By the early 1980s VAX/VMS was very successful in the market. Although created on Unix on DEC systems, Ingres ported to VMS believing that doing so was necessary for commercial success. Demand for the VMS version was so much greater that the company neglected the Unix version. A number of distributions of VAX/VMS were created:
With the V5.0 release in April 1988, DEC began to refer to VAX/VMS as simply VMS in its documentation. In July 1992, DEC renamed VAX/VMS to OpenVMS as an indication of its support of open systems industry standards such as POSIX and Unix compatibility, and to drop the VAX connection since a migration to a different architecture was underway. The OpenVMS name was first used with the OpenVMS AXP V1.0 release in November 1992. DEC began using the OpenVMS VAX name with the V6.0 release in June 1993.
During the 1980s, DEC planned to replace the VAX platform and the VMS operating system with the PRISM architecture and the MICA operating system. When these projects were cancelled in 1988, a team was set up to design new VAX/VMS systems of comparable performance to RISC-based Unix systems. After a number of failed attempts to design a faster VAX-compatible processor, the group demonstrated the feasibility of porting VMS and its applications to a RISC architecture based on PRISM. This led to the creation of the Alpha architecture. The project to port VMS to Alpha began in 1989, and first booted on a prototype Alpha EV3-based Alpha Demonstration Unit in early 1991.
The main challenge in porting VMS to a new architecture was that VMS and the VAX were designed together, meaning that VMS was dependent on certain details of the VAX architecture. Furthermore, a significant amount of the VMS kernel, layered products, and customer-developed applications were implemented in VAX MACRO assembly code. Some of the changes needed to decouple VMS from the VAX architecture included the creation of the MACRO-32 compiler, which treated VAX MACRO as a high-level language, and compiled it to Alpha object code, and the emulation of certain low-level details of the VAX architecture in PALcode, such as interrupt handling and atomic queue instructions.
The VMS port to Alpha resulted in the creation of two separate codebases: one for VAX, and another for Alpha. The Alpha code library was based on a snapshot of the VAX/VMS code base circa V5.4-2. 1992 saw the release of the first version of OpenVMS for Alpha AXP systems, designated OpenVMS AXP V1.0. In 1994, with the release of OpenVMS V6.1, feature (and version number) parity between the VAX and Alpha variants was achieved; this was the so-called Functional Equivalence release. The decision to use the 1.x version numbering stream for the pre-production quality releases of OpenVMS AXP confused some customers, and was not repeated in the subsequent ports of OpenVMS to new platforms.
When VMS was ported to Alpha, it was initially left as a 32-bit only operating system. This was done to ensure backwards compatibility with software written for the 32-bit VAX. 64-bit addressing was first added for Alpha in the V7.0 release. In order to allow 64-bit code to interoperate with older 32-bit code, OpenVMS does not create a distinction between 32-bit and 64-bit executables, but instead allows for both 32-bit and 64-bit pointers to be used within the same code. This is known as mixed pointer support. The 64-bit OpenVMS Alpha releases support a maximum virtual address space size of 8TiB (a 43-bit address space), which is the maximum supported by the Alpha 21064 and Alpha 21164.
The Itanium port was accomplished using source code maintained in common within the OpenVMS Alpha source code library, with the addition of conditional code and additional modules where changes specific to Itanium were required. This required certain architectural dependencies of OpenVMS to be replaced, or emulated in software. Some of the changes included using the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) to boot the operating system, reimplementing the functionality previously provided by Alpha PALcode inside the kernel, using new executable file formats (Executable and Linkable Format and DWARF), and adopting IEEE 754 as the default floating point format.
As with the VAX to Alpha port, a binary translator for Alpha to Itanium was made available, allowing user-mode OpenVMS Alpha software to be ported to Itanium in situations where it was not possible to recompile the source code. This translator is known as the Alpha Environment Software Translator (AEST), and it also supported translating VAX executables which had already been translated with VEST.
Two pre-production releases, OpenVMS I64 V8.0 and V8.1, were available on June 30, 2003, and on December 18, 2003. These releases were intended for HP organizations and third-party vendors involved with porting software packages to OpenVMS I64. The first production release, V8.2, was released in February 2005. V8.2 was also released for Alpha; subsequent V8.x releases of OpenVMS have maintained feature parity between the Alpha and Itanium architectures.
When VMS Software Inc. (VSI) announced that they had secured the rights to develop the OpenVMS operating system from HP, they also announced their intention to port OpenVMS to the x86-64 architecture. The porting effort ran concurrently with the establishment of the company, as well as the development of VSI's own Itanium and Alpha releases of OpenVMS V8.4-x.
As with the Alpha and Itanium ports, the x86-64 port made some changes to simplify porting and supporting OpenVMS on the new platform including: replacing the proprietary GEM compiler backend used by the VMS compilers with LLVM, changing the boot process so that OpenVMS is booted from a memory disk, and simulating the four privilege levels of OpenVMS in software since only two of x86-64's privilege levels are usable by OpenVMS.
The first boot was announced on May 14, 2019. This involved booting OpenVMS on VirtualBox, and successfully running the DIRECTORY command. In May 2020, the V9.0 Early Adopter's Kit release was made available to a small number of customers. This consisted of the OpenVMS operating system running in a VirtualBox VM with certain limitations; most significantly, few layered products were available, and code can only be compiled for x86-64 using cross compilers which run on Itanium-based OpenVMS systems. Following the V9.0 release, VSI released a series of updates on a monthly or bimonthly basis which added additional functionality and hypervisor support. These were designated V9.0-A through V9.0-H. In June 2021, VSI released the V9.1 Field Test, making it available to VSI's customers and partners. V9.1 shipped as an ISO image which can be installed onto a variety of hypervisors, and onto HPE ProLiant DL380 servers starting with the V9.1-A release.
During the 1980s, the MICA operating system for the PRISM architecture was intended to be the eventual successor to VMS. MICA was designed to maintain backwards compatibility with VMS applications while also supporting Ultrix applications on top of the same kernel. MICA was ultimately cancelled along with the rest of the PRISM platform, leading Dave Cutler to leave DEC for Microsoft. At Microsoft, Cutler led the creation of the Windows NT operating system, which was heavily inspired by the architecture of MICA. As a result, VMS is considered an ancestor of Windows NT, together with RSX-11, VAXELN and MICA, and many similarities exist between VMS and NT.
The OpenVMS operating system has a layered architecture, consisting of a privileged Executive, an intermediately privileged Command Language Interpreter, and unprivileged utilities and run-time libraries (RTLs). Unprivileged code typically invokes the functionality of the Executive through system services (equivalent to system calls in other operating systems).
OpenVMS' layers and mechanisms are built around certain features of the VAX architecture, including:
These VAX architecture mechanisms are implemented on Alpha, Itanium and x86-64 by either mapping to corresponding hardware mechanisms on those architectures, or through emulation (via PALcode on Alpha, or in software on Itanium and x86-64).
The OpenVMS Executive comprises the privileged code and data structures which reside in the system space. The Executive is further subdivided between the Kernel, which consists of the code which runs at the kernel access mode, and the less-privileged code outside of the Kernel which runs at the executive access mode.
OpenVMS allows user-mode code with suitable privileges to switch to executive or kernel mode using the $CMEXEC and $CMKRNL system services, respectively. This allows code outside of system space to have direct access to the Executive's routines and system services. In addition to allowing third-party extensions to the operating system, Privileged Images are used by core operating system utilities to manipulate operating system data structures through undocumented interfaces.
Because the CLI is loaded into the same address space as user code, and the CLI is responsible for invoking image activation and image rundown, the CLI is mapped into the process address space at supervisor access mode, a higher level of privilege than most user code. This is in order to prevent accidental or malicious manipulation of the CLI's code and data structures by user-mode code.
OpenVMS supports up to 96 nodes in a single cluster. It also allows mixed-architecture clusters. OpenVMS clusters allow applications to function during planned or unplanned outages. Planned outages include hardware and software upgrades.
DEC (and its successor companies) provided a wide variety of programming languages for VMS. Officially supported languages on VMS, either current or historical, include:
The set of languages available directly with the operating system is restricted to C, Fortran, Pascal, BASIC, C++, BLISS and COBOL. Freely available open source languages include Lua, PHP, Python, Scala and Java.
DEC provided a collection of software development tools in a layered product named DECset (originally named VAXset). This consisted of the following tools:
The OpenVMS Debugger supports all DEC compilers and many third-party languages. It allows breakpoints, watchpoints and interactive runtime program debugging using either a command line or graphical user interface. A pair of lower-level debuggers, named DELTA and XDELTA, can be used to debug privileged code in additional to normal application code.
VMS was originally designed to be used and managed interactively using DEC's text-based video terminals such as the VT100, or hardcopy terminals such as the DECwriter series. Since the introduction of the VAXstation line in 1984, VMS has optionally supported graphical user interfaces for use with workstations or X terminals such as the VT1000 series.
Over the years, VMS has gone through a number of different GUI toolkits and interfaces:
OpenVMS provides various security features and mechanisms, including security identifiers, resource identifiers, subsystem identifiers, ACLs, intrusion detection and detailed security auditing and alarms. Specific versions evaluated at Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria Class C2 and, with the SEVMS security enhanced release at Class B1. OpenVMS also holds an ITSEC E3 rating (see NCSC and Common Criteria). Passwords are hashed using the Purdy Polynomial.
In 1997, OpenVMS and a number of layered products were made available free of charge for hobbyist, non-commercial use as part of the OpenVMS Hobbyist Program. Since then, several companies producing OpenVMS software have made their products available under the same terms, such as Process Software. Prior to the x86-64 port, the age and cost of hardware capable of running OpenVMS made emulators such as SIMH a common choice for hobbyist installations.
In March 2020, HPE announced the end of the OpenVMS Hobbyist Program. This was followed by VSI's announcement of the Community License Program (CLP) in April 2020, which was intended as a replacement for the HPE Hobbyist Program. The CLP was launched in July 2020, and provides licenses for VSI OpenVMS releases on Alpha, Integrity and x86-64 systems. OpenVMS for VAX is not covered by the CLP, since there are no VSI releases of OpenVMS VAX, and the old versions are still owned by HPE.
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X0.5 was also known as "Base Level 5".[182]
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While an exact release date is unknown, the V1.01 change log dates in the release notes for V1.5 suggest it was released some time after November 1978.[183]
VAX/VMS Release Notes Version 1.5. DEC. February 1979. AA-D015B-TE.
For some of the early VAX/VMS releases where an official release date is not known, the date of the Release Notes has been used an approximation.
VAX/VMS Release Notes Version 1.5. DEC. February 1979. AA-D015B-TE.
VAX/VMS Release Notes Version 1.6. DEC. August 1979. AA-J039A-TE.
The existence of releases V2.0 through V2.5 are documented in the V3.0 release notes.[185]
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VAX/VMS Release Notes Version 3.1. DEC. August 1982. AA-N472A-TE.
VAX/VMS Release Notes Version 3.2. DEC. December 1982. AA-P763A-TE.
VAX/VMS Release Notes Version 3.3. DEC. April 1983. AA-P764A-TE.
VAX/VMS Release Notes Version 3.4. DEC. June 1983. AA-P765A-TE.
VAX/VMS Release Notes Version 3.5. DEC. November 1983. AA-P766A-TE.
VAX/VMS Release Notes Version 3.6. DEC. April 1984. AA-V332A-TE.
VAX/VMS Release Notes Version 3.7. DEC. August 1984. AA-CJ33A-TE.
vms-source-listings http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/microfiche/vms-source-listings/AH-BT13A-SE__VAX-VMS_V4.0_SRC_LST_MCRF/AH-BT13A-SE__VAX-VMS_V4.0_SRC_LST_MCRF/
vms-source-listings http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/microfiche/vms-source-listings/AH-BT13A-SE__VAX-VMS_V4.0_SRC_LST_MCRF/AH-EF71A-SE__VAX-VMS_V4.1_SRC_LST_MCRF_UPD/
While the versioning scheme reset to V1.0 for the first AXP (Alpha) releases, these releases were contemporaneous with the V5.x releases and had a similar feature set.
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