From: Hugh Graham Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 18:36:59 -0700 To: Patrick Giagnocavo Cc: misc@openbsd.org Subject: Re: OpenBSD VAX On Wed, Aug 30, 2000 at 08:16:50PM -0400, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote: > > if the machines are so very slow, what is the rationale for folks spending > time porting? I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, I am just quite > curious. Is it the hack value? Do they have great I/O, so NFS is just as > fast as a newer machine? What? > A full answer to this question would involve consultation with psychiatrists and is way beyond the scope of OpenBSD's miscellanea list.. but I'll try to touch on some of the reasoning. These machines have tremendous hack value. Documentation is extremely difficult to come by, so support frequently requires large amounts of trial and error. Nevertheless, these machines have a charm of design and architecture that a common PC just can't rival. Teasing out just how DEC engineers constructed some particular bit of Hardware is considered by many to be "fun". Hackers tend towards nostalgia. Many older ones learned their trade on machines like these, and VAX asm used to be commonly taught in schools. Many younger ones pursue these ports in an effort to become part of a perceived "golden age" of computing that is completely absent from the contemporary environment. Pouring hours into them is done under much the same mindset as one might use to justify work on a classic car. VAXen in particular are almost indestructible; it's likely many of these machines will still be running ten or more years from now. Keeping them running a current OS just seems fitting. We develop OpenBSD here, and when this port is complete, the supported systems will run everything you might find on any other OpenBSD architecture. One final quip for any security fanatics out there: How often have you run across vax shellcode? HTH, /Hugh