VMS was the first multiuser system I used in 1991. I was amazed that a single computer could have 300 users logged in all doing their own thing.
I learned to program in C and tried using Borland Turbo C on a DOS. Go outside of the array index and you could easily crash the entire machine which meant reboot and try it again. I thought the concept of memory protection was incredible! Why didn't every computer have that?
It was the first time I saw email, sending messages, and the phone utility for chatting with other users while waiting for your programs to run in the background.
I moved on to an IBM RT running AIX and got hooked on Unix. That's the system I wanted and have been running Linux since 1994. But VMS still holds a special place.
My roommate with the 386 running DOS tried to explain extended vs. expanded memory and then near and far pointers in C to me. It didn't make any sense to me. I just asked him "Why isn't memory just memory like on the VAX?" He was so used to the limitations of 16-bit x86 and DOS. Neither of us even understood the concept of a "32-bit flat memory model."
I had been spoiled by the VAX and didn't know it was a $200,000 or $1 million system. I found this price list from 1991 but it's hard to figure out how much a system cost.
VAXstations and MicroVAXes weren't that expensive. I knew a guy with a small business that had a VAXStation 3100 or maybe it was a 4000, back in 1991 or 92.
Rebooting on the early PC was so common, they had a hotkey for it—Ctrl+Alt+Delete.
David Bradley, an engineer who worked on the original IBM PC, invented the combination which was originally designed to reboot a PC. "I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous."
I learned to program in C and tried using Borland Turbo C on a DOS. Go outside of the array index and you could easily crash the entire machine which meant reboot and try it again. I thought the concept of memory protection was incredible! Why didn't every computer have that?
It was the first time I saw email, sending messages, and the phone utility for chatting with other users while waiting for your programs to run in the background.
I moved on to an IBM RT running AIX and got hooked on Unix. That's the system I wanted and have been running Linux since 1994. But VMS still holds a special place.