Am I forgetting, but isn't BSD (4.3/4.4 as I recall) on the VAX? That seems more suitable for running on classic hardware than moving to something newer.
Of course I got rid of all of my 11/780 and 11/785 systems (along with a smattering of VAXStations) years ago so I don't have any particular interest here. ;-) TTFN - Guy On Tue, 2020-03-10 at 16:44 +0100, Jan-Benedict Glaw via cctalk wrote: > On Tue, 2020-03-10 09:06:57 -0600, Warner Losh via cctalk < > [email protected]> wrote: > > On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 3:48 AM Peter Corlett via cctalk < > > [email protected]> wrote > > > Linux has taken thirty years to get this far. It's arguable what > > > is "major" but to a rough approximation, there are no good open > > > source clones of other operating systems of similar complexity: > > > I'm aware of FreeDOS, AROS, EmuTOS and a few others, but they're > > > relatively simple. > > > > Linux never was a thing on the VAX that was very good. It was too > > late in > > its life cycle to get enough love. > > I quite apologize for that! > > > Linux and/or NetBSD/vax would be a good choice, though, to > > implement the > > VAX's system calls and execute it's binaries. Though there were > > more > > concerted efforts to do this years ago, but I don't know what > > became of > > them. Google shows a smattering of efforts littered with broken > > links. :( > > There was a vax-linux port started by others, and I cared for it for > a > good number of years. My life changed a lot since then, I quite > failed > (and failed hard!) to bring up the needed time to care for Linux, > care > for GCC and Binutils, GNU libc and all those programs silently > expecting IEEE floating point support. > > I still have a good number of VAXen around, though all powered off > and in good storage. We're actually searching for a larger room to > put > all the old iron in there, get them on cables (power, network and > serial) and eventually even restart on hacking them. > > Hacking VAXen was a great thing do to! ...at least for me. I > learned > so much from doing so, about Linux, libc, their interface, about > Binutils and GCC. It really made me "fit" for paid business. But lets > face it: I'm in the fourties, have a family and a day still does only > have 24 hours. > > So... Once getting all my hardware into usable condition is > settled, > I'd be quite willing to hand out serial and power access to them, for > whatever you'd like to do. (If it's not already too late.) > > MfG, JBG >
