Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11817991

Points: 5

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11493013

Points: 1

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There are new Itanium servers with support added last year, another (final) generation is planned, and — in preparation for the end of Itanium — an OpenVMS port to x86-64 is presently underway, and there's a new OpenVMS release (for Itanium) is scheduled to arrive this March.

https://vmssoftware.com/products.html

The most recent OpenVMS release shipped in June 2015, and the next release is due to ship in March 2016.

There's a port to x86-64 underway, as well.

For those looking for hardware for hobbyist use, used Integrity Itanium servers are usually cheaper than used working Alpha and VAX gear, and newer — working VAX and Alpha gear has become more expensive in recent years. Various VAX and Alpha emulators are available, either as open source or available to hobbyists at no cost.

Here's full-mixed-language programmable, locally- and fully-remote-debuggable, mixed-user and inner-mode processing unikernel, and with various other features...

This from 1986...

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/vax/vaxeln/2.0/VA...

FWIW, here's a unikernel thin client EWS application that can be downloaded into what was then an older system, to make it more useful for then-current X11 applications...

From 1992...

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/info/SP3368/SP3368PF.PDF

Anybody that wants to play and still has a compatible VAX or that wants to try the VCB01/QVSS graphics support in some versions of the (free) SIMH VAX emulator, the VAX EWS code is now available here:

http://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v50/ews/

To get an OpenVMS system going to host all this, HPE has free OpenVMS hobbyist licenses and download images (VAX, Alpha, Itanium) available via registration at:

https://h41268.www4.hp.com/live/index_e.aspx?qid=24548&desig...

Yes, this stuff was used in production, too.

http://www.unisys.com/offerings/high-end-servers/clearpath-f...

The entry-level SSDs are rated for ~two whole-drive writes per week.

Wear gage, et al.

http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF%2Easpx%2F4AA4%2D7186ENW%...

OpenVMS and NonStop (NSK) do not compete. Entirely different products and markets.

VMS Software Inc (VSI) have licensed OpenVMS from HPE. They've not acquired the product.

The company was newly formed, not a spin-off of HP.

VSI have been circumspect on their x86-64 release schedule.

The team includes many of the same development folks that ported OpenVMS from Alpha to Itanium.

OpenVMS I64 Itanium software list prices are unchanged from those of HPE. Whether and how much the VSI sales reps might be discounting, you'd have to ask them.

Related: http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/1917 http://www.vmssoftware.com/pdfs/VSI_DrawerSt_v2.pdf

There's also a Freelancer thread.

The November threads, for reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10492086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10492087

re: "those days" — FWIW, those days are still ongoing. The latest OpenVMS release shipped out in June 2015, and the native port to x86-64 is underway.

One example of this general design is VAX ELN.

The following is a brochure from the V2.2 release, from 1986:

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/vax/vaxeln/2.0/VA...

Compile and then link the application code with the particular pieces of the toolkits that you needed and with the provided kernel into a single download image, and either embed or boot or network boot the target box using it. Remote debugging was available, as well as a relational database, etc.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10362232

Points: 26

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10182054

Points: 12

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Details: https://www.nsa.gov/ia/programs/suiteb_cryptography/index.sh...

For network transfers, you'll likely also want to select your encryption with PFS:

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

Some history: Google acquired DejaNews and the contents of other usenet archives, and has largely let all of that data languish, with what can sometimes be very weak search abilities of the archives via Google Groups (no hits for XYZ in an active group for XYZ, for instance), and where Google doesn't make the Usenet archives available and visible via the main search Google engine, and has generally become somewhat of problem.

Then there are the folks that dredge up a decades-old usenet thread — possibly having no idea what Usenet is — and post to it, and with the usual hilarity that ensues. "Hey, is PDQ still available?" to a post offering PDQ that originally posted in 1997, etc.

By some appearances, Google Groups is headed in the same direction as Google Reader.

http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/fall2001/cmsc411/projects/IA64-2...

http://www.drdobbs.com/embedded-systems/predication-speculat...

Predication allows all of the code to be executed, and a subset of the results of the code — those from the failing test — discarded.

I'm not particularly inclined to port neovim to OpenVMS right now, as there are a few other projects in the queue ahead of that.

Figure out what interests you yourself, whether you want to go somewhere or do something, and how you might get there. What's important to you.

If your current job can or does line up with that, great. If not, then start working toward your target and toward a different role at your employer, a different employer, or self-employment.

Have enough cash and/or short-term assets available to operate for at least six months without a job. Maybe longer, depending on what the job market looks like in your area.

As for yourself: diet, exercise, regular sleep and regular meals, and working sane hours. Work on your own mental, social, and physical health. Your finances and your cash flow and your sleep and your meal schedules are all part of this health, too.

Schedule time for yourself. Outside of your job. Both to learn and grow, and for socializing. Seek out folks that will challenge you — either at work, at university, at a Maker's event, or outside. Seek out and talk with folks of different backgrounds and interest areas and any of the different genders and of different personal histories and experiences. Learn a new language.

Once you have pondered on these and have your plans underway, then you can start working on the technologies and the tools and the online courses and classes and the rest. If they're applicable, and how you best learn.

While your employer will certainly like the focus on your career, life is more about yourself.

The laws on whether ambulances must stop at red lights and stop signs vary by locality.

It's almost always legally your mess if you don't stop at a traffic control device and are then involved in a collision — most laws and various insurance or service policy requirements tend to require "due care" or "prudent" or other such wording, and collisions are usually considered an adverse indication.

I've always wanted the traffic signal in front of me to be green on approach.

This reduces the numbers of stopped cars in my path.

Some of the drivers of the stopped cars at intersections will attempt or will perform odd or normally-unexpected maneuvers, sometimes leading to collisions. But mostly the herd in front of me scatters short distances, and generally resulting in intersection gridlock.

It's common practice in some areas to avoid using the siren in certain situations, such as when passing to the right of the bulk of (stopped) traffic waiting on a red, using the breakdown or turn lane at an intersection, for instance. Some folks will hear the siren and immediately block that lane, or they might turn into and collide with me.

The local traffic preemption systems all include a flashing indicator — a rotating red beacon on a cross-arm or a pole, for instance — indicating that the preemption request has been accepted and is occurring. This tells me that the other lights are all red. Or it tells me that I'm approaching a non-preempted light, and that the green in front of me might go red.

If the traffic lights are red and there's no preemption and no open and no bypass lane, then some of the folks at the front of the herd will inevitably not break that red, meaning local traffic gridlock, meaning that the ambulance waits (with the siren off) for the light to change.