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From: brian@jett.UUCP (Brian Reynolds)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: VMS vs. U-No-What-ix
Message-ID: <239@jett.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Jul-84 22:33:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: jett.239
Posted: Mon Jul 16 22:33:01 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Jul-84 02:02:47 EDT
Organization: Jett Unix System, Huntsville, AL
Lines: 48

Subject: VMS vs. U-No-What-ix
Newsgroups: net.flame

Can anyone come up with some truly >objective< reasons for
the statement that VMS is better than UN*X?  As an rsx+ hacker
myself (Do YOU know the three ways to privilege yourself???),
I feel qualified to give an at least reasonable impartial opinion
of the two operating systems.

The best thing I can see going for UN*X is the fact that it's
the current fad in operating systems.  It is highly portable,
and will therefore run on lots of different systems.  Thus its
popularity.

On the other hand, the best feature of VMS (and certain other
DEC operating systems which I will refrain from mentioning due
to personal bias...can you issue a background command [or two,
or three] after you have already typed a primary?) is that DEC
writes its operating systems SPECIFICALLY for the type of system
in question.  Some have mentioned the fact that VMS will probably
never get really popular, and can't run on lots of other systems--
quite true, and I imagine DEC intended it to be that way.  VMS
wont run on a PDP, and a certain PDP operating system (think how
much fun UN*X would be if you could just overmap the i/o page!)
won't run on the VAX.  DEC operating systems take advantage of
all of the capabilities of its system, such as speed (yes! SPEED!)
memory management, and other resources.  In addition, DEC's programs
are all nice and neat, with almost all of the utilities conforming
to the same syntax structure, and generating (unfortunately?)
the same type error messages.  UN*X commands on the other hand
are a hodgepodge thrown together by completely separate people
who have diverse ideas about how a program should operate.
Does UN*X have anything that even comes close to DECNET? Somehow
I doubt it.  
 
I'll now leave the floor open for more discussion, though I
want to say one more thing--Don't tell me about all of the
obscure bugs in VMS version 1.1!!! I'm more than certian that
the first (and second, and third) versions of UN*X had a whole
mess of fun bugs.  I dont want to hear about tape drivers which
crash on alternating Tuesdays if the temperature is exactly
65.2 degrees farenheit and the Line Printer is using red ink.
 
				RSX FOREVER!!!
 
-- 
		-- Brian Reynolds
		{ihnp4|clyde|sdcrdcf}!akgua!jett!brian