Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cfa!ward
From: ward@cfa.harvard.EDU (Steve Ward)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: VAXstation (in)compatibilities??
Message-ID: <925@cfa.cfa.harvard.EDU>
Date: 19 Mar 88 17:46:02 GMT
References: <2377@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. for Astrophysics
Lines: 22
Summary: A VAX is a VAX, but VMS  MAY be VMS


The only concerns with moving executables from one VMS VAX to another
(excluding VMS OS hacks or I/O devices unique to one machine) are with
the VMS OS versions, particularly the runtime libraries.  If you are
going from 4.6 to 4.6 then no problem.  If you are going from 4.4 to
4.6 (these are abritrary examples) then you might have to recompile in
order to have the correct linkage (sometimes just relinking is enough)
into the sharable runtime libraries.

If your code is truly standalone and does not use any of the sharable
runtime libraries then it is less likely you will have to recompile or
relink in moving code, though this possibility never quite goes away
since over time VMS may change enough to force recompilation.  My guess
is that when VMS5.0 comes out most everything will need to be
recompiled.

It sounds like you are going from/to the same version of VMS on
different-sized VAXes.  This will be no problem.  I have never seen
standard VAX sharable runtime libraries for DAL and OPS5 on the standard
VMS distribution, so if you have sharable (or any kind) runtime
libraries you might consider taking a copy with you, just in case they
don't exist locally.