INFO-VAX Sat, 09 Feb 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 80 Contents: Re: "file locked by another user" mystery Re: Anyone interested in building a vms-like OS? Re: OT: Hack contest Re: OT: Hack contest Re: OT: Hack contest Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 16:45:55 +0000 (UTC) From: helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) Subject: Re: "file locked by another user" mystery Message-ID: In article <5c75c7ba-def9-4727-ba0e-b55d8ff5be8c@q77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, chessmaster1010@hotmail.com writes: > On Jan 31, 10:05=A0pm, AEF wrote: > > On Jan 29, 6:14 pm, Fred Bach wrote: > > > The reason the status for TYPing a non-existant file is only a warning > is simple - it does not abort TYPE. Makes sense. > > Well, I wouldn't want to STOP on severe errors as I'd probably want to > > do some cleanup. Also, it's somewhat arbitrary what constitutes a > > warning vs. an error vs. a "severe error". Indeed. My pet peeve is MOUNT/CONFIRM/SHADOW. Why would one do this? Because one wants to make sure that the right members are mounted and, if a copy is required, that it is in the right direction. If a copy is required, this brings up -F-. OK, you're interactively building a shadow set, and you see -F-, even though it is behaving exactly as expected. Scary. Personally, I think it is clear what success (severity -1), normal (1) and informational (3) are. Now it gets a bit trickier. I agree that a warning (0) should be saying "OK, I don't have to abort, but perhaps you expected something else". This seems more or less standard. Where things are unclear is the difference between error (2) and fatal error (4). In both cases, the program needs to abort (except in strange cases like BACKUP with multiple files). In my own software, an error is invalid user input which can't be processed, i.e. the user made a mistake, whereas a fatal error is an internal error in the program. This is not the paradigm favoured by VMS (if, indeed, there is one), but at least it is a consistent approach. In other words, you can probably do something about an error, but not about a fatal error. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Feb 2008 14:39:27 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: Anyone interested in building a vms-like OS? Message-ID: <615s8uF1sdudmU1@mid.individual.net> In article <47AD22BA.15A1322A@spam.comcast.net>, David J Dachtera writes: > Bill Gunshannon wrote: >> [snip] >> There are thousands of people out there with the knowledge of linux and unix >> to do it. There isn't for VMS for the obvious reason that the same level >> of avaialble information has never existed for VMS. No one has the sources. >> No one but HP can build versions of it. So, if you want to use VMS you >> have to go to HP and pay what ever they want for it. That's buysiness. >> You can't build an equivalent business on software you are required to hand >> to your competitors. But then, if believe all software must be freei and you >> still want to feed your family, I understand WallMart and McDonalds are still >> hiring. > > The problem I have with that business model is that it's sort of like a > light bulb that never fails: you sell it ONCE (think: "everlasting > gobstopper"). Which business model? Two, rather opposite, models are mentioned above. > Support, on the other hand, is either a monthly, > quarterly, yearly or some other recurring charge (read: "cash flow"). > > That's known as "residual income" in some circles, rather like rental > income on an apartment building, royalties of various kinds, etc. And that is pretty much where the majority of VMS revenue is coming from at this point, I would imagine. BUt, the point is, under the GPL business model you can't even plan on a profit from this (unless you cheat on the license) because once you have gicen away all the sources to your product someone with the requisite skills but without the development expenses to recoup can undercut you on the cost of support leaving you with less is anything at all. I guess what it all comes down to is wether or not people really want to see VMS remain (and maybe even win back some status) as a viable commercial operating system or if they are satisfied with it degenerating to the point of merely another hobbyist toy. Having given some thought to the whole thing recently, I have come up with what might be another interesting concept for those who have a commercial interest in seeing VMS thrive (or at least survive). The idea of buying it from HP has been broached but is not realistic as the cost would be prohibitive and, anyway, it ain't for sale. That has led to talk of cloning it and the arguments over licensing. But, how about a third possible alternative? Anyone ever considered talking to HP about the possibility of getting a non-exclusive license to develop, sell and maintain VMS? This was actually done with Unix a lot in the early days. It is what got us XENIX, Venix, Onyx and any number of other proprietary Unix clones. The same model might be doable for VMS, especially when you look at the number of people with serious experience who are no longer under contract to HP. Comments anyone? bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: 9 Feb 2008 13:15:54 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: OT: Hack contest Message-ID: <615ncaF1sqg1sU1@mid.individual.net> In article , "Tom Linden" writes: > On Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:18:51 -0800, Phaeton = > = > > wrote: > >> >> http://www.news.com/2102-1002_3-6229577.html?tag=3Dst.util.print >> >> >> Vista, Leopard, Linux to compete in hack contest. >> >> ------------------------ >> >> I wonder why VMS is not there... :-) > > It is like golf these days, when Tiger is playing the field is competing= > > for second place. Nice analogy, but a little off the mark. VMS isn't Tiger Woods, it's Arnold Palmer. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 05:32:56 -0800 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: OT: Hack contest Message-ID: On Sat, 09 Feb 2008 05:15:54 -0800, Bill Gunshannon = wrote: >> It is like golf these days, when Tiger is playing the field is = >> competing=3D >> >> for second place. > Nice analogy, but a little off the mark. > VMS isn't Tiger Woods, it's Arnold Palmer. Well I agree that it hasn't moved with the times like z/os -- = PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 06:32:11 -0800 (PST) From: AEF Subject: Re: OT: Hack contest Message-ID: <3e1c1119-37c9-43b7-a048-bb70e851edec@s13g2000prd.googlegroups.com> On Feb 9, 8:15 am, billg...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote: > In article , > "Tom Linden" writes: > > > > > On Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:18:51 -0800, Phaeton = > > = > > > wrote: > > >>http://www.news.com/2102-1002_3-6229577.html?tag=3Dst.util.print > > >> Vista, Leopard, Linux to compete in hack contest. > > >> ------------------------ > > >> I wonder why VMS is not there... :-) > > > It is like golf these days, when Tiger is playing the field is competing= > > > for second place. > > Nice analogy, but a little off the mark. > > VMS isn't Tiger Woods, it's Arnold Palmer. > > bill > > -- > Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves > b...@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. > University of Scranton | > Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include Ah, but one can take this yet another step further. For OSes, there is no "Tiger Woods" today. AEF ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 10:47:29 GMT From: winston@SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing) Subject: Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Message-ID: <00A74E4E.933A00A3@SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> In article <47AD1D3E.2050509@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: >Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing wrote: >> VMSers -- >> >> DCPS SPD says Xerox Phaser 7750 is supported. Our printer guys are proposing >> purchasing a 7760. Is anyone out there already using this? Is it safe to >> buy one? >> >> DCPS 2.6 >> VMS 8.3 >> (Alpha DS20E at present, but we'll eventually need to print from Itanium too). >> >> This box will need to work on the first day, and the alternative is an HP5550, >> which *does* appear in the SPD. It looks like the 7760 might be a better >> printer, and I don't want to kibosh it unnecessarily. >> >> Thanks, >> >> >> - Alan >> > >Just remember, "supported" means that if it doesn't work, they will MAKE >it work! That's a very cozy position to be in. If the 7760 doesn't >work, what will you do? How much money will you be out? Remember, it's >not just the cost of the printer, it's the man hours expended plus the >cost of the 7760 which you may not recover if you have to send it back >and get a 7750. > >Even if it *seems* to work, unless you test every feature and >combination of features, you can't be sure that it will do everything >it's supposed to do. If you need to upgrade DCPS and the 7750 is >supported, you can expect that the 7750 will continue to work. The same >is not true of the 7760. > > >Im not familiar with either printer nor with your situation. You will >have to be the one to evaluate the risks and make the call! This is all true. On the one hand, the question is now moot, because the HP5550 was cheaper and the beancounters decided that was a compelling reason. On the other, I thought I might flush out the DCPS developer (who has very kindly popped up and answered questions here in the past) to give me a hint about whether it would be supported in future. And I'd *hope* it would be supported in future, because it's been a very positive development that DCPS supports more and more departmental and enterprise printers from different vendors, making it much more possible for VMS to coexist in that environment. It's tough that printer product cycles are so short, though. -- Alan ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 06:52:15 -0500 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Message-ID: <47AD93EF.4030403@comcast.net> Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing wrote: > In article <47AD1D3E.2050509@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: > >>Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing wrote: >> >>>VMSers -- >>> >>>DCPS SPD says Xerox Phaser 7750 is supported. Our printer guys are proposing >>>purchasing a 7760. Is anyone out there already using this? Is it safe to >>>buy one? >>> >>>DCPS 2.6 >>>VMS 8.3 >>>(Alpha DS20E at present, but we'll eventually need to print from Itanium too). >>> >>>This box will need to work on the first day, and the alternative is an HP5550, >>>which *does* appear in the SPD. It looks like the 7760 might be a better >>>printer, and I don't want to kibosh it unnecessarily. >>> >>>Thanks, >>> >>> >>>- Alan >>> >> >>Just remember, "supported" means that if it doesn't work, they will MAKE >>it work! That's a very cozy position to be in. If the 7760 doesn't >>work, what will you do? How much money will you be out? Remember, it's >>not just the cost of the printer, it's the man hours expended plus the >>cost of the 7760 which you may not recover if you have to send it back >>and get a 7750. >> >>Even if it *seems* to work, unless you test every feature and >>combination of features, you can't be sure that it will do everything >>it's supposed to do. If you need to upgrade DCPS and the 7750 is >>supported, you can expect that the 7750 will continue to work. The same >>is not true of the 7760. >> >> >>Im not familiar with either printer nor with your situation. You will >>have to be the one to evaluate the risks and make the call! > > > > This is all true. On the one hand, the question is now moot, because the > HP5550 was cheaper and the beancounters decided that was a compelling reason. > On the other, I thought I might flush out the DCPS developer (who has very > kindly popped up and answered questions here in the past) to give me a hint > about whether it would be supported in future. > If a fading memory still serves me, the developer is Paul Anderson. > And I'd *hope* it would be supported in future, because it's been a very > positive development that DCPS supports more and more departmental and > enterprise printers from different vendors, making it much more possible for > VMS to coexist in that environment. It's tough that printer product cycles are > so short, though. > I don't know about future support. If the printer is very similar to some supported printer, it might be easy. If there are a lot of those printers out there, it would make sense to do it. It's likely that HP printers will be suupported. Brand X? Maybe, if it's HP compatible. I somehow doubt that HP will go out of its way to support a competitor's products! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 06:31:41 -0800 (PST) From: ewilts@ewilts.org Subject: Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Message-ID: On Feb 9, 5:52=A0am, "Richard B. Gilbert" wrote: > It's likely that HP printers will be suupported. =A0Brand X? =A0Maybe, if > it's HP compatible. =A0I somehow doubt that HP will go out of its way to > support a competitor's products! The simple answer that I give to every vendor who wants to sell me a printer is to get it on the DCPS compatibility list. They usually counter and want to talk me through getting it configured and tested and Xerox is especially bad at this. I *always* say NO. If the vendor wants to sell me a printer, they get to do the work, not me. I've talked to the DCPS folks about this in the past. The certification process isn't hard but the vendor has to send a printer to the DCPS group and most vendors don't want to do that. Xerox printers are quite troublesome because they started with a photocopier and added printing functionality to it. Their TCP/IP stacks suck (at least they used to - they might be better now). DCPS offers a lot that simply dumb printing systems don't - things like a broadcast message to a user's terminal that a toner cartridge is low. So, I'll repeat myself and say to the vendors that it's their responsibility to get their printers qualified if they want to sell to the customers that use DCPS. I've wasted far too many hours trying to make a stupid printer work. .../Ed ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 10:26:12 -0500 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Message-ID: <47ADC614.2080605@comcast.net> Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing wrote: > In article <47AD1D3E.2050509@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: > >>Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing wrote: >> >>>VMSers -- >>> >>>DCPS SPD says Xerox Phaser 7750 is supported. Our printer guys are proposing >>>purchasing a 7760. Is anyone out there already using this? Is it safe to >>>buy one? >>> >>>DCPS 2.6 >>>VMS 8.3 >>>(Alpha DS20E at present, but we'll eventually need to print from Itanium too). >>> >>>This box will need to work on the first day, and the alternative is an HP5550, >>>which *does* appear in the SPD. It looks like the 7760 might be a better >>>printer, and I don't want to kibosh it unnecessarily. >>> >>>Thanks, >>> >>> >>>- Alan >>> >> >>Just remember, "supported" means that if it doesn't work, they will MAKE >>it work! That's a very cozy position to be in. If the 7760 doesn't >>work, what will you do? How much money will you be out? Remember, it's >>not just the cost of the printer, it's the man hours expended plus the >>cost of the 7760 which you may not recover if you have to send it back >>and get a 7750. >> >>Even if it *seems* to work, unless you test every feature and >>combination of features, you can't be sure that it will do everything >>it's supposed to do. If you need to upgrade DCPS and the 7750 is >>supported, you can expect that the 7750 will continue to work. The same >>is not true of the 7760. >> >> >>Im not familiar with either printer nor with your situation. You will >>have to be the one to evaluate the risks and make the call! > > > > This is all true. On the one hand, the question is now moot, because the > HP5550 was cheaper and the beancounters decided that was a compelling reason. > On the other, I thought I might flush out the DCPS developer (who has very > kindly popped up and answered questions here in the past) to give me a hint > about whether it would be supported in future. > I have contact information (phone/E-mail) for the developer, Paul Anderson. It may be hopelessly out of date or it might still work. E-mail me if you need it. I think I spoke with him once but it was seven or eight years ago. . . . I was trying to replace a bunch of kludgy dot-matrix impact printers that could do bar codes and feed at least two different forms. We needed four of those suckers just to be sure we had at least two in working order. Talk about a nightmare!!! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 10:32:04 -0500 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Message-ID: <01f9144a$0$23745$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing wrote: > And I'd *hope* it would be supported in future, because it's been a very > positive development that DCPS supports more and more departmental and > enterprise printers from different vendors, making it much more possible for > VMS to coexist in that environment. As I recall, DCPS uses some "built-in" hardcoded postscript for some of the dialogue with printer, and then uses postscript from .TLBs for much of the printer specific stuff. Perhaps what would be needed is some open documentation on what basic postscript command the printer must support, as well as description of what features must be made available in a .TLB that you build yourself for that one printer. This would allow one to evaluate if a prospective printer would work, and how much work would be needed to build the printer specific stuff to make that printer work. It wouldn't mean that HP would support it, but you could then get VMS to support certain printers within your organisation. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 10:41:00 -0500 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Message-ID: <47adcb13$0$22074$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> ewilts@ewilts.org wrote: > DCPS offers a lot that simply dumb printing systems don't - things > like a broadcast message to a user's terminal that a toner cartridge > is low. Macs have supported messages back to the user since 1984. And Macs generally provide printer specific support by simply adding a printer specific .PPD file to a folder. Although I assume that there may also be some "hardcoded" postscript codes that the Mac expects all printers to support. Of course, now that Macs are unix, they also support stuff like LPR, and for that, there is no way to get feedback back to the Mac. > So, I'll repeat myself and say to the vendors that it's their > responsibility to get their printers qualified if they want to sell to > the customers that use DCPS. Be realistic here. DCPS is some proprietary low volume software nobody knows about outside the small VMS community. Printer developpers profide .PPD files with their printers and for the rest of the world, this is enough to support a printer. So why some printer manufacturers go through hoops and loops to get support on a low volume obscure operating system that is relegated to backroom batch processing and not present in offices ? And it gets worse since VMS is now owned by a printer manufacturer, so other printer manufacturers would have to give their archrival samples of their own printers. In the end, the solution is for DCPS to become more open to alow any printer to work with DCPS by adding the printer's PPD in some VMS directory. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 09:54:59 -0800 (PST) From: ewilts@ewilts.org Subject: Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Message-ID: On Feb 9, 9:41=A0am, JF Mezei wrote: > ewi...@ewilts.org wrote: > > DCPS offers a lot that simply dumb printing systems don't - things > > like a broadcast message to a user's terminal that a toner cartridge > > is low. > > Macs have supported messages back to the user since 1984. Yeah, via AppleTalk. And we all know how popular AppleTalk is these days. I still have a ton of printers that although they can print via TCP/IP, their stack are so sucky that we have to use AppleTalk just for decent printer support. Many printers rely on a unidirectional TCP/IP stack - after all, it can receive a print job and many manufacturers consider this good enough. If I were to tell my users that once the job leaves VMS and sits in an lpd queue on a printer and they have no more control nor visibility over it, I'd get lynched. If that's the kind of crappy support that's good enough for you, then you can use one of the many dumb options available in DCPS. However, if you really want good support for your printer, then you have do some thing correctly. You also don't *have* to use DCPS - you can use one of the many other ways of getting the jobs to the printers. > Be realistic here. DCPS is some proprietary low volume software nobody > knows about outside the small VMS community. =A0Printer developpers > profide .PPD files with their printers and for the rest of the world, > this is enough to support a printer. So why some printer manufacturers > go through hoops and loops to get support on a low volume obscure > operating system that is relegated to backroom batch processing and not > present in offices ? > > And it gets worse since VMS is now owned by a printer manufacturer, so > other printer manufacturers would have to give their archrival samples > of their own printers. > > In the end, the solution is for DCPS to become more open to alow any > printer to work with DCPS by adding the printer's PPD in some VMS director= y. There is no way that a PPD file will magically turn a unidirectional TCP/IP stack in to a bidirectional one. Many manufacturers simply give you a Windows driver and think that's good enough too. VMS will always be less popular than a desktop operating system. The question comes down to: do you need the features that DCPS offers? If not, then don't even bother fighting for DCPS support and use simple drivers that dump the data to the printer and hope for the best. However, some/many of us really, really appreciate the extra effort that Paul and crew have put into DCPS that help separate VMS from crappy operating systems. ..../Ed ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 13:32:59 -0500 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Message-ID: <47ADF1DB.2050702@comcast.net> JF Mezei wrote: > ewilts@ewilts.org wrote: > > >>DCPS offers a lot that simply dumb printing systems don't - things >>like a broadcast message to a user's terminal that a toner cartridge >>is low. > > > Macs have supported messages back to the user since 1984. > > And Macs generally provide printer specific support by simply adding a > printer specific .PPD file to a folder. Although I assume that there may > also be some "hardcoded" postscript codes that the Mac expects all > printers to support. > > Of course, now that Macs are unix, they also support stuff like LPR, and > for that, there is no way to get feedback back to the Mac. > > > >>So, I'll repeat myself and say to the vendors that it's their >>responsibility to get their printers qualified if they want to sell to >>the customers that use DCPS. > > > > Be realistic here. DCPS is some proprietary low volume software nobody > In the end, the solution is for DCPS to become more open to alow any > printer to work with DCPS by adding the printer's PPD in some VMS directory. How does it benefit HP to support competitor's printers? Sure, it's a nice and generous thing to do . . . . ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.080 ************************