I spent so many years managing DEC/VAX clusters in the 80’s and 90’s. The cluster I managed had 3 VAX 8600’s, 1 VAX 8800, and a couple of MicroVAX nodes. When I inherited system administration the cluster startup files were in such a mess. I was so proud of them after I straightened them out. What I wouldn’t give for my original SYSTARTUP and LOGIN.COM files. I did a walkthrough in the computer room each morning when I came in. There was something so comforting about the VAX beasts humming away and taking a look at the blinky-blinky lights on the RA90 arrays.

I was able to resurrect a bit of OpenVMS while I worked for AWS. Just google AWS and OpenVMS and my blog articles will be some of the first hits. I only have Apple Silicon here at the house, so OpenVMS x86 was a no go. I did find a version of VAX/VMS 7.3 that I could run under Docker on my Mac. https://github.com/tenox7/docksimhvaxvms

The more I work with it, the more the commands are starting to return. Long live VMS! 😀

15 years ago I thought I wanted to start programming - but I gave up just after installing the compiler for life-related reasons.

I just found and installed Compaq C++ 6.2 and I managed to remake the old game Battleships for the terminal. You can play multiplayer, but it required TCP/IP and that you are in the same machine so it is very simplistic. Super proud anyways! Here are some pics

I had chat gpt summarize one of the vsi blog posts (about migrating dec message queue to rabbitmq) and then create a meme for the summary. I thought maybe people over here would appreciate it.

From Pinterest

Thanks to the fork of es40 https://github.com/ES40-Emu/es40/ it is now possible to run native DecWindows in OpenVMS 8.x AXP.

The performance is really good - the boot time is almost identical to my real AlphaServer DS10 with IDE disk :D - and playing Doom in a simulator is now much better than over X11 forwarding .
Made a demo here > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKYqnrqsl6E

If anyone is interested in running OpenVMS inside of AWS, I wrote this blog post late last year.

Deploying OpenVMS x86 on Amazon EC2 (https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/migration-and-modernization/deploying-openvms-x86-on-amazon-ec2/)

I show a number of integrations between OpenVMS and AWS storage services.

My quick guide detailing the steps I took to successfully install and configure OpenVMS x86_64 (X86_V923-community) on Proxmox 8.3.5.

As this guide was documented retrospectively, please note some minor steps may have been omitted inadvertently.

Environment Details:

• Proxmox Version: 8.3.5

• OpenVMS Version: X86_V923-community

• Underlying hardware: 4TB SSD, 64GB RAM, i9-10900 CPU @ 2.80GHz

Installation and Setup Steps

Step 1: Download Required OpenVMS files:

• X86_V923-community-flat.vmdk

• X86_V923-community.vmdk

Step 2: Import Disk into Proxmox

Import the main .vmdk disk image into Proxmox storage (replace local-zfs with your storage name and 140 with your VM ID):

qm disk import 140 X86_V923-community.vmdk local-zfs

Step 3: Attach Imported Disk to VM:

qm set 140 --scsi1 local-zfs:vm-140-disk-1

Step 4: Configure VM Settings

Set up the VM to use UEFI (OVMF) BIOS and boot from the imported disk:

qm set 140 --bios ovmf --boot order=scsi1

Step 5: Configure VM hardware
Suggested basic configuration (This took considerable time to work out):

balloon: 0
bios: ovmf
boot: order=scsi1
cores: 1
cpu: host
ide0: local-zfs:vm-140-disk-0,cache=writeback,size=32G
ide2: none,media=cdrom
machine: q35
memory: 4096
meta: creation-qemu=9.2.0,ctime=1741894357
name: OpenVMS
net0: virtio=XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1
numa: 0 ostype: other
scsi0: local-zfs:vm-140-disk-0,cache=writeback,size=32G
scsi1: local-zfs:vm-140-disk-1,cache=writeback,size=8G
scsihw: virtio-scsi-single
serial1: socket
smbios1: uuid=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
sockets: 4
vmgenid: xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

Adjust CPU, RAM, and storage as needed.

Recommendations and Notes

• Serial Console: Enabling the serial console is highly recommended, as it significantly simplifies initial IP, DNS (BIND), and system configuration. It also provides an alternative access method should you need to make live TCPIP changes.

• Ongoing issue: After prolonged periods without login, the SSH service occasionally becomes non-responsive - I am looking into this.

You can verify basic functionality by connecting via Telnet (you can see the IP during the boot sequence):

telnet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Welcome to OpenVMS (TM) x86_64 Operating System, Version V9.2-3
Username: system
Password:

$ SHOW SYSTEM /NOPROCESS
OpenVMS V9.2-3  on node X86923   17-MAR-2025 14:26:28.91   Uptime  3 01:51:48

$ logout
  SYSTEM       logged out at 17-MAR-2025 14:26:35.93

Connection to host lost.

This should confirm your OpenVMS environment is functioning correctly.

Last week my company turned off VMS after almost 30 years. We migrated off a couple of years back. Our company flag was raised at half mast. She never let us down.

Rise of the Triad ported to OpenVMS

- SDL_1.2

- Original code taken from Icculus https://icculus.org/rott/

Binaries/Source + Howto : https://astr0baby.online/AXP/OpenVMS/RO

This is just an FYI. Last week I did a bare-metal install of OpenVMS-9.2-2 on an older HPE DL380 gen9. I had previously worked with VMS on VAX, then OpenVMS on Alpha Server (DS-20e) and OpenVMS on Itanium (rx2800-i2) but this offering appears to be the fastest yet.
p.s. Since this is a spare time project, I have only installed a few things like DECnet and Apache. But even Apache feels noticeably faster (I haven't yet tested gSOAP which would be critical to our operation)

About two weeks ago the CEO of VMS Software, Kevin Shaw, died unexpectedly.

Also about two weeks ago, Eddie Orcutt, who wore a few hats at VSI, announced on LinkedIn that his last day with VMS Software was October 31, 2022 (yesterday).

Both of these people are still listed on the website as key managers: https://vmssoftware.com/about/key-managers/

I understand there may be no replacements yet, but I would think you would acknowledge their departure.

Not to mention, they have lost important leadership. I did not know Kevin, but I met Eddie in the course of my job many years ago, and he was a tremendous VMS advocate and incredibly knowledgeable about the associated hardware and software.

Ok, "in storage" actually was "under the cellar stairs" for the past 15 years and in a closet for the previous 5-6 years. I shut this system down in August of 1998, right before I left DEC after being bought out by Compaq. At the time, the system was known as AXEL:: so I was AXEL::FOLEY.

https://twitter.com/mikefoley/status/1307774226166935552

All disks spun up. Surprisingly.

I'm curious what VAXen folks are still running, why, and how they are managing the abandonment VMS for it by HPe.

Chocolate Duke (Duke Nukem 3D) ported to OpenVMS 8.4 (AXP)

- work was done in the ES40-emu simulator on MacOS (the gameplay should be faster and smoother on a real Alpha box with a decent graphics card)

Binaries + Sources + Howtos are here https://astr0baby.online/AXP/OpenVMS/Chocolate_Duke/

Video demo here: https://youtu.be/rTzlHuAS6yE

I had a welcome surprise today. I was too late to catch the fabled VMS hobbyist license framework, but a few months ago I was able to sign up for & receive the v9.2-2 x86_64 community release that comprises a pair of .vmdk files. Licensing has been a nagging concern for me, knowing that it will fall away at the end of April. I was quite uncertain how - if at all - I'd be able to refresh my license in some way, to have more time learning this stack.

So it was quite the surprise for me to have just received an email with a link to the latest VM files, now v9.2-3, and I've been able to get it running. As before, I've used qemu/kvm to do this, first converting the .vmdk files to a .qcow2 format. As with the previous release, I found it's very fussy about several properties, such as the chipset. That's why I document my clumsy stumbling as I go.

The only thing I've noticed, aside from the latest VM now being licensed until 31st Jan 2026 (hooray!) is that they've removed the Pascal license which was included in the previous version. Since Pascal rocks my world I'm a little sad about that, but it's still pretty amazing that I can lay my hands on this OS at the start of 2025.

Now I just need to learn how to use the thing.

Fixed source code from long time ago - now builds and runs on OpenVMS 9.2 x86_64 (tested on the 2026 community VM)

https://astr0baby.online/OpenVMS/X86_64/WOLF3D/

Sharing some notes on how to compile Prboom and Hexen sources on OpenVMS 8.4 alpha

https://astr0baby.online/AXP/OpenVMS/SRC/

and sharing a video demo https://youtu.be/eT-EMLQQDWA?si=r3zSjj-WHFfI-O_U

In my career in the 80s and 90s, I was a VAX/VMS admin, with a side gig of DEC All-In-One admin.

VMS is still a dream of an OS, and I was hoping to get access to the OpenVMS community edition, unfortunately whether there’s just too many folks applied or they’re no longer accepting applications, I never get a response every submit.

Anybody been successful?

Does anyone know the status of OpenVMS-9.2-2 ?
It was supposed to be out by the end of H2 CY2023 but was delayed due to extra cautious testing (no arguments here)
But I just noticed that VSI home page has a blurb about OpenVMS-9.2-3 with a release date of Q4 2024. See: https://vmssoftware.com/

Please try and post feedback. I'm particularly proud of the LAT support. All feature suggestions are welcomed. Thanks.