Re: VAX emulators

From: Didier Morandi (no_at_spam.com)
Date: 10/25/03 

Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 12:04:40 +0200

Tom Linden wrote:

> HP's web site contains part numbers for transfering OS and
> layered product license to CHARON-VAX. There has been some
> discussion in the past about other emulators like simh and
> eVAX. I don't think these are in a commercial form, but if
> they were, and you wanted to use one would the same transfer
> license as for CHARON-VAX apply?
>
> The HP web site doesn't make any mention of it.
> http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/sri-charon-vax-emulator.html

All,

I am not a CHARON-VAX reseller, so I can write this:

To me, and to the majority of the VMS Community, there is a fondamental
difference between CHARON-VAX, simh, eVAX, Acceler8 and others if you
consider to use them in production (I'm not talking about hobbyism).

CHARON-VAX is a product from Software Resources International, Geneva,
aka SRI (www.softresint.com). SRI until 1998, was Digital. SRI was the
Digital European Migration Engineering Group in Geneva. They produced a
lot of software for the OpenVMS Engineering Group, among them the famous
DECmigrate utility (aka VEST), allowing to translate binary VAX/VMS
images to run on Alpha. To me, SRI still has today the OpenVMS
Engineering spirit, knowledge and enthousiasm. All this made CHARON-VAX
a real production solution for business critical applications.

Reading the following text should probably be enough to demonstrate to
some users (that I know) that CHARON-VAX *is* a professional product for
professionals. A real emulator is *not* a quick n'dirty solution.

(from http://www.softresint.com/charon-vax/index.htm)

"The CHARON-VAX family of products are VAX replacement systems, running
as a software application on industry standard systems. They present to
the VAX software the exact copy of a VAX hardware system, and will run
unmodified VAX operating systems, layered software and applications. The
compatibility is so exact that we run the original VAX hardware
diagnostics during the design, and the CHARON products were certified
using the original AXE hardware verification test suite of Digital
Equipment Corporation's VAX engineering group."

If one still wants to compare CHARON-VAX with other products, he or she
sould know that today there is for example a CHARON-VAX platform
supporting 800 users and running fine, in replacement of a VAX 7620
(http://www.softresint.com/news/800SimultUsers.htm)

For your wide information.
This is not an answer to the licensing issue, these are a few words on
the truth.

D.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Emulation
    ... the support to HP hardware running Charon VAX emulator, ... HP is providing the following extension licenses for the CHARON-VAX environment, allowing VAX systems running OpenVMS and VAX system layered products and licenses to be transferred to the CHARON-VAX environment. ... This concludes the license transfer part. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: 36 x DS10L 617 for only USD20,000
    ... probably wouldn't get the greatest speedup on Charon-VAX as I would ... emulator and run in x86 rather than VAX simulation. ... > Not being familiar with license pricing, ... > Either that or replacing with a single Alpha if the app can be easily ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • RE: charon vax emulator???
    ... My biggest concern when I hear Cust's considering Charon-VAX (or other ... Customers running on VAX have not had to worry about this and they ... Note - this has nothing to do with CHARON-VAX or any other emulator on ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: Emulation
    ... the support to HP hardware running Charon VAX emulator, ... HP is providing the following extension licenses for the CHARON-VAX environment, allowing VAX systems running OpenVMS and VAX system layered products and licenses to be transferred to the CHARON-VAX environment. ... This concludes the license transfer part. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Support *for* Oracle Rdb on CHARON-VAX Emulators ???
    ... Software Resources International has developed a range of VAX ... CHARON-VAX products emulate complete VAX systems on OpenVMS Alpha, ... Oracle Corporation supports VAX versions of Oracle Rdb and Oracle ... For more information about CHARON-VAX emulators and migration from VAX ...
    (comp.os.vms)