Chapter 1: Introduction

Overview

The computing world is a fast-moving one. Leading-edge technology may become obsolete in three to five years, and sometimes even sooner. Technology workers scramble to earn certifications in technologies that sometimes evaporate before the certificates expire.

But occasionally a technology proves to be so well designed and executed that it thrives long after competing technologies fade away, even outlasting some newer products that were predicted to replace it.

In 1977, Digital Equipment Corporation introduced the world to two such products: the VAX computer and an operating system designed to run upon it—VAX/VMS. Even though the VAX could run other operating systems and VAX/VMS would later be ported to other types of computers, they were designed largely with one another in mind.

The VAX and VAX/VMS had several ambitious design goals. Among them were to allow the same software to run unmodified on hardware with a wide range of capabilities and sizes, to be easy to use, and to remain viable for 15 to 20 years.

The VAX exceeded these goals, and lasted for longer than the upper design goal of 20 years, with new VAX systems being sold until the year 2000. As this book is written, a few vendors even have some remaining stock of new VAX systems.

Hewlett-Packard has promised hardware support to existing VAX and Alpha installations for many years into the future, and even now, is porting the VMS operating system, now called OpenVMS, to the Intel Itanium architecture. Actively being developed and improved today, almost 25 years after its introduction, OpenVMS promises many more years of viability to come.