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From: sbs@valid.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.decus,net.unix,net.usenix
Subject: Favorite operating systems query
Message-ID: <339@valid.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 14-Jun-86 05:06:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: valid.339
Posted: Sat Jun 14 05:06:35 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Jun-86 10:38:07 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Valid Logic, San Jose, CA
Lines: 38
Keywords: VMS, Multics, UNIX, fanaticism
Xref: watmath net.decus:325 net.unix:8160 net.usenix:586

I recently learned, via a Datamation article, that Honeywell is de-supporting
Multics, and that Honeywell's customers are screaming and hollering.  The
reason this was interesting to me is that Multics, like UNIX(TM), is a
``cult'' operating system, by which I mean that it has a hard core of
rabid, fanatical defenders.  (Of course, none of us on the net is a drooling
OS groupie; we all have sound technical reasons for preferring some
systems to others.)

For the last few years I've been a UNIX (ahem) user/fan/implementor, but
recently my work -- I'm maintaining a schematics editor -- has led me
into VMS.  Now, to me, VMS is "just another vendor-supplied operating
system."  I don't like it as well as I like UNIX, but then again, I
don't know it as well as I know UNIX, either.  However, I've recently
heard that there is a breed of VMS partisan every bit as intense as
the most stalwart UNIX die-hard.  So, finally to get round to the point,
I have some questions:

	1) For the VMS fans out there: what's your favorite feature(s) of
	   the system?  Why do you like it?  How does it help you?

	2) Likewise UNIX and Multics fans.  (How do I get to a Multics
	   site?  I'm not on the MILnet...)

	3) For anybody out there: what's your favorite system, or most
	   fondly remembered, or the one you were most fanatical about?
	   Why did you like it so much?

Part of my reasons for posting are individual: I'm interested in learning
more about VMS so that I can do my job better.  But I'm also interested
in the sociology of the thing, and if you are too, post or mail me.


"After changes upon changes, we are more or less the same."
					-Paul Simon.
S.

(TM)UNIX is a trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories.
VMS is a trademark of the Digital Equipment Corporation.