Opinion

OpenVMS on x86 was made available to the first customer on May 15, 2020. With the 29-July Release V9.0-C, there are now 21 external users testing the system. The rollout plan is to continue adding at least five more customers each month for the rest of 2020. …

OpenVMS on x86 was made available to the first customer on May 15, 2020. With the 29-July Release V9.0-C, there are now 21 external users testing the system. The rollout plan is to continue adding at least five more customers each month for the rest of 2020.
With each release more features become available along with increased stability. To date all users run x86 OpenVMS as a Virtual Box or KVM guest. VSI provides an appliance file (.OVA) which the customer downloads. Release Notes and updated documentation are also provided. Components of the Cross Tools Kit are updated each month.
The appliance is a preconfigured OpenVMS system. After importing the appliance, the customer simply starts the guest and OpenVMS boots. After executing the standard startup procedure, the system is ready for user login.
The appliance has VSI TCPIP installed and the customer does a standard network configuration specific to their local network address. TELNET and FTP are the network applications available in this release.
The V9.0-C release added

  • KVM virtual machine guest support
  • COBOL compiler (Cross Tools Kit)
  • FMS (DEV and RT)

With each monthly release, more core operating system features will be available. Also, layered products and additional compilers (in the Cross Tools Kit) will be ready for use.
New additions targeted for the 26-August V9.0-D release are:

  • SMP
  • DECthreads
  • Hypersort
  • DECnet IV
  • DECram
  • VAX floating point
  • XFC