ask
> in comp.os.vms. I'm pretty sure you'll be surprised at the answer, based on
> your comments and my reading of fairly current discussions over there. Some
> of the original guys are present.
>

There are two C compilers for VMS; the original VAX C compiler and the
later DEC C one. I would question the sanity of anyone who said VAX C
was a decent compiler (especially by today's standards), let alone the
"best" one. :-)

DEC C is better than VAX C, but nothing to get excited about.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2016-08-24, Jeffrey R. Carter <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.not.acm.org> wrote:
> On 08/24/2016 10:40 AM, Qun-Ying wrote:
>> 
>> GNAT has support for OpenVMS:
>> http://www.adacore.com/press/gnat-pro-now-available-for-hp-openvms-on-hp-integrity-servers/
>> 
>> 
>> Not sure if FSF GNAT could be cross compiled into VAX OpenVMS.
>
> DEC contracted with AdaCore (then ACT) to provide the DEC Ada-95 compiler. This
> is why GNAT recognizes all the DEC Ada(-83) pragmas, such as Passive.
>

That doesn't mean all the required bits have shown up in the FSF version
of the GCC codebase (don't forget AdaCore maintain their own codebase).

I've tried to build the FSF GCC for a VMS Alpha target and the attempts
failed both times I tried it. (The last attempt was with gcc 4.9.x).

You start with a Linux hosted gcc/binutils cross compiler toolchain
with a VMS target (so it produces VMS executables that can be directly
run on VMS.) The idea AFAICS is that you then use these executables to
build the compiler in native mode on VMS itself, but I never got that
far.

I was able to use the cross compiler to build some C programs which ran
on VMS, but Fortran code fell over at runtime either during the image
activation process or very shortly afterwards (I can't remember which).

Both the C++ and Ada frontends failed to build when building the
cross compiler (GNAT fell over with an ICE during the build and C++ was
some header problem IIRC).

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

[OT] VSI and VMS, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2016-08-24, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>
> A company called VSI has some kind of arrangement with HP and is porting VMS
> to x86. Eventually you will supposedly be able to run it natively.
>

VSI are planning to run VMS within a hypervisor on x86-64 as well as
allowing it to run on the bare metal x86-64 machine.

VSI also have VMS running on some IA64 hardware which wasn't supported
by HP for VMS. That's for the existing customers which need to run
VMS on IA64 of course and on IA64 boxes not supported by HP. I've not
used VMS on IA64 so I don't know the fine details of that.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

[OT] VMS, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2016-08-23, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>
> VMS is a good OS but it's far behind MVS and seems to be suffering from a
> loss of (management) direction and not enough cash.

That latter bit is putting it mildly. :-(

> It probably started
> going downhill when it moved from being owned and managed end-to-end by one
> company to today where it is spread across two companies for software and
> another one or two for hardware.
>

HP still supply hardware and software support for VMS running on HP
supported hardware. The VSI effort is a recent effort (relatively
speaking) and is targeted to completely new platforms for VMS; it has
absolutely nothing to do with the decline of VMS within HP.

The lack of investment in VMS within HP has been going on for at least
a decade and the impression I have as a former HP VMS customer is that
HP were doing the minimum needed in terms of investment to keep VMS
somewhat alive (for various values of somewhat).

For example, around 2010 (+/- a year or so) HP got rid of VMS engineering
(along with the VMS engineering staff) within the US and replaced it with
some HP India based operation. Some of the former VMS engineering staff
are now working at VSI.

> IBM is still throwing a lot of money into z/OS and the hardware and it is
> still a multibillion dollar ecosystem. I don't know what the safety critical
> people use for hardware but if you have the money there isn't anything
> better for safety critical than an OS that stays up 5 nines without the need
> for clustering or much of anything at all on the administration side.
>

It would be nice if you could run z/OS on Hercules under a VMS style
hobbyist program. Might be an interesting OS to play with.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

Re: VMS and C/Ada, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Simon Wright]

Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:

> There are two C compilers for VMS; the original VAX C compiler and the
> later DEC C one.

There _was_ another, viz. GCC (VAX VMS, anyway). I didn't fancy the
battle to get my employer to shell out for either.

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
> On 2016-08-24, Jeffrey R. Carter <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.not.acm.org> wrote:
>> On 08/24/2016 10:40 AM, Qun-Ying wrote:
>>> 
>>> GNAT has support for OpenVMS:
>>> http://www.adacore.com/press/gnat-pro-now-available-for-hp-openvms-on-hp-integrity-servers/
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Not sure if FSF GNAT could be cross compiled into VAX OpenVMS.
>>
>> DEC contracted with AdaCore (then ACT) to provide the DEC Ada-95 compiler. This
>> is why GNAT recognizes all the DEC Ada(-83) pragmas, such as Passive.
>>
>
> That doesn't mean all the required bits have shown up in the FSF version
> of the GCC codebase (don't forget AdaCore maintain their own codebase).

I think Mr. Carter probably knows the history pretty well ;-)

But I don't think Adacore has much interest in non-Windows or non-Linux
platforms in the native target space. They got rid of their Solaris builds
over the years. Still, I remember a rumor that there is something going on
for the VMS Intel port at Adacore and it makes sense. It should not be that
difficult to port the Linux version to VMS _if_ a current gcc toolchain is
available. If VMS goes all the way with Clang/LLVM and doesn't get an up to
date gcc going it will be a lot harder.

> I was able to use the cross compiler to build some C programs which ran
> on VMS, but Fortran code fell over at runtime either during the image
> activation process or very shortly afterwards (I can't remember which).

If you post the results maybe I could help, or some of the guys in
c.l.f. would help. I'm a little surprised anyway. I though the front-end was
completely Ada and the back end was C/C++. I did not know there was any
Fortran involved in gnat.

> Both the C++ and Ada frontends failed to build when building the
> cross compiler (GNAT fell over with an ICE during the build and C++ was
> some header problem IIRC).

I suspect a current gcc on VMS is going to be essential. Much code that uses
gcc exploits every last gccism and does so increasingly all the time.

Bob

Re: [OT] VSI and VMS, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
> On 2016-08-24, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>>
>> A company called VSI has some kind of arrangement with HP and is porting VMS
>> to x86. Eventually you will supposedly be able to run it natively.
>>
>
> VSI are planning to run VMS within a hypervisor on x86-64 as well as
> allowing it to run on the bare metal x86-64 machine.

I can't think of a whole lot of OS that run on Intel natively that won't run
in a VM. Can you? ;-)

I understand they want to get it running in a VM for development
purposes. Having it run _only_ in a VM doesn't sound like it would be a
great idea for sales...

Bob

Re: [OT] VMS, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
> On 2016-08-23, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>>
>> VMS is a good OS but it's far behind MVS and seems to be suffering from a
>> loss of (management) direction and not enough cash.
>
> That latter bit is putting it mildly. :-(
>
>> It probably started
>> going downhill when it moved from being owned and managed end-to-end by one
>> company to today where it is spread across two companies for software and
>> another one or two for hardware.
>>
>
> HP still supply hardware and software support for VMS running on HP
> supported hardware. 

That's not really what I meant. What I meant was I think VMS's best days
were when it was totally controlled by one company _and_ had bespoke
hardware to run on. True, HP does own the kit and kaboodle but Itanic wasn't
designed to run VMS. It's just another monstrosity that VMS happened to be
ported to. There is a big difference.

> The VSI effort is a recent effort (relatively speaking) and is targeted to
> completely new platforms for VMS; it has absolutely nothing to do with the
> decline of VMS within HP.

Is that true? If HP wasn't letting VMS die a slow death then where's the
business case for VSI? I would argue it is exactly the decline of VMS within
HP that made VSI possible and necessary.

> The lack of investment in VMS within HP has been going on for at least
> a decade and the impression I have as a former HP VMS customer is that
> HP were doing the minimum needed in terms of investment to keep VMS
> somewhat alive (for various values of somewhat).

See above!

>> IBM is still throwing a lot of money into z/OS and the hardware and it is
>> still a multibillion dollar ecosystem. I don't know what the safety critical
>> people use for hardware but if you have the money there isn't anything
>> better for safety critical than an OS that stays up 5 nines without the need
>> for clustering or much of anything at all on the administration side.
>>
>
> It would be nice if you could run z/OS on Hercules under a VMS style
> hobbyist program. Might be an interesting OS to play with.

That's a very sore spot indeed. But z/OS is not practical for a desktop user
like VMS could be. But it is a wonderful OS. A hobbyist program would be
good for enabling small developers to be able to write products for
z/OS. I'm not sure anybody else would have much use for it. I'm really not
sure why IBM won't allow it or support it aggressively. It ought to be good
for everybody. But this is an old problem and IBM is not changing their
position. They don't go after little guys who happen to have a copy of z/OS
but if somebody makes themselves annoying IBM will buy them out or sue them
out of existence. They even did it to one of their own business partners!
Anybody remember Flex systems or whatever it was called? Now they have rd/Z
and that is the "official" way to do this. I don't think it's hugely
expensive but I don't remember if it allows you to do all you can with
Hercules.

There is another problem though. Hercules has been plagued by internal
strife and development has forked a few times and nobody is talking to
anybody else. IBM has been putting out new hardware faster than Hercules can
keep up with and they're also encrypting some of the system images. I
suspect in a short time Hercules will no longer be able to run z/OS at all.

Bob

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2016-08-28, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
> On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>> On 2016-08-24, Jeffrey R. Carter <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.not.acm.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> DEC contracted with AdaCore (then ACT) to provide the DEC Ada-95 compiler. This
>>> is why GNAT recognizes all the DEC Ada(-83) pragmas, such as Passive.
>>>
>>
>> That doesn't mean all the required bits have shown up in the FSF version
>> of the GCC codebase (don't forget AdaCore maintain their own codebase).
>
> I think Mr. Carter probably knows the history pretty well ;-)
>
> But I don't think Adacore has much interest in non-Windows or non-Linux
> platforms in the native target space. They got rid of their Solaris builds
> over the years. Still, I remember a rumor that there is something going on
> for the VMS Intel port at Adacore and it makes sense. It should not be that
> difficult to port the Linux version to VMS _if_ a current gcc toolchain is
> available. If VMS goes all the way with Clang/LLVM and doesn't get an up to
> date gcc going it will be a lot harder.
>

I have the feeling (but no firm information) that VSI are looking at the
same model that DEC used when DEC contracted AdaCore to supply an Ada 95
compiler for VMS Alpha.

IOW, if true, AdaCore would do the port of gcc to VMS x86-64 while VSI
continued with their own compiler toolchain for the other languages.
This would match what happened with VMS Alpha with DEC using their own
compiler technology for the other DEC supplied VMS Alpha compilers.

>> I was able to use the cross compiler to build some C programs which ran
>> on VMS, but Fortran code fell over at runtime either during the image
>> activation process or very shortly afterwards (I can't remember which).
>
> If you post the results maybe I could help, or some of the guys in
> c.l.f. would help. I'm a little surprised anyway. I though the front-end was
> completely Ada and the back end was C/C++. I did not know there was any
> Fortran involved in gnat.
>

The front end is purely Ada, and there is no Fortran code in GNAT. When
I tried to build the FSF GCC cross compiler on Linux I added multiple
front ends (Ada, Fortran, C, C++) to the --enable-languages option before
reducing the list when the various front ends started falling over.

Thanks for the offer BTW, but Fortran was a very low priority goal which
I didn't spend any real time on when I tried this and things went wrong.
My last attempt to build a VMS cross compiler is now getting on for a
couple of years ago so I have moved into other projects now.

>> Both the C++ and Ada frontends failed to build when building the
>> cross compiler (GNAT fell over with an ICE during the build and C++ was
>> some header problem IIRC).
>
> I suspect a current gcc on VMS is going to be essential. Much code that uses
> gcc exploits every last gccism and does so increasingly all the time.
>

This was using the latest versions of gcc at the time. The problem here
_appeared_ to be that not all the required bits to build gcc for a VMS
target had been pushed from the AdaCore code base to the FSF code base.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

Re: [OT] VSI and VMS, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2016-08-28, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
> On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>> On 2016-08-24, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> A company called VSI has some kind of arrangement with HP and is porting VMS
>>> to x86. Eventually you will supposedly be able to run it natively.
>>>
>>
>> VSI are planning to run VMS within a hypervisor on x86-64 as well as
>> allowing it to run on the bare metal x86-64 machine.
>
> I can't think of a whole lot of OS that run on Intel natively that won't run
> in a VM. Can you? ;-)
>

According to the VSI engineers one advantage of the VM approach is that
it brings along a known environment when it comes to writing device
drivers.

> I understand they want to get it running in a VM for development
> purposes. Having it run _only_ in a VM doesn't sound like it would be a
> great idea for sales...
>

While I strongly agree that VMS needs to run on bare metal x86-64,
apparently running OS instances within a VM is way more popular than
you might think when it comes to a typical large data centre environment
so having VMS supported within a VM environment is apparently a
positive selling point...

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
> On 2016-08-28, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>> On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>> On 2016-08-24, Jeffrey R. Carter <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.not.acm.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> DEC contracted with AdaCore (then ACT) to provide the DEC Ada-95 compiler. This
>>>> is why GNAT recognizes all the DEC Ada(-83) pragmas, such as Passive.
>>>>
>>>
>>> That doesn't mean all the required bits have shown up in the FSF version
>>> of the GCC codebase (don't forget AdaCore maintain their own codebase).
>>
>> I think Mr. Carter probably knows the history pretty well ;-)
>>
>> But I don't think Adacore has much interest in non-Windows or non-Linux
>> platforms in the native target space. They got rid of their Solaris builds
>> over the years. Still, I remember a rumor that there is something going on
>> for the VMS Intel port at Adacore and it makes sense. It should not be that
>> difficult to port the Linux version to VMS _if_ a current gcc toolchain is
>> available. If VMS goes all the way with Clang/LLVM and doesn't get an up to
>> date gcc going it will be a lot harder.
>>
>
> I have the feeling (but no firm information) that VSI are looking at the
> same model that DEC used when DEC contracted AdaCore to supply an Ada 95
> compiler for VMS Alpha.
>
> IOW, if true, AdaCore would do the port of gcc to VMS x86-64 while VSI
> continued with their own compiler toolchain for the other languages.
> This would match what happened with VMS Alpha with DEC using their own
> compiler technology for the other DEC supplied VMS Alpha compilers.

Sure. As long as VSI has hardened the ABI there is no reason that couldn't
work.

>>> I was able to use the cross compiler to build some C programs which ran
>>> on VMS, but Fortran code fell over at runtime either during the image
>>> activation process or very shortly afterwards (I can't remember which).
>>
>> If you post the results maybe I could help, or some of the guys in
>> c.l.f. would help. I'm a little surprised anyway. I though the front-end was
>> completely Ada and the back end was C/C++. I did not know there was any
>> Fortran involved in gnat.
>>
>
> The front end is purely Ada, and there is no Fortran code in GNAT. When
> I tried to build the FSF GCC cross compiler on Linux I added multiple
> front ends (Ada, Fortran, C, C++) to the --enable-languages option before
> reducing the list when the various front ends started falling over.

Oh, ok. I suppose you could build gcc without the Fortran support then.

> Thanks for the offer BTW, but Fortran was a very low priority goal which
> I didn't spend any real time on when I tried this and things went wrong.
> My last attempt to build a VMS cross compiler is now getting on for a
> couple of years ago so I have moved into other projects now.

Purely selfish motives on my part. I like VMS and I like Ada so I would be
glad to have a current gnat on VMS. I have some Fortran background so I
thought I might be able to help. Now that I understand you meant not that
Fortran fell over but gcc's Fortran support fell over I suppose I wouldn't
be much help anyway.

>
>>> Both the C++ and Ada frontends failed to build when building the
>>> cross compiler (GNAT fell over with an ICE during the build and C++ was
>>> some header problem IIRC).
>>
>> I suspect a current gcc on VMS is going to be essential. Much code that uses
>> gcc exploits every last gccism and does so increasingly all the time.
>>
>
> This was using the latest versions of gcc at the time. The problem here
> _appeared_ to be that not all the required bits to build gcc for a VMS
> target had been pushed from the AdaCore code base to the FSF code base.

I meant I suspect there needs to be the latest and greatest gcc on VMS
already or this is going to be very hard. I didn't understand the last
part above. Did you mean you do have a current gcc build on VMS after all
and it is only the gcc-ada pieces that aren't there? Or did you mean you
can't build the latest gcc on VMS for whatever reason?

Bob

Re: [OT] VSI and VMS, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
> On 2016-08-28, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>> On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>> On 2016-08-24, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> A company called VSI has some kind of arrangement with HP and is porting VMS
>>>> to x86. Eventually you will supposedly be able to run it natively.
>>>>
>>>
>>> VSI are planning to run VMS within a hypervisor on x86-64 as well as
>>> allowing it to run on the bare metal x86-64 machine.
>>
>> I can't think of a whole lot of OS that run on Intel natively that won't run
>> in a VM. Can you? ;-)
>>
>
> According to the VSI engineers one advantage of the VM approach is that
> it brings along a known environment when it comes to writing device
> drivers.

Right but that only gets you so far. Eventually you have to support whatever
everybody else supports or you won't sell much.

>
>> I understand they want to get it running in a VM for development
>> purposes. Having it run _only_ in a VM doesn't sound like it would be a
>> great idea for sales...
>>
>
> While I strongly agree that VMS needs to run on bare metal x86-64,
> apparently running OS instances within a VM is way more popular than
> you might think when it comes to a typical large data centre environment
> so having VMS supported within a VM environment is apparently a
> positive selling point...

I am aware a lot of Intel work is run in VMs. But there is more than one so
saying "it runs in a VM" or "get it running in a VM" is somewhat open-ended.
Heck, even IBM supports running a bunch of Windows boxes in their latest
mainframe extension contraption. I am suggesting getting VMS running on real
hardware is essential even if they get it running in a simpler environment
at first. And I am sure they are aware of that. I don't think any serious
customer is going to be willing to buy something that _only_ runs in a VM
even if it's a VM they already deploy a lot of their production work
in. Maybe I am wrong but it seems suspicious and not like a real OS if it
can't run on a real box _and_ in whatever VM they want to run it in.

Bob

Re: [OT] VMS, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2016-08-28, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
> On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>> On 2016-08-23, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> VMS is a good OS but it's far behind MVS and seems to be suffering from a
>>> loss of (management) direction and not enough cash.
>>
>> That latter bit is putting it mildly. :-(
>>
>>> It probably started
>>> going downhill when it moved from being owned and managed end-to-end by one
>>> company to today where it is spread across two companies for software and
>>> another one or two for hardware.
>>>
>>
>> HP still supply hardware and software support for VMS running on HP
>> supported hardware. 
>
> That's not really what I meant. What I meant was I think VMS's best days
> were when it was totally controlled by one company _and_ had bespoke
> hardware to run on. True, HP does own the kit and kaboodle but Itanic wasn't
> designed to run VMS. It's just another monstrosity that VMS happened to be
> ported to. There is a big difference.
>

Oh, I see what you mean now and agree with you about IA64.

However, given the general move to a core set of standard architectures
in today's world, the reality is that VMS needs to run on a mainstream
server architecture (which IA64 never was) in order to remain a possible
option to be considered.

>> The VSI effort is a recent effort (relatively speaking) and is targeted to
>> completely new platforms for VMS; it has absolutely nothing to do with the
>> decline of VMS within HP.
>
> Is that true? If HP wasn't letting VMS die a slow death then where's the
> business case for VSI? I would argue it is exactly the decline of VMS within
> HP that made VSI possible and necessary.
>

I misunderstood what you were getting at. Yes, in that light, VSI are
indeed trying to do the job that HP _should_ have been doing but whose
board were instead more interested in next quarter's figures only. :-(

>
> There is another problem though. Hercules has been plagued by internal
> strife and development has forked a few times and nobody is talking to
> anybody else. IBM has been putting out new hardware faster than Hercules can
> keep up with and they're also encrypting some of the system images. I
> suspect in a short time Hercules will no longer be able to run z/OS at all.
>

I didn't know any of that. Thanks.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2016-08-28, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
> On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>
>> This was using the latest versions of gcc at the time. The problem here
>> _appeared_ to be that not all the required bits to build gcc for a VMS
>> target had been pushed from the AdaCore code base to the FSF code base.
>
> I meant I suspect there needs to be the latest and greatest gcc on VMS
> already or this is going to be very hard. I didn't understand the last
> part above. Did you mean you do have a current gcc build on VMS after all
> and it is only the gcc-ada pieces that aren't there? Or did you mean you
> can't build the latest gcc on VMS for whatever reason?
>

No, I don't have a current gcc build for VMS.

AdaCore not only updated the Ada (and other) front ends to support VMS
but also did the prerequisite back end code generation port to allow code
to be generated for a VMS target in the first place.

AdaCore's role in getting gcc to run on VMS is way more than just adding
a few bits to one (ie: GNAT) front end as it appears there was no viable
back end VMS Alpha[*] support in gcc before AdaCore got involved and it
appeared that various required bits cross the board were missing from the
FSF version of the gcc codebase when I tried this.

[*] An old version of gcc was ported to VAX/VMS many years ago, but that
was for VAX only and only for some of the languages which existed in gcc
at the time IIRC.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

Re: Could you write a BSD like os in Ada?

[Bob Broderbund]

On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
> On 2016-08-28, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>> On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>>
>>> This was using the latest versions of gcc at the time. The problem here
>>> _appeared_ to be that not all the required bits to build gcc for a VMS
>>> target had been pushed from the AdaCore code base to the FSF code base.
>>
>> I meant I suspect there needs to be the latest and greatest gcc on VMS
>> already or this is going to be very hard. I didn't understand the last
>> part above. Did you mean you do have a current gcc build on VMS after all
>> and it is only the gcc-ada pieces that aren't there? Or did you mean you
>> can't build the latest gcc on VMS for whatever reason?
>>
>
> No, I don't have a current gcc build for VMS.

Ok. I think that is going to be key to get much of anything done that is
based on gcc including gcc-ada and GNAT. Adacore has the knowledge and
resources and motive to do that. I suspect we'll hear good news at some
point including maybe even a freebie gcc port if we're lucky.

> AdaCore not only updated the Ada (and other) front ends to support VMS
> but also did the prerequisite back end code generation port to allow code
> to be generated for a VMS target in the first place.

Yes, of course. Dewar's passing probably leaves a big hole in a lot of these
pieces but I suspect there are still enough geniuses at Adacore to get just
about anything done.

> [*] An old version of gcc was ported to VAX/VMS many years ago, but that
> was for VAX only and only for some of the languages which existed in gcc
> at the time IIRC.

That's what I thought.

Bob

P.S. Fixed subject line. Ada the language, not ADA the American Dental
Association, Americans with Disabilities Act, etc.

Re: VMS and C/Ada, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[gérard Calliet]

Le 28/08/2016 à 03:06, Simon Clubley a écrit :
> On 2016-08-24, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>> On 2016-08-24, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
>>>
>>> Do they support DEC Ada?
>>
>> OpenVMS VAX supports DEC Ada. But there is nothing newer than '83
>> available. It is not clear whether there will be Ada again on VMS but there
>> is a rumor Adacore may offer their product after VMS is ported to Intel.
>>
>
> The last time I raised the GNAT on VMS x86-64 issue in comp.os.vms,
> VSI said the issue was complicated and was still under discussion.
> I have not heard anything else since that.
>
>>> VMS was not only the best ever OS.
>>
>> Saying something false over and over again won't make it true.
>>
>>> It also had the best ever C
>>
>> I think even the authors of C on VMS wouldn't agree with that! You could ask
>> in comp.os.vms. I'm pretty sure you'll be surprised at the answer, based on
>> your comments and my reading of fairly current discussions over there. Some
>> of the original guys are present.
>>
>
> There are two C compilers for VMS; the original VAX C compiler and the
> later DEC C one. I would question the sanity of anyone who said VAX C
> was a decent compiler (especially by today's standards), let alone the
> "best" one. :-)
>
> DEC C is better than VAX C, but nothing to get excited about.
>
> Simon.
>
As posted here elsewhere, we have done a built of Gnat Ada for OpenVMS 
Itanium, and so we have a lot of things done for gcc. Perhaps, with a 
little help of friends and some more customers, we could offer a gcc for 
OpenVMS Itanium.
If anyone is interested, please have a look here and communicate: 
www.vmsadaall.org

Gérard Calliet

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Re: VMS and C/Ada, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2017-03-14, gérard Calliet <gerard.calliet@pia-sofer.fr> wrote:
> As posted here elsewhere, we have done a built of Gnat Ada for OpenVMS 
> Itanium, and so we have a lot of things done for gcc. Perhaps, with a 
> little help of friends and some more customers, we could offer a gcc for 
> OpenVMS Itanium.
> If anyone is interested, please have a look here and communicate: 
> www.vmsadaall.org
>

Yes, as I mentioned before I never tried an Itanium build because
I don't have any Itanium boxes.

When you did the build, did you take the Linux cross compiler approach
or did you use GNAT Pro on VMS Alpha to build the Itanium compiler ?

(As I don't have access to GNAT Pro, the latter wasn't an option
for me.)

I know you said you built gcc 4.7 for Itanium, but was that the FSF
gcc 4.7 or was it the GNAT Pro sources, which at one time was built
on top of gcc 4.7 (IIRC) ?

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

Re: VMS and C/Ada, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

{hope I got the attributions correct}

On Tue, 14 Mar 2017 11:59:13 +0100, gérard Calliet
<gerard.calliet@pia-sofer.fr> declaimed the following:

>Le 28/08/2016 à 03:06, Simon Clubley a écrit :
>>
>> The last time I raised the GNAT on VMS x86-64 issue in comp.os.vms,
>> VSI said the issue was complicated and was still under discussion.
>> I have not heard anything else since that.
>>

	Probably trying to fit VMS four-level privilege/protection scheme into
a two-level MMU scheme.
-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

Re: VMS and C/Ada, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[gérard Calliet]

Le 14/03/2017 à 16:15, Dennis Lee Bieber a écrit :
>
> {hope I got the attributions correct}
>
> On Tue, 14 Mar 2017 11:59:13 +0100, gérard Calliet
> <gerard.calliet@pia-sofer.fr> declaimed the following:
>
>> Le 28/08/2016 à 03:06, Simon Clubley a écrit :
>>>
>>> The last time I raised the GNAT on VMS x86-64 issue in comp.os.vms,
>>> VSI said the issue was complicated and was still under discussion.
>>> I have not heard anything else since that.
>>>
>
> 	Probably trying to fit VMS four-level privilege/protection scheme into
> a two-level MMU scheme.
>
Do you know you are just speaking about the choice made by VSI to port 
VMS to x86-64? :)

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Re: VMS and C/Ada, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2017-03-14, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> {hope I got the attributions correct}
>
> On Tue, 14 Mar 2017 11:59:13 +0100, gérard Calliet
><gerard.calliet@pia-sofer.fr> declaimed the following:
>
>>Le 28/08/2016 à 03:06, Simon Clubley a écrit :
>>>
>>> The last time I raised the GNAT on VMS x86-64 issue in comp.os.vms,
>>> VSI said the issue was complicated and was still under discussion.
>>> I have not heard anything else since that.
>>>
>
> 	Probably trying to fit VMS four-level privilege/protection scheme into
> a two-level MMU scheme.

I was talking about GNAT on VMS x86-64, not VMS itself on x86-64.

As I understand it, it's a "do we invest in Ada on VMS x86-64 or not ?"
problem and not a technical problem.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world

Re: VMS and C/Ada, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[gérard Calliet]

Le 14/03/2017 à 19:36, Simon Clubley a écrit :
> On 2017-03-14, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>> {hope I got the attributions correct}
>>
>> On Tue, 14 Mar 2017 11:59:13 +0100, gérard Calliet
>> <gerard.calliet@pia-sofer.fr> declaimed the following:
>>
>>> Le 28/08/2016 à 03:06, Simon Clubley a écrit :
>>>>
>>>> The last time I raised the GNAT on VMS x86-64 issue in comp.os.vms,
>>>> VSI said the issue was complicated and was still under discussion.
>>>> I have not heard anything else since that.
>>>>
>>
>> 	Probably trying to fit VMS four-level privilege/protection scheme into
>> a two-level MMU scheme.
>
> I was talking about GNAT on VMS x86-64, not VMS itself on x86-64.
>
> As I understand it, it's a "do we invest in Ada on VMS x86-64 or not ?"
> problem and not a technical problem.
>
> Simon.
>
Now VSI *not* invest in Ada, because it is not part of the layered 
products. *I* invested in Ada because I needed it for a specific 
project, and I'm thinking about giving some benefits of my work to the 
(Ada, gcc) on VMS community, and, if it is business-possible, to extend 
the support of them.

It is the first phase.

If VMS go on surviving and the port on x86 is successfull, there will be 
possible to open a total new line of investment, which will be creating 
from scratch a new Ada compiler for VMS on x86-64 based on LLVM.

Gérard Calliet

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