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by waspentalive 2270 days ago
So now it is time to "Linux" VMS? Is it possible to do this?
1 comments
alxlaz 2270 days ago
A long, long time ago, there was a project called FreeVMS which aimed to do that. Sadly, it didn't get much further than booting.

Edit: https://github.com/rroart/freevms . It's definitely not big and professional like OpenVMS :-)

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wazoox 2270 days ago
Ah, looks like a fork of my friend jkb's work. Used to live on frevms.net, nowadays squatted. ( see https://web.archive.org/web/20110310093558/http://www.freevm... ).
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alxlaz 2270 days ago
Yeah -- when I saw a redesigned website at freevms.net, my heart skipped a beat, I thought FreeVMS might still be alive. I couldn't track jkb's original tree anymore and figured I'd link to that Github project instead, as it had a few additional commits and, thus, a higher chance of running on more recent emulators.
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wazoox 2270 days ago
I'll send him a direct email and keep you informed. Stay tuned :)

update : The reply was: He started a rewrite on L4, but it was too much for one lone guy; he could start it all again if some want to participate.

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alxlaz 2270 days ago
OpenVMS has an enduring fan base -- maybe who knows enough to make meaningful contributions is reading this!
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wazoox 2270 days ago
First, the code around the L4 kernel (Pistachio) is still available. I've cloned it to github here so as to not overload jkb's personal server (still in the origin):

https://github.com/wazoox/FreeVMS

What's missing:

- L4 Pistachio is unsupported...

- Memory management (VMS style) is to be implemented.

- Drivers.

The website is still online somewhere, I hope to know the URL soon :) I'll add it to the github README.

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