AIX vs VMS

[Jerrold Heyman]

In article <1990Mar29.011739.16076 at world.std.com> madd at world.std.com (jim frost) writes:
>jfh at rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes:
>>AIX 3.1 is intended to run on as many things as you can throw it at,
>>remember that this the same code selected by OSF for OSF/1.
>
>No, Mach is now the basis for OSF/1, and has been for awhile.  In my
>opinion this is a much more intelligent choice as Mach is in many ways
>more advanced than AIX (although several versions of AIX have some
>pretty nifty features), not to mention it describes one product and
>actually runs with good reliability and on several architectures --
>none of which can be said about AIX at the moment.

True, MACH has been chosen by OSF to be the kernel of the OSF/1 release,
but AIX 3.1 commands, libs, and other features (disk mirroring) are ALSO 
part of OSF/1.  Granted the AIX 3.1 kernel isn't part of OSF/1 but there
is a lot of AIX 3.1 that will be.

Statements made by John F. Haugh II and Jim Frost are BOTH true.

>
>>VMS is intended to run on the VAX, and that's about it.  There isn't
>>a "Open DEC Software Foundation" out there to join if you want to
>>run VAX/VMS on your System/6000.
>
>Given the hardware dependencies inherent in VMS I think the only way
>you'd ever port it to a RISC machine would be through an emulator.
>VMS people are getting hit in the pocketbooks and the performance by
>that dependency....
>
>jim frost
>saber software
>jimf at saber.com

A lot has been made about DEC's VMS running on all its platforms.  Until
the 3100 came out, DEC had a lot of platforms, but only one architecture.
AIX has been designed to run on distinctly different architectures - currently
only architectures supported by IBM, but still three different ones (i386,
IBM Risc, and S/370).  With the addition of AIX 3.1 being part of OSF/1, the
claim can be made that AIX will run on more and more platforms.  Remember,
IBM has made a statement of direction on folding back into AIX the other parts
of OSF/1.

Jerry Heyman
Jerry Heyman                AWD Austin                      AIX Development
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