Virtual Memory System

Helping orphans the way you would do it

\r \r The OpenVMS (Open Virtual Memory System) operating system\r (OS), also known as VMS, is a multiuser, multiprocessing\r OS that was designed by Digital (now\r owned by Hewlett-Packard) in conjunction with their 32-bit\r VAX processor for use in time sharing, batch processing,\r and transaction processing. OpenVMS also runs on the\r 32-bit DECstations, 64-bit Alpha processor,\r and an SDK is available for the Intel Itanium processor.\r \r OpenVMS also supports clustering (called VAXcluster and later\r VMScluster), where multiple systems share processing, job queues,\r print queues, and disk storage, connected either by specialized\r hardware or Ethernet. An Ethernet-based cluster is called a LAVC,\r for local area network VMScluster. OpenVMS supports up to 96 nodes\r in a single cluster.\r \r OpenVMS can be divided into three layers\r

the kernel, made up of input/output, memory management, and process/time management subsystems\r
core services, made up of DCL, RMS, DECwindows (OpenVMS's X11 compliant windowing system), and the RTLs\r
utility programs for support, system management, and programming\r

\r OpenVMS was originally designed by Dave Cutler, who had earlier\r developed Digital's RSX-11 operating systems. Cutler was hired in\r 1988 by Microsoft to build the team that developed Windows NT.\r The original name of the operating system was VMS, but it was\r renamed OpenVMS in the 1990s in a bid by Digital to position the\r product as an alternative to Unix.\r \r rightOpenVMS

-related acronyms include:\r \r DCL - Digital Command Language - command line interface
\r DECwindows - Digital's implementation of the X Window System
\r RMS - Record Management Services - high-level, language/device-independent IO
\r RTL - Runtime Libraries - shared routines and functions, callable from any language
\r FDL - File Description Language - defines file record/field structure
\r DECnet - Digital's proprietary networking architecture