> > Well, you can run VM/370, and MVS 3.8j and OS/360 > variants (MVT & MFT). > From what I understand, they were "free" and > "unencumbered" by any > license. I don't even know if they were copyrighted.
I have only studied VM/370 in details, and the base OS simply contains no copyright statements. At the time it was written, it would have needed to contain copyright statements to be copyrighted. (This is in the USA, in other countries such as the UK different rules applied) > But, if so, I am > fairly sure that the copyright has expired. And they > can be downloaded > from the Internet. I don't believe that any copyrights have expired. There is plenty of software from this era which can't be used. These include many "essential" add-ins for VM/370 such as SEPP, BSEPP and even EDGAR. << Note there may also be patents involved. These will probably have expired.>> VM/370 is actually a pretty limited OS compared to a modern VM. There is no REXX or even EXEC2. No pipes, no fullscreen support. Only the "old" editor to edit files. The disks are of couse the "old" 800 byte format, max of 64k files per disk and 64k recs per file. RSCS only does RJE not store and forward. Not even a help system "out of the box"... On the other hand the GCC I built on VM/370 works fine on even the latest VM, so the level of backward compatability is awesome... > There is even a "turnkey" version > of MVS 3.8j that > can be ordered on CD-ROM. > There is also a "pre-built" VM system that you can download from from a number of places including:- http://www.vm-4-hercules.com/ (I think the copy on cbttape is downlevel) This includes a number of extras such as the MVS compilers, WATFOR, Help, GCC and BREXX... > Of course, you cannot run any program products on > these OSes (like SPF > is not available for the MVS 3.8j system). > There is a "look alike" product call RPF which is in the Turnkey.. Dave Wade > -- > John McKown > Senior Systems Programmer > HealthMarkets > Keeping the Promise of Affordable Coverage > Administrative Services Group > Information Technology > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
