VMS Software, which acquired the rights from Hewlett-Packard to continue the development of the OpenVMS (Virtual Memory System) operating system, has provided enthusiasts with the opportunity to download the port of OpenVMS 9.2 for the x86_64 architecture. In addition to the system image file (X86E921OE.ZIP), licensing keys for the community edition (x86community-20240401.zip) are offered, valid until April of the following year. The release of OpenVMS 9.2 is marked as the first full release available for the x86-64 architecture.
The port for the x86 architecture is built on the same source code of OpenVMS used in versions for Alpha and Itanium architectures, utilizing conditional compilation that replaces capabilities tied to specific hardware architecture features. UEFI and ACPI are involved in identifying and initializing hardware, and a RAM disk is used for booting instead of the special VMS boot mechanism that is hardware-specific. To emulate the missing privilege levels of VAX, Alpha, and Itanium in x86-64 systems, a module called SWIS (Software Interrupt Services) is used within the OpenVMS kernel.
The OpenVMS operating system has been evolving since 1977 and is used in fault-tolerant systems that require high reliability; it was previously available only for VAX, Alpha, and Intel Itanium architectures. The system image can be used for testing in virtual machines VirtualBox, KVM, and VMware. OpenVMS 9.2 includes VSI TCP/IP system services (for example, support for SSL111, OpenSSH, and Kerberos), protocol support sets for VSI DECnet Phase IV and VSI DECnet-Plus, as well as compilers for MACRO, Bliss, FORTRAN, COBOL, C++, C, and Pascal.
Source: opennet.ru
