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Aucbvax.5891 fa.info-vax utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!info-vax Thu Jan 21 09:36:49 1982 VAX/VMS versus Unix >From JSOL@USC-ECLB Thu Jan 21 09:34:26 1982 Until a month ago, I was the systems programmer for a VAX VMS system. One of the things I thought was really interesting about VMS was that it required very little of my time to keep working. My job was more a clerk's job (filling out SPR's, calling DEC for problems, backing up the filesystem when the operators had trouble, restoring from really bad crashes occasionally), than a systems programmer's job. Therefore I would say that VMS is better in a business environment where "Hackers" are not present (or are very expensive, compared to clerks which you can pay minimum wage to). From a profit/loss point of view, the VAX/VMS is highly reliable at a minimum cost. Every software maintainence task is reduced to a magic command, insertion of a floppy disk, and some coffee while you wait the hour and a half that it takes to update (sometimes).

Rutgers uses their VMS systems for both Research use (using statistical packages written by outside groups such as IMSL and SPSS). Unfortunately these prorams were never converted to run under UNIX (hint: it is my impression that UNIX hackers wished those programs would fade away along with IBM 370's), and since many non hackers (i.e. *u*s*e*r*s* - remember them? the ones that make it possible for us hackers to hack for free??) depend on these packages for their work (imaging doing a thesis for the School of Agriculture on food consumption naionally broken down by regions).

My theory is that UNIX is better for an environemt where there are (unix) hackers, and relatively few non hackers, while VMS is good for environemts where management wants to cut costs down to the bare minimum (and where the majority of the users are either perpetual novices or are forced to deal with computers against their wishes).

--Jsol

p.s. I think UNIX and VMS are the way they are because Bell Labs and DEC wanted their respective operating systems to be that way.

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