VSI has reportedly ended their hobbyist community licensing program for OpenVMS Alpha and OpenVMS I64, and is restricting the OpenVMS x86-64 licensing to pre-built and pre-licensed downloads.

Which ends the general usefulness of older hardware platforms for OpenVMS hobbyists, and constrains what can happen on OpenVMS x86-64.

VSI have previously discontinued perpetual licenses for all platforms, and new versions for Alpha and for Itanium.

Outside of some guest images intended for training classes, it's all commercially-licensed SaaS on x86-64 from here on out.

#VSI #OpenVMS #retrocomputing #digitalequipment #DEC #VMSSoftware #VMSSoftwareInc

DEC VAX/VMS (and OpenVMS) block the first page of virtual memory to detect null pointer and small-value dereferences.

Apple went further, blocking all of what OpenVMS calls P0, P1, S0, and S1 space; all of 32-bit address space.

https://chaos.social/@uliwitness/110133940731402509

The OpenVMS hybrid 32- and 64-bit memory management design is a mess, though. It’s very clever and is great for extending existing 32-bit apps (the design goal), but the hybrid APIs are a mess for newer and new app work.

VSI has made changes to this design with the x86-64 port, though most of the native compilers aren’t yet available to build and test apps locally, and doc is a little thin.

#VSI #VMSSoftwareInc #DEC #DigitalEquipmentCorporation #VMS #VAX #OpenVMS #retrocomputing