Couple of questions on VMS -> world

[li...@openmailbox.org]

Hi,

Is it possible to read a VMS-format CD ISO on Linux/UNIX?

I installed some of the compilers on a new VAX/VMS 7.3 hobbyist system
today. When I transferred the installation guide .txt files to a Linux box
to try to read them there they had a lot of control characters and didn't
format properly. Is there a secret recipe to convert these to
properly-formatted plain ASCII text?

Thank you.

[Steven Schweda]

> Is it possible to read a VMS-format CD ISO on Linux/UNIX?

Possible? Sure. Practical? Perhaps not. Might depend
on what, exactly, is in/on this "VMS-format CD ISO".

> I installed some of the compilers on a new VAX/VMS 7.3
> hobbyist system today. When I transferred the installation
> guide .txt files to a Linux box to try to read them there
> they had a lot of control characters and didn't format
> properly.

And you "transferred" these files _how_, exactly? As
usual, showing actual commands with their actual output can
be more helpful than vague descriptions or interpretations.

There are multiple formats on VMS for text files. Some of
them include byte counts, which can be (mis-)interpreted as
"control characters".

> Is there a secret recipe to convert these to
> properly-formatted plain ASCII text?

Not really secret, but some possible techniques:

Transfer the files using ASCII FTP.

Convert the files to Stream_LF record format before
transferring them. (A Web search for "cnvstmlf.com" may find
a simple DCL script for this.)

Create a Zip archive with the text files, transfer that,
and extract them on the destination system.

[Eberhard Heuser]

Am 23.02.2015 um 14:46 schrieb lists--- via Info-vax:
> Hi,

>
> Is it possible to read a VMS-format CD ISO on Linux/UNIX?
>

> I installed some of the compilers on a new VAX/VMS 7.3 hobbyist system
> today. When I transferred the installation guide .txt files to a Linux box
> to try to read them there they had a lot of control characters and didn't

> format properly. Is there a secret recipe to convert these to
> properly-formatted plain ASCII text?
>
> Thank you.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Info-vax mailing list
> Info...@rbnsn.com
> http://rbnsn.com/mailman/listinfo/info-vax_rbnsn.com
>
> .
>

1. Try ODS2 reader for linux
2. You need a specify "ascii" transfer on your VMS-machine.

Eberhard

[hb]

On 02/23/2015 02:46 PM, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
> Is it possible to read a VMS-format CD ISO on Linux/UNIX?

Likely. There is an ods2 reader and an ods5 (readonly) file system for
Linux, which can read ods2 as well. Google should be able to find them.

> I installed some of the compilers on a new VAX/VMS 7.3 hobbyist system
> today. When I transferred the installation guide .txt files to a Linux box
> to try to read them there they had a lot of control characters and didn't
> format properly. Is there a secret recipe to convert these to
> properly-formatted plain ASCII text?

Presumed you transferred the .txt files from the VMS/LP distribution CD
(image), then it is likely that the CD is in ods2 or ods5. With an ISO
file system on the CD I would expect you could read the files without
converting them to properly-formatted plain ASCII text - whatever the
definition for that is.

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-02-23 13:46:10 +0000, li...@openmailbox.org said:

> Is it possible to read a VMS-format CD ISO on Linux/UNIX?

<http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/168#comment-140>
<http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/267>
<http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/209>

That's probably The Hard Way, inferring (much) from your posting.

> I installed some of the compilers on a new VAX/VMS 7.3 hobbyist system today.

The retrocomputing folks and retronauts and OS tourists always seem to
pick some of the most utterly ancient and primitive and limited
software, get cornered, and then go running back to something that's
more familiar — trying to haul disk images around and view foreign file
systems, or getting bagged by the mistaken perception that sequential
files are the same format everywhere, in this case. That, and OpenVMS
VAX is the most ancient available OpenVMS stuff, and on an architecture
that hasn't had software updates and enhancements in many years — Alpha
and Itanium has still active, and Itanium is seeing newer releases.
In general, this — trying to mix emulation and really old VAX software
and multiple operating systems — is typically the most difficult
approach for experimentation, and something that tends to require
substantial expertise in both the target operating system (OpenVMS VAX)
and also in the more familiar operating system (Linux, here), and in
the emulation and the emulation networking. It's usually easier to
use the native tools to operate on native files (and native hardware),
though using native tools does mean committing to learn OpenVMS
commands and OpenVMS norms — OpenVMS is not Unix, and trying to apply
knowledge of Unix to VMS generally leads to grief and confusion and
frustration. <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/741>

> When I transferred the installation guide .txt files to a Linux box to
> try to read them there they had a lot of control characters and didn't
> format properly. Is there a secret recipe to convert these to
> properly-formatted plain ASCII text?

<http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/302>

TL;DR: consider using VMS commands and native file access. It can deal
with the files and file formats. This approach avoids dealing with
low-level file formats and with cross-platform file system tools for
what is a fairly arcane operating system.


--
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

[li...@openmailbox.org]

> 1. Try ODS2 reader for linux

Thanks. I found the page for this.

> 2. You need a specify "ascii" transfer on your VMS-machine.

For some reason unzipping the files on UNIX creates a situation where the
text files don't display properly but unzipping them on VMS works fine, so
I ftp'd them from the VMS box.

Thanks for the help.

[li...@openmailbox.org]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2015 07:57:26 -0800 (PST)
Steven Schweda via Info-vax <info...@rbnsn.com> wrote:

> Transfer the files using ASCII FTP.

On UNIX the .TXT from the unzipped files had a bunch of non-printable
characters intermingled with text that looked ok. Since VMS displayed them
ok I sent them from the VMS machine to a Linux box and the files are ok.

Thank you.

[li...@openmailbox.org]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2015 17:12:52 +0100
hb via Info-vax <info...@rbnsn.com> wrote:

> On 02/23/2015 02:46 PM, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
> > Is it possible to read a VMS-format CD ISO on Linux/UNIX?
>
> Likely. There is an ods2 reader and an ods5 (readonly) file system for
> Linux, which can read ods2 as well. Google should be able to find them.

Thanks. I found a link to a German site with a lot of interesting tools.

> > I installed some of the compilers on a new VAX/VMS 7.3 hobbyist system
> > today. When I transferred the installation guide .txt files to a Linux
> > box to try to read them there they had a lot of control characters and
> > didn't format properly. Is there a secret recipe to convert these to
> > properly-formatted plain ASCII text?
>
> Presumed you transferred the .txt files from the VMS/LP distribution CD
> (image), then it is likely that the CD is in ods2 or ods5. With an ISO
> file system on the CD I would expect you could read the files without
> converting them to properly-formatted plain ASCII text - whatever the
> definition for that is.

As you guys surely know, when you unzip layered products you usually get a
saveset and a product_iguide.txt file. I wanted to review these on another
system so I just unzipped them there. That doesn't work very well.
Unzipping them on VMS and then ftp'ing them from VMS to wherever works fine.
I didn't look into whether this was an artifact of VMS v. non-VMS unzip, or
whether something else is going on but I can now read the files normally
which is what I wanted.

Thank you.

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-02-24 15:16:57 +0000, <li...@openmailbox.org> said:

> As you guys surely know, when you unzip layered products you usually get a
> saveset and a product_iguide.txt file. I wanted to review these on another
> system so I just unzipped them there. That doesn't work very well.
> Unzipping them on VMS and then ftp'ing them from VMS to wherever works fine.
> I didn't look into whether this was an artifact of VMS v. non-VMS unzip, or
> whether something else is going on but I can now read the files normally
> which is what I wanted.

Some unzip arcana to ponder, and to try:

-a convert text files. Ordinarily all files are extracted
exactly as they are stored (as ``binary'' files). The -a option causes
files iden-
tified by zip as text files (those with the `t' label in
zipinfo listings, rather than `b') to be automatically extracted as
such, convert-
ing line endings, end-of-file characters and the
character set itself as necessary. (For example, Unix files use line
feeds (LFs) for end-
of-line (EOL) and have no end-of-file (EOF) marker;
Macintoshes use carriage returns (CRs) for EOLs; and most PC operating
systems use
CR+LF for EOLs and control-Z for EOF. In addition, IBM
mainframes and the Michigan Terminal System use EBCDIC rather than the
more common
ASCII character set, and NT supports Unicode.) Note
that zip's identification of text files is by no means perfect; some
``text'' files
may actually be binary and vice versa. unzip therefore
prints ``[text]'' or ``[binary]'' as a visual check for each file it
extracts when
using the -a option. The -aa option forces all files to
be extracted as text, regardless of the supposed file type.

...

To extract any such files but convert any uppercase MS-DOS or
VMS names to lowercase and convert the line-endings of all of the files
to the local
standard (without respect to any files that might be marked ``binary''):

unzip -aaCL source.zip "*.[fch]" makefile -d /tmp

[li...@openmailbox.org]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2015 09:34:36 -0500
Stephen Hoffman via Info-vax <info...@rbnsn.com> wrote:

> On 2015-02-23 13:46:10 +0000, li...@openmailbox.org said:
>
> > Is it possible to read a VMS-format CD ISO on Linux/UNIX?
>
> <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/168#comment-140>
> <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/267>
> <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/209>

Thanks.

> > I installed some of the compilers on a new VAX/VMS 7.3 hobbyist system
> > today.
>

> It's usually easier to use the native tools to operate on native files
> (and native hardware),

If that wasn't true somebody would have a lot of explaining to do.
Anyway, for the sake of getting the system to the point where it's useful
for me to attempt accomplishing something like writing some code whatever
is fastest wins. If you want to send me a few servers I won't complain. In
the meantime networking for my little SIMH instance works (as in I can get
in and out of the box.)

Is there a current freebie SSH available? Search as I might I was unable to
find one.

> though using native tools does mean committing to learn OpenVMS commands
> and OpenVMS norms

Well sure and that is part of the fun. However paging back and forth and
having multiple documents open is just a little easier on the host system
than it is on the guest, windowless as the guest is.

For the first day on the job I think I did ok. If I stay I will try to
learn as much as possible. So quit trying to lecture me on doing stuff like
a seasoned VMS system manager without actually saying *how* to do it ;-)

Thank you.

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-02-24 15:27:37 +0000, <li...@openmailbox.org> said:

> On Tue, 24 Feb 2015 09:34:36 -0500
> Stephen Hoffman via Info-vax <info...@rbnsn.com> wrote:
>
>> It's usually easier to use the native tools to operate on native files
>> (and native hardware),
>
> If that wasn't true somebody would have a lot of explaining to do.

You have no idea.

> Anyway, for the sake of getting the system to the point where it's useful
> for me to attempt accomplishing something like writing some code whatever
> is fastest wins.

Depending on what you're up to, there are open-access VMS systems
around, as well. Deathrow and Decuserve are both booted and
available. Decuserve is an AlphaServer DS20 box at VSI, Deathrow is a
cluster of an AlphaServer DS10L and an Integrity rx2600 Itanium.
<http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/69>

Installing and configuring and managing an OpenVMS VAX server is more
effort than using an existing installation, and emulation makes the
effort that much more involved. The VMS documentation also assumes a
system manager has familiarity with OpenVMS; the documentation builds
on earlier materials. This rather than being standalone vignettes or
per-task documentation, as is more typical in recent times and recent
operating systems.

> If you want to send me a few servers I won't complain. In
> the meantime networking for my little SIMH instance works (as in I can get
> in and out of the box.)

There are free Alpha emulators around
<http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/70>, which gets you access to newer
OpenVMS Alpha software; to V8.4 and newer TCP/IP Services capabilities.

> Is there a current freebie SSH available? Search as I might I was unable to
> find one.

OpenVMS VAX predates ssh support on VMS by quite a while — this is part
of why I pointed out the use of old tools and modern assumptions — so
you'll have to use the third-party Process Software ssh tools, and
Process had a hobbyist license, or switch to OpenVMS Alpha and an Alpha
emulator.

>> though using native tools does mean committing to learn OpenVMS commands
>> and OpenVMS norms
>
> Well sure and that is part of the fun. However paging back and forth and
> having multiple documents open is just a little easier on the host system
> than it is on the guest, windowless as the guest is.

FWIW, the available OpenVMS PDF and HTML documents served from
<http://www.hp.com/go/openvms/doc> work just fine on OS X and other
platforms, and avoid the file conversions.0

> For the first day on the job I think I did ok.

So far, yes. You've gotten a baseline configuration going, and you've
likely made — as we all have, recently or in the distant past — the
typical mistakes.

> If I stay I will try to learn as much as possible.

You're definitely headed for the proverbial deep end, though I'm not
sure that dealing with OpenVMS VAX will provide much insight, beyond
the obvious "this is a whole lot of work for what I got, were they
really this crazy back then?" or similar realizations. (ps: Yes, we
were.)

> So quit trying to lecture me on doing stuff like
> a seasoned VMS system manager without actually saying *how* to do it ;-)

Yes, my (free!) responses are terse, and are based on long experience
answering similar questions posted here, and with previous folks that
have tried similar paths, and with some suggested paths to avoid the
sorts of problems encountered. You can interpret my (free!) responses
however you like, of course. Or just killfile me, for that matter.

[Bob Koehler]

ZIP has flags to tell it how to fixup various line endings in ASCII
text when it's unzipping. But if you already got them via FTP, that's
jkust for future reference.

[Steven Schweda]

> As you guys surely know, when you unzip layered products
> you usually get a saveset and a product_iguide.txt file. I
> wanted to review these on another system so I just unzipped
> them there. That doesn't work very well.

What we guys know and what you know are not well-known by
you or us, respectively. "I just unzipped" is not a very
detailed (or useful) description of what you did (or to what,
exactly, you did it).

> [...] As usual, showing actual commands with their actual

> output can be more helpful than vague descriptions or
> interpretations.

Still true.

> Some unzip arcana to ponder, and to try:

> -a convert text files. [...]

I'd expect that to work. If an "unzip -v" report mentions
VMS_TEXT_CONV, then "unzip -a" should get a good result on a
non-VMS system, but the "-a" is required to make use of the
VMS_TEXT_CONV code.

I just tried UnZip 5.52 on a Mac (10.10.2) against an old
Alpha C compiler kit, and I got good text files:

pro3$ unzip -v
UnZip 5.52 of 28 February 2005, by Info-ZIP. Maintained by C. Spieler. Send
[...]
VMS_TEXT_CONV
[...]

pro3# unzip -a -d a CC073.DCX_AXPEXE
Archive: CC073.DCX_AXPEXE
warning [CC073.DCX_AXPEXE]: 65536 extra bytes at beginning or within zipfile
(attempting to process anyway)
inflating: a/cc073.a [text]
inflating: a/cc073.b [text]
inflating: a/cc073.release_notes [text]
inflating: a/cc073_release_notes.ps [text]
inflating: a/cc_ig.ps [text]
inflating: a/cc_ig.txt [text]
inflating: a/cc_rbi.ps [text]
inflating: a/cc_rbi.txt [text]
inflating: a/cc_spd.ps [text]
inflating: a/cc_spd.txt [text]

pro3# more a/cc_ig.txt
[...]
HP_C__________________________________________
Installation Guide for
OpenVMS Alpha Systems

Order Number: AA-PUP1J-TE


November 2005

This guide contains instructions for installing
HP C on OpenVMS Alpha systems.
[...]


Which is better than without "-a":

pro3# unzip -d d CC073.DCX_AXPEXE
[...]
inflating: d/cc_ig.txt
[...]

pro3# more d/cc_ig.txt
"d/cc_ig.txt" may be a binary file. See it anyway?
[...]


Sadly, the (very old?) Zip program used to make this
archive also marked the BACKUP save sets as "text", so I
wouldn't trust them after this "-a" extraction.

[li...@openmailbox.org]

Thanks. I haven't had much use for zip so far. I should have known but
didn't know that it would have plenty of options.

On Tue, 24 Feb 2015 10:27:17 -0500

Stephen Hoffman via Info-vax <info...@rbnsn.com> wrote:

[li...@openmailbox.org]

On 24 Feb 2015 13:33:33 -0600

Thanks. I haven't used zip much but I should have realized there might be
options to look at.

[Alan Fay]

You could just convert the .txt files to UNIX strmlf format on your SIMH VAX with ‘strmlf’.
Then you could FTP transfer the files (in binary or ascii) to your linux system where you
will be able to read and edit them just fine. The files will also readable and editable on
your SIMH VAX system.

Install ‘strmlf’ as a foreign command and type —help for help:

$ strmlf --help
Usage: strmlf [OPTION] [FILE]...
Convert ascii files to UNIX strmlf format.

-f, --force force conversion of file (even if binary)
-h, --help display this help and exit

Example usage (wildcards are supported):

$ strmlf *.txt
$ strmlf *.c *.h

The conversion will create a new higher version of each specified file.
Only ascii files are converted - binary files are not converted and
are reported as binary.

$


‘strmlf’ is freeware for commercial or noncommercial use. There is no warranty
expressed or implied (please scan the executable for disclaimer).

‘strmlf’ is available from:

https://github.com/alan-fay/openvms


the simplest way to download is to just "Download ZIP" and extract the files you want.
 


Alan Fay 


[li...@openmailbox.org]

Thanks.

On Thu, 26 Feb 2015 12:51:49 -0800 (PST)
Alan Fay via Info-vax <info...@rbnsn.com> wrote:

snip

[William Pechter]

In article <mci26d$h4h$1...@dont-email.me>,

Stephen Hoffman <seao...@hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
>On 2015-02-23 13:46:10 +0000, li...@openmailbox.org said:
>
>> Is it possible to read a VMS-format CD ISO on Linux/UNIX?
>
><http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/168#comment-140>
><http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/267>
><http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/209>

>
>That's probably The Hard Way, inferring (much) from your posting.
>

<SNIP>

><http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/302>

>--
>Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC
>

Easy way to do it it to make a small SIMH VAX/VMS instance on Linux
or Windows to allow OpenVMS access to the files without going to fire
up the old 8650 in the basement. Although, in the snow on the east coast
the excess heat may be redirected for driveway clearance via fans
and ducting...

I'm thinking about packaging an Ubuntu derived DVD iso/USB img
with portable prebuilt images for CP/M, RT11, VMS etc... as kind of a
fun project.

BTW -- I couldn't afford the 8650 power in NJ. Just have a Vaxstation here
that's powered down and is currently a laser printer stand for a 1986
vintage laser printer.

I mean to get rid of them both soon if I could find someone to take them
off my hands besides a landfill.


Bill
--
--
Digital had it then. Don't you wish you could buy it now!
pechter-at-gmail.com http://xkcd.com/705/

[hb]

On 03/05/2015 06:28 PM, William Pechter wrote:
> In article <mci26d$h4h$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Stephen Hoffman <seao...@hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2015-02-23 13:46:10 +0000, li...@openmailbox.org said:
>>
>>> Is it possible to read a VMS-format CD ISO on Linux/UNIX?
>>
>> <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/168#comment-140>
>> <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/267>
>> <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/209>
>
>>
>> That's probably The Hard Way, inferring (much) from your posting.
>>
> <SNIP>
>
>> <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/302>
>> --
>> Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC
>>
>
> Easy way to do it it to make a small SIMH VAX/VMS instance on Linux

...

On Linux, it can be as easy as ...

# insmod ./ods5-64/ods5.ko
# mkdir /vms
# mount -o ro,nomfd /dev/sr0 /vms
# cd /vms
# ls
BACKUP.SYS;1 DECW073.F;1 TCPIP_VAX051.DIR;1
BADBLK.SYS;1 DOCUMENTATION.DIR;1 VAX073.DIR;1
BADLOG.SYS;1 DWMOTIF_VAX125.DIR;1 VMS073.A;1
BITMAP.SYS;1 DWMOTIF_VAX126.DIR;1 VMS073.B;1
CONTIN.SYS;1 HELP_MESSAGE.DIR;1 VMS073.C;1
CORIMG.SYS;1 INDEXF.SYS;1 VMS073.D;1
DCE_VAX030.DIR;1 ISL_SCRIPT.ESS;1 VMS073.E;1
DECNET_PHASE_IV_VAX073.DIR;1 KERBEROS_VAX010.DIR;1 VMS073.F;1
DECNET_PLUS_VAX073.DIR;1 KITS.DIR;1 VMSI18N_VAX073.DIR;1
DECW073.C;1 SECURITY.SYS;1 VOLSET.SYS;1
DECW073.D;1 SYS0.DIR;1
DECW073.E;1 SYS1.DIR;1
#
# find . -iname '*.txt;*' |grep -i install
./DECNET_PLUS_VAX073.DIR;1/DOCUMENTATION.DIR;1/DECNET_ADV_INSTALL_CONF.TXT;1
./DECNET_PLUS_VAX073.DIR;1/DOCUMENTATION.DIR;1/DECNET_BASIC_INSTALL.TXT;1
./VAX073.DIR;1/DOCUMENTATION.DIR;1/OVMS_73_VAX_INSTALL.TXT;1
#
# ~/ods5-64/rats
'./VAX073.DIR;1/DOCUMENTATION.DIR;1/OVMS_73_VAX_INSTALL.TXT;1'
OVMS_73_VAX_INSTALL.TXT;1:
org=seq rfm=var rat=cr lrl=86
#
# ~/ods5-64/copr
'./VAX073.DIR;1/DOCUMENTATION.DIR;1/OVMS_73_VAX_INSTALL.TXT;1' |grep
Contents -A20
Contents



Preface................................................... xv

Getting Started

1.1 Important Information......................... 1-1
1.1.1 Compaq TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS........ 1-1
1.1.2 DECnet Software........................... 1-1
1.1.3 DECwindows Motif for OpenVMS VAX - Minimum
Version................................... 1-2
1.1.4 MACRO32.EXE and Standalone BACKUP......... 1-2
1.1.5 Layered Product Availability.............. 1-2
1.1.6 Restrictions.............................. 1-2
1.2 Key Terms..................................... 1-3
1.3 Locating Files on the Distribution Media...... 1-4
1.3.1 On CD-ROM................................. 1-5
1.3.2 On Magnetic Tape or Tape Cartridges....... 1-6
1.3.3 DECamds Files............................. 1-6
#

[David Froble]

William Pechter wrote:

> BTW -- I couldn't afford the 8650 power in NJ. Just have a Vaxstation here
> that's powered down and is currently a laser printer stand for a 1986
> vintage laser printer.
>
> I mean to get rid of them both soon if I could find someone to take them
> off my hands besides a landfill.
>
>
> Bill

Depends. What model VAXstation ??

[li...@openmailbox.org]

Thank you. Somebody mentioned this before. I just haven't gotten a round
tuit yet.


On Thu, 05 Mar 2015 20:56:22 +0100

hb via Info-vax <info...@rbnsn.com> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> Info-vax mailing list
> Info...@rbnsn.com
> http://rbnsn.com/mailman/listinfo/info-vax_rbnsn.com

--
Please DO NOT COPY ME on mailing list replies. I read the mailing list.
RSA 4096 fingerprint 7940 3F02 16D3 AFEE F2F8 ACAA 557C 4B36 98E4 4D49

[li...@openmailbox.org]

Thanks. I am brand new to VMS so the question was aimed at getting the info
I want to get off the disk in the quickest most painless way. Eventually I
hope to be able to do everything related to VMS from VMS but for now I am
more able to do things in UNIX, Linux etc.

[dodecah...@gmail.com]

On Friday, March 6, 2015 at 8:20:06 PM UTC+11, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
> Thanks. I am brand new to VMS so the question was aimed at getting the info
> I want to get off the disk in the quickest most painless way. Eventually I
> hope to be able to do everything related to VMS from VMS but for now I am
> more able to do things in UNIX, Linux etc.

Wow, another new person to VMS :-)

There seems to be a growing number of people lately (not huge but hey, any increase is a good thing)

Welcome to the world of VMS. It's an interesting world and a great OS that admittedly needs revamping on some areas (a lot of areas?). There's LOTS of work to be done, your contribution will be greatly appreciated

I think, what the VMS community would like to see is not so much unix tools merely ported over to VMS with the unix philosophy intact but to see many of the good unix things ported to VMS but done the VMS way, which as you'll discover, normal means with robustness and options in mind and with great supporting documentation. It's the VMS way to be consistent, which is why VMS folk tend to get frustrated with unix (or I do) with different command switches for different commands

I hope you find the VMS community supportive :-)

[li...@openmailbox.org]

On Fri, 13 Mar 2015 20:54:04 -0700 (PDT)
dodecahedron99--- via Info-vax <info...@rbnsn.com> wrote:

> On Friday, March 6, 2015 at 8:20:06 PM UTC+11, li...@openmailbox.org
> wrote:
> > Thanks. I am brand new to VMS so the question was aimed at getting the
> > info I want to get off the disk in the quickest most painless way.
> > Eventually I hope to be able to do everything related to VMS from VMS
> > but for now I am more able to do things in UNIX, Linux etc.
>
> Wow, another new person to VMS :-)

Apparently it's not going to last ;-)

> There seems to be a growing number of people lately (not huge but hey,
> any increase is a good thing)

For me I'm so fed up with Intel's neverending screwups and I don't like
UNIX very much. I'm a developer for my job and also in my vanishing spare
time for fun, so I was looking for another platform that was neither UNIX,
Linux, nor Windows and runs on non-Intel hardware. I thought looking into
other hardware platforms would be a pleasant way to spend the little free
time I have. I didn't know VMS was still around and I didn't pay attention
to it when it was more popular.

> Welcome to the world of VMS. It's an interesting world and a great OS
> that admittedly needs revamping on some areas (a lot of areas?). There's
> LOTS of work to be done, your contribution will be greatly appreciated

I have no contribution to make, clearly, especially if things are going to
Intel. I'm impressed that the compilers on VMS are serious good stuff and
I'm interested to find out about the VAX and Alpha since I never had
interest in them back in the day and my interests have broadened a little.
As long as the emulators work I can see trying to learn a little VMS.

> I think, what the VMS community would like to see is not so much unix
> tools merely ported over to VMS with the unix philosophy intact but to
> see many of the good unix things ported to VMS but done the VMS way,
> which as you'll discover, normal means with robustness and options in
> mind and with great supporting documentation. It's the VMS way to be
> consistent, which is why VMS folk tend to get frustrated with unix (or I
> do) with different command switches for different commands

Are you saying they get frustrated because the switches are inconsistent
across commands? I find UNIX sloppy and poorly thought out because there
are simply too many options for things. It seems half or 3/4 of the
bugfixes end up as new command line switches. But that's just the tip of
the iceberg. UNIX wasn't ever designed, it just happened. And I really
don't like that.

[mcle...@gmail.com]

Unix suffers from inconsistency in a lot of areas and Linux is a whole lot worse.

One simple example is lack of consistency in each command. You typically find that a few alpha characters were related to what the program might do but the rest of the switches were just "we need another flag". And even the commands are inconsistent with 'tar' and 'find' having odd formats (and even my Linux book says so).

Some Linux documentation is okay but some is atrocious; it just depends on who wrote it because there seems to be no standards and no overall co-ordinator. Sure you can try to find things on the Internet by the code samples you find can be in lots of different languages and are more "I did it this way" than explaining what's going on.

With VMS you'll get pretty good consistency, good documentation and commands that correspond pretty well to English (none of this 'mv' for renaming).

Play around with VMS for a while and you'll see a different way to do things, one that's more user-friendly.

[li...@openmailbox.org]

On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 14:56:10 -0700 (PDT)
mcleanjoh--- via Info-vax <info...@rbnsn.com> wrote:

> On Monday, March 16, 2015 at 8:30:06 PM UTC+11, li...@openmailbox.org
> wrote:
> > For me I'm so fed up with Intel's neverending screwups and I don't like
> > UNIX very much. I'm a developer for my job and also in my vanishing
> > spare time for fun, so I was looking for another platform that was
> > neither UNIX, Linux, nor Windows and runs on non-Intel hardware. I
> > thought looking into other hardware platforms would be a pleasant way
> > to spend the little free time I have. I didn't know VMS was still
> > around and I didn't pay attention to it when it was more popular.
> >

> > Are you saying they get frustrated because the switches are inconsistent
> > across commands? I find UNIX sloppy and poorly thought out because there
> > are simply too many options for things. It seems half or 3/4 of the
> > bugfixes end up as new command line switches. But that's just the tip of
> > the iceberg. UNIX wasn't ever designed, it just happened. And I really
> > don't like that.
> >
> > --
>

> Unix suffers from inconsistency in a lot of areas and Linux is a whole
> lot worse.

My opinion as I said is UNIX wasn't designed. It just happened.

> One simple example is lack of consistency in each command. You typically
> find that a few alpha characters were related to what the program might
> do but the rest of the switches were just "we need another flag". And
> even the commands are inconsistent with 'tar' and 'find' having odd
> formats (and even my Linux book says so).

You are preaching to the choir.

> Some Linux documentation is okay but some is atrocious; it just depends
> on who wrote it because there seems to be no standards and no overall
> co-ordinator. Sure you can try to find things on the Internet by the
> code samples you find can be in lots of different languages and are more
> "I did it this way" than explaining what's going on.

Agreed. I don't understand how anybody can use Linux or most UNIX in
production for anything. There are a few exceptions, Solaris is
professionally documented and it works very well. But it's still UNIX so it
suffers from the same lack of naming conventions and where Sun hasn't fixed
it, the same non-design and sloppy, generic implementations that plague UNIX
generally. And they're all based on C which is the root of all evil- it's
not *if* something bad is going to happen it's just when and how often.

[David Froble]

Did somebody clone me ??????????????

[johnso...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 1:00:04 PM UTC-4, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:

> Agreed. I don't understand how anybody can use Linux or most UNIX in
> production for anything.

But clearly it's been done and continues to be done. At quite large scales too.
I think of organizations such as Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, Google. Perhaps
you are focusing on the wrong things.

> But it's still UNIX so it suffers from the same lack of naming conventions

> and where Sun hasn't fixed [...]

While annoying at times, it's really not a deal breaker. It's at most a temporary
speed bump for some.

> And they're all based on C which is the root of all evil- it's
> not *if* something bad is going to happen it's just when and how often.

I think you need to separate your disgust at elements of the standard C
library from that of the language itself.

EJ

[li...@openmailbox.org]

On Tue, 17 Mar 2015 20:22:18 -0400
David Froble via Info-vax <info...@rbnsn.com> wrote:

> Did somebody clone me ??????????????

Aside from the fact you're a lot more pragmatic than I am it does seem we
have similar views on many technical topics. You might not be able to tell
from the discussions lately but I have read many of your posts on c.o.v.
and there is a lot of common ground.

[li...@openmailbox.org]

On Tue, 17 Mar 2015 18:22:15 -0700 (PDT)
"johnson.eric--- via Info-vax" <info...@rbnsn.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 1:00:04 PM UTC-4, li...@openmailbox.org
> wrote:
>
> > Agreed. I don't understand how anybody can use Linux or most UNIX in
> > production for anything.
>
> But clearly it's been done and continues to be done. At quite large
> scales too. I think of organizations such as Amazon, Twitter, Facebook,
> Google. Perhaps you are focusing on the wrong things.

Perfect! Four giant parasitic companies running on government subsidy
and corporate loopholes (possibly not Twitter) that offer no real value and
could all vanish from the face of the earth and not be missed by any
intelligent person. At all.

Amazon, plagued by outages and DDOS attacks despite all that cloudy
hardware. Twitter, there's a real mission critical deployment if there ever
was one. Hacked regularly. How many people die each second Twitter is
offline? Facebook and Google, doing what certain gubment agencies couldn't
do and they got it all voluntarily from the sheeple. Facebook hacked,
hacked, and hacked again. Google, developer of the world's least-secure OS,
Android. Android has more vulnerabilities than Windows. And they said it
could never happen! Of that list only Amazon comes close to what could be
called production and nothing bad happens when Amazon goes offline except
as far as Amazon stockholders are concerned. Everybody else just buys ebay
or Alibaba and gets better prices and service.

Despite throwing billions of dollars at hardware those companies still
can't keep it up. They're still not secure. They're still an embarassment,
they have no quality focus and no value. They're a waste of electricity!

> > But it's still UNIX so it suffers from the same lack of naming
> > conventions and where Sun hasn't fixed [...]
>
> While annoying at times, it's really not a deal breaker. It's at most a
> temporary speed bump for some.

It's a permanent sinkhole in UNIX that won't ever be resolved just as many
other fundamental problems in UNIX won't ever be resolved. They all stem
from lack of discipline and myopia and values like expedience and ease of
implementation over good engineering practice. And shared libraries! That's
no way to deliver product.

> > And they're all based on C which is the root of all evil- it's
> > not *if* something bad is going to happen it's just when and how often.
>
> I think you need to separate your disgust at elements of the standard C
> library from that of the language itself.

Well that's very interesting. Do you think people ought to learn from you
and accept your way of understanding things because of your fine character,
or technology leadership, or debating skills, etc.? Do you think you have
all the answers and that anybody who differs with you is wrong?

Perhaps you are focusing on the wrong things. Into the killfile you go!

[johnwa...@yahoo.co.uk]

Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc are presentation-centric read-mostly
applications, on the whole. Nobody cares much if they work properly
or not, so long as they're mostly there most of the time.

Equally, nobody notices much if they provide wrong data or lose data
from time to time. These are the outfits who are the target market for
HP/Foxconn's Cloudline disposable/nonmanageable/nondiagnosable servers.

These well known outfits buy lots of kit but how representative are they
of the rest of the market? If you want a disposable webfacing
presentation-centric public setup, why not leave it to e.g. Amazon AWS
and the like, and forget about the hardware altogether?

But if you want a traditional transactional setup where data
availability and integrity and security are still things that matter,
there may be better options.

One size does not fit all?

"separate your disgust at elements of the standard C library from that
of the language itself. "

Lots of folk could benefit from doing that.

[johnso...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 9:30:07 AM UTC-4, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:

> Despite throwing billions of dollars at hardware those companies still
> can't keep it up. They're still not secure. They're still an embarassment,
> they have no quality focus and no value. They're a waste of electricity!

I guess we just won't agree. The idea of dismissing all of those as a "waste
of electricity" seems like over the top hyperbole and I don't see a sensible
way to reground the conversation. I'll just have to be one of those idiots
who does see value in them. And you'll be the smart one who sees them
for what they really are.

[...]

> Perhaps you are focusing on the wrong things. Into the killfile you go!

Ok. I didn't think I had been that irritating, but to each their own.

EJ

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-03-18 23:38:21 +0000, johnwa...@yahoo.co.uk said:

> On Wednesday, 18 March 2015 01:22:16 UTC, johnso...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 1:00:04 PM UTC-4, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
>>
>>> Agreed. I don't understand how anybody can use Linux or most UNIX in
>>> production for anything.
>>
>> But clearly it's been done and continues to be done. At quite large scales too.
>> I think of organizations such as Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, Google. Perhaps
>> you are focusing on the wrong things.
>>
>>> But it's still UNIX so it suffers from the same lack of naming conventions
>>> and where Sun hasn't fixed [...]
>>
>> While annoying at times, it's really not a deal breaker. It's at most a
>> temporary
>> speed bump for some.
>>
>>> And they're all based on C which is the root of all evil- it's
>>> not *if* something bad is going to happen it's just when and how often.
>>
>> I think you need to separate your disgust at elements of the standard C
>> library from that of the language itself.
>>
>> EJ
>
>
> Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc are presentation-centric read-mostly
> applications, on the whole. Nobody cares much if they work properly
> or not, so long as they're mostly there most of the time.

The billing and ad-tracking systems are rather more robust, I'd expect.
That written, Facebook and others have done some very serious work on
distributed computing and scaling. <https://github.com/facebook>,
among others. As for not the social sites working properly or not,
outages and errors are a big problem for ad-driven social sites. If
the sites are not around and not keeping their users happy and
entertained, then the sites are not adding content and not making
money. At the scale of Facebook, keeping these servers online and
operational and secure is not an easy problem. VMS supports nothing
even close to the scale of many modern configurations, for that matter.
A hundred nodes is three Moonshot boxes in ~13U, after all.

> Equally, nobody notices much if they provide wrong data or lose data
> from time to time. These are the outfits who are the target market for
> HP/Foxconn's Cloudline disposable/nonmanageable/nondiagnosable servers.

RAIS. Quite popular in some quarters, particularly as the costs of
the servers crater. Why bother fixing something, when your software —
akin to clustering on VMS, but at much larger scale — can simply swap
in another box as needed. Yes, scribes tell us that in the
eldertimes, computer technicians known as Field Servants used to
perform component-level repairs, and servers got periodic preventive
maintenance visits, but can you believe the costs involved with that
sort of thing now? Scribes tell us that disks were once repaired, and
boards and were HDAs swapped around.

BTW, it's possible to get into trouble with first-tier server gear
(with design and software issues), too
<http://jacquesmattheij.com/saving-a-project-and-a-company>

> These well known outfits buy lots of kit but how representative are they
> of the rest of the market? If you want a disposable webfacing
> presentation-centric public setup, why not leave it to e.g. Amazon AWS
> and the like, and forget about the hardware altogether?

Requirements differ:
<http://highscalability.com/blog/2015/3/16/how-and-why-swiftype-moved-from-ec2-to-real-hardware.html>

> But if you want a traditional transactional setup where data
> availability and integrity and security are still things that matter,
> there may be better options.

One question there being whether VMS is one of those better options,
particularly for new deployments. Up until July 2014, the answer to
that question was usually "no".

> One size does not fit all?

Ayup. That's why we're not all running {whatever}.

> "separate your disgust at elements of the standard C library from that
> of the language itself. "
>
> Lots of folk could benefit from doing that.

Ayup, and what will lists think of OpenVMS, given that more than a
third of OpenVMS is written in C? I'd be inclined to use something
else now, but there's no-trivial cost involved in shifting languages.
Adding another language to the existing collection of (mostly) C,
Macro32 compiler code, and Bliss — and a variety of other bits in
smaller quantities, including Ada — just isn't going to be at the top
of most lists. Particularly given the current team generally knows C,
Macro32 and Bliss pretty well, too.

[David Froble]

So, what's wrong with using Bliss? It's there. It works. It was
designed for this kind of stuff.

I won't say MACRO-32, since I have to beat myself with an ugly stick to
look at some of my old code. That's not something you do as a hobby.
Either lots of it, or none of it.

[johnwa...@yahoo.co.uk]

> the servers crater. Why bother fixing something, when your software --
> akin to clustering on VMS, but at much larger scale -- can simply swap

> Macro32 compiler code, and Bliss -- and a variety of other bits in
> smaller quantities, including Ada -- just isn't going to be at the top

> of most lists. Particularly given the current team generally knows C,
> Macro32 and Bliss pretty well, too.
>
>
> --
> Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

These scribes of whom you write, are they related to today's High
Priests of today's One True Way, that shall be called the Holy Cloud
(and yesterday, when it shall have been called the Virtually Holy
Window Box)?

Faith-based (or fashion-based) IT doesn't work any better than
faith-based (or fashion-based) engineering. But there's a remarkable
amount of them around. And, not surprisingly, from time to time there
are stories of people who get their fingers burned by force fitting
the trendy solution into a setup which an informed analysis might have
said up front could really do with something else.

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <e55c1de3-ce3d-42b0...@googlegroups.com>,

Yeah, they are called Apple users.

> And, not surprisingly, from time to time there
> are stories of people who get their fingers burned by force fitting
> the trendy solution into a setup which an informed analysis might have
> said up front could really do with something else.

bill

--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
bill...@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-03-19 05:44:49 +0000, David Froble said:

> So, what's wrong with using Bliss? It's there. It works. It was
> designed for this kind of stuff.

Bliss is not a language that most folks have used or even know about,
and is not particularly available on platforms beyond DEC-related and
not commonly used on those, and Bliss suffers from some of the same
issues as C around memory management, pointers (keep removing dots
until the dereference crashes and then add one dot back, etc) and
memory management and/or garbage collection support. Bliss has a
massively better preprocessor and macro capabilities than does C,
though the value of an improved preprocessor might be the subject of
some debate with certain folks.

> I won't say MACRO-32, since I have to beat myself with an ugly stick to
> look at some of my old code. That's not something you do as a hobby.
> Either lots of it, or none of it.

Macro32 does very well, particularly with the eponymous macros support,
that for better and for worse. As for garbage collection and memory
management and the rest, most of the Macro32 is issues are similar to C.

Macro32 and C both require far more glue code than I'd prefer.

Rust language is more interesting (to me), though that compiler is
probably far too new for many folks to use. Then there's that the
availability of Rust isn't widespread. (Yet?) And Rust is not yet
available on VMS AFAIK.

[David Froble]

Bliss is available on VMS, and I'd guess that most people at VSI have
some knowledge about it.

If there is no language that does things as well as desired, perhaps
Bliss is the language that VSI can modify to solve the perceived or real
deficiencies.

Or, re-engineer Basic for the purpose and then use a simple easy to
understand language ....

:-)

[li...@openmailbox.org]

On Wed, 18 Mar 2015 21:11:15 -0400

Stephen Hoffman via Info-vax <info...@rbnsn.com> wrote:

> > On Wednesday, 18 March 2015 01:22:16 UTC, johnso...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> On Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 1:00:04 PM UTC-4, li...@openmailbox.org
> >> wrote:

> > "separate your disgust at elements of the standard C library from that
> > of the language itself. "
> >
> > Lots of folk could benefit from doing that.

I don't agree. Most languages in popular use *are* their libraries. The
distinction is only relevant from an implementation or language lawyer
standpoint. All those languages would be worthless without their libraries
and as far as the coder knows the language and libraries are one. In most
regards the distinction is misleading and false.

To clear up the possibly deliberate misinterpretation of anything I have
written on the topic, my objections to C have nothing to do with C's
libraries, its use of libraries, etc. I object to C on its own lack of
merit.

> Ayup, and what will lists think of OpenVMS, given that more than a
> third of OpenVMS is written in C? I'd be inclined to use something
> else now, but there's no-trivial cost involved in shifting languages.
> Adding another language to the existing collection of (mostly) C,
> Macro32 compiler code, and Bliss — and a variety of other bits in
> smaller quantities, including Ada — just isn't going to be at the top
> of most lists. Particularly given the current team generally knows C,
> Macro32 and Bliss pretty well, too.

Well, a third is better than 99%. I'm not sure how much better it is but
it's certainly better. Don't worry about me, I can still get my good code
fix elsewhere whenever I need it.

I think VMS is unusual (now) in that it was written at the outset to work
on a single platform and then some apparently pretty brilliant people
ported it to Alpha and then even more brilliantly to Itanic. I don't know
if it was the same people or not but having looked at Itanic for 30 minutes
total I would guess that was a lot harder than the Alpha port.

Regardless of other qualities, it's inevitable C is going to be the
de-facto choice if you want something portable. It didn't have to be that
way but it turned out that way. I understand that. I'm sure that situation
will get a lot worse if they port to Intel given Intel assembly is even
worse than C in some regards and it's much harder to find Intel assembly
coders than it is generic C coders.

But I also think if the amount of C in OpenVMS and products that run on it
increases significantly you're going to see new kinds of failure modes you
didn't see when there was less C and unfortunately it would seem the lack
of those failures until now was a major differentiator between VMS and
whatever. The more you try to be like Linux and run everywhere, the more
you're going to be like Linux and run everywhere.

[li...@openmailbox.org]

IBM opened up the POWER architecture and created the Open Power Consortium
almost one year ago:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/23/ibm_openpower_consortium_story/

This week Tyan announced the first non IBM-branded POWER server:

http://www.tyan.com/solutions/tyan_openpower_system.html

Unfortunately it's going to run Linux.

For about $3,000 you can get your own box.

http://www.tyan.com/campaign/openpower/index.html

Let's get VMS running on POWER!

[Stephen Hoffman]

Most folks that were in OpenVMS Engineering would.

> If there is no language that does things as well as desired, perhaps
> Bliss is the language that VSI can modify to solve the perceived or
> real deficiencies.

VSI has better things to do, at least for the near term.

> Or, re-engineer Basic for the purpose and then use a simple easy to
> understand language ....
>
> :-)

Here's a package with ease-of-use
<http://scratch.mit.edu/scratch2download/> <http://scratch.mit.edu/>
:-) Alas, Scratch can require installing some bits of software that
various folks won't want to install.

More seriously, by the time the heap memory usage was reworked or
removed, and lower-level hardware access akin to the C built-ins added,
and memory management sorted out (pushing BASIC downward), or by the
time that OOP features and related were added (pushing BASIC upward),
it'd look very different than it does now. And VSI would effectively
have themselves another Bliss; another OS-specific[1] language that all
but a few folks have never seen or used.

There's some Bliss code for a simple "Hello World" program at
<http://www.itec.suny.edu/scsys/vms/vmsdoc/72final/5843/5843pro_003.html>.
(That Bliss code would have been shorter with the use of the Bliss
%ASCID or $DESCRIPTOR syntax, but it'll still give you an idea of what
you're dealing with.) There's also an example
<sys$examples:VMS$PASSWORD_POLICY.B32> around that might be worth a
look.

Hauling Bliss forward would be no small effort, as well. About a
decade ago (maybe longer?) a decision was made to move most new OpenVMS
code over to C. With C99 and C11 and a library with the current
selection of strn and strl calls available (and more importantly,
used!) and with deprecation warnings for sketchy C library calls
available and enabled in the compiler, C does decently well. Folks
that are stuck and for whatever reason at ancient pre-ANSI C,
K&R-vintage, VAX C code, well, not so much. Giving VAX C a proper
burial under a few meters of concrete would probably collectively
resolve a number of security bugs for customers, but I digress. C on
OpenVMS is not particularly modern (yet?) and the environment is
effectively stuck ~fifteen years back, unfortunately. As for security
and integrity, OpenVMS could learn much from current BSD
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBSD_security_features>
<http://www.openbsd.org/security.html> here.

For a look at another and more recent approach to system-level
programming, here's Rust <http://www.rust-lang.org>. FWIW, you can
experiment with Rust right in any modern web browser from that Rust web
page. No need to install Rust, when you first want to see how it
works. Rust supports useful capabilities that BASIC has never had to
deal with, such as threading, and it's designed to make linking with
existing C interfaces easier.

————
[1] Yes, I'm aware that Bliss is available on a select few other
platforms beyond OpenVMS.

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <meep77$k6r$1...@dont-email.me>,

Or, there is this:

module NINTY_NINE_BOTTLES_CT (main=BOTTLES) =
!
! "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall"
! using BLISS on DIGITAL's Alpha OpenVMS
! by Ron Brender, bre...@zko.dec.com
!
begin

external routine
printf : novalue external_name('DECC$GXPRINTF');
!
! To "port" this program to UNIX or WNT, use
! external_name('printf') or the appropriate lower case
! compilation option instead of the above.


macro
PUT_TEXT(T) =
printf(uplit(%asciz '%s'), uplit(%asciz T))
%,
PUT_NL (dummy) =
printf(uplit(%asciz %string(%char(10))))
%;

compiletime
TEMP = 0;

! In principle, the complete text can be constructed at compile-time and
! output with a single PUT_TEXT call, however, that runs up against a
! compile-time maximum string length. This implementation constructs a
! complete stanza at compile-time.
!
macro
BOTTLE_S(COUNT) =
%if COUNT eql 1 %then 'bottle' %else 'bottles' %fi
%,

BOTTLE_COUNT(COUNT) =
%assign(TEMP, COUNT)
%if TEMP eql 0 %then 'No' %else %string(%number(TEMP)) %fi
%,

BOTTLE_STANZA(COUNT) =
PUT_TEXT(%string(
BOTTLE_COUNT(COUNT), ' ', BOTTLE_S(COUNT),
' of beer on the wall; ',
BOTTLE_COUNT(COUNT), ' ', BOTTLE_S(COUNT), ' of beer', %char(10),
'Take one down and pass it around', %char(10),
BOTTLE_COUNT(COUNT-1), ' ', BOTTLE_S(COUNT-1),
' of beer on the wall', %char(10),
%char(10)))
%,

BOTTLE_TEXT(COUNT)[] =
BOTTLE_STANZA(COUNT);
%if COUNT gtr 1 %then
BOTTLE_TEXT(COUNT - 1)
%fi
%;

global routine BOTTLES : novalue =
begin

! Title
!
PUT_NL();
PUT_TEXT(' "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall"'); PUT_NL();
PUT_NL();

BOTTLE_TEXT(99);

end;

end
eludom

:-)

[John Reagan]

On Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 11:36:17 AM UTC-4, Bill Gunshannon wrote:

> Or, there is this:
>
> module NINTY_NINE_BOTTLES_CT (main=BOTTLES) =
> !
> ! "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall"
> ! using BLISS on DIGITAL's Alpha OpenVMS
> ! by Ron Brender, bre...@zko.dec.com
> !

I've seen this before in the 99 bottles website.

Ron is a good friend but I think he did a disservice by using BLISS' preprocessor to simply generate 99 PUT_TEXT statements. Cute? Yes. An example of BLISS that most people could read & understand? No.

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-03-19 19:59:04 +0000, John Reagan said:

> Ron is a good friend but I think he did a disservice by using BLISS'
> preprocessor to simply generate 99 PUT_TEXT statements. Cute? Yes.
> An example of BLISS that most people could read & understand? No.

There are Bliss modules around with very substantial preprocessor
macros that generate massive quantities of code and/or data, with
resulting program code somewhere between complex and entirely
inscrutable. Debugging those can be... interesting. Like C, Bliss is
(was) used as a portable assembler. With Bliss programs incorporating
multiple-page macros and some of those macros with multiple component
macros,... eventually you're probably not using the right tool with
Bliss and macros, or maybe your current tool is missing useful features
such as abstraction or encapsulation. OOBliss. That'll give a few
folks nightmares.

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <69707a5d-87f0-42ec...@googlegroups.com>,

Well, I use the "99 bottles" collection for testing things. For example,
we have a High school Porgramming Contest coming up next month (My last!!)
and I am busy setting up an enviroment for the contestants that supports
their languages of choice. So far, C, C++, Java and Python. I have
chosen jGrasp which has a nice IDE, is a lightweight system (I need to
support a bunch of students on just a couple of Windows Servers, last
year we used Eclipse and they brought the machine to its knees!!) and it
supports all four of thiose languages. I used "99 bottle" to test them.

In honesty, I have never used Bliss and couldn't tell you if the program
was good or not. Just pointing out that its existence is publicly made
avaialble. Heck, they even have it in DIBOL (which I do know!!).

[Bob Koehler]

In article <mailman.14.1426777985....@rbnsn.com>, <li...@openmailbox.org> writes:
>
> I don't agree. Most languages in popular use *are* their libraries. The
> distinction is only relevant from an implementation or language lawyer
> standpoint.

I'm not impressed with a lot of what the ANSI C standards folks have
done, but they have said that the ANSI standard library is a part of
the C language.

I think that is the right approach.

[Henry Crun]

On 03/20/2015 02:49 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article <69707a5d-87f0-42ec...@googlegroups.com>,
> John Reagan <xyzz...@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 11:36:17 AM UTC-4, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>
>>> Or, there is this:
>>>
>>> module NINTY_NINE_BOTTLES_CT (main=BOTTLES) =
>>> !
>>> ! "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall"
>>> ! using BLISS on DIGITAL's Alpha OpenVMS
>>> ! by Ron Brender, bre...@zko.dec.com
>>> !
>>
>> I've seen this before in the 99 bottles website.
>>

<snip)
>
> bill
>
>
>
>
IIRC I posted a version in TPU some (a long) time ago

--
Mike R.
Home: http://alpha.mike-r.com/
QOTD: http://alpha.mike-r.com/php/qotd.php
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before


--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ne...@netfront.net ---