Here comes a real life question:

We have successfully ported our first application (Planning for public transport companies, 1.6 Mio Lines of Pascal) to X86.

But: the application generates HTML and Postscript files. On Alpha and Itanium we can directly show these to the user via an old Mozilla browser and via Ghostview/Ghostscript. The browser is automatically launched by our application and directed to the correct page. Everything works just fine.

Where can we get an equivalent of these display products for X86?

Well, we have Sourcecode for Ghostscript and will try to build it - it doesn't look easy though.

But we see no chance of raising an HTML browser on X86. We do not need all the latest bells and whistles. The software might be 10 years of age or even older - if it can be built on Alpha or Itanium, we could try building it on X86, provided we had access to the source code.

And before you ask, why we not simply use display software on the user's desktop, here is my answer: the only connection between the desktop and our VMS server is via the X Protocol. This is commonly routed through products like Citrix or Teamviewer and the Exceed display server.
So interactions between the VMS server and the desktop are quite limited.

Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you.

In article <e85497bb-697f-4401-bd1a-cd07de2d4bc7n@googlegroups.com>,
Andreas Gruhl <gruhl@isidata.dewrites:

> Here comes a real life question:
>
> We have successfully ported our first application (Planning for public
> transport companies, 1.6 Mio Lines of Pascal) to X86.
>
> But: the application generates HTML and Postscript files. On Alpha and
> Itanium we can directly show these to the user via an old Mozilla
> browser and via Ghostview/Ghostscript. The browser is automatically
> launched by our application and directed to the correct page. Everything
> works just fine.
>
> Where can we get an equivalent of these display products for X86?

Yes! A modern browser for VMS on x86 is a real-life question! (It is
probably also a real life question.)

> Well, we have Sourcecode for Ghostscript and will try to build it - it
> doesn't look easy though.

GhostScript builds on Alpha. What are the problems on x86? Do you have
a proper compiler?

> But we see no chance of raising an HTML browser on X86. We do not need
> all the latest bells and whistles. The software might be 10 years of age
> or even older - if it can be built on Alpha or Itanium, we could try
> building it on X86, provided we had access to the source code.

There must be some publicly available source code for old VMS broswers
on Alpha.

> Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you.

Perhaps marginally related: I heard recently that GhostScript is
dropping support for PostScript or something like that. Also, I think
that the PostScript source is now publicly available.

For various reasons, people are moving to directly-generated PDF.

I like PostScript, especially when produced via my Fortran program. I
plan to continue to use it. But those who do so should make sure that
they have a method to convert to PDF.

On 2022-12-12, Andreas Gruhl <gruhl@isidata.de> wrote:
>
> Well, we have Sourcecode for Ghostscript and will try to build it - it doesn't look easy though.
>
> But we see no chance of raising an HTML browser on X86. We do not need all the latest bells and whistles. The software might be 10 years of age or even older - if it can be built on Alpha or Itanium, we could try building it on X86, provided we had access to the source code.
>

GS has the gv viewer and isn't xpdf also available for VMS ?

If its not interactive HTML, can you convert the HTML output to PDF or PS
and show that instead ?

Also, does the HTML output have any graphics in it ? If not, would Lynx
be an option for you ?

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 2022-12-12, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) <helbig@asclothestro.multivax.de> wrote:
>
> Yes! A modern browser for VMS on x86 is a real-life question! (It is
> probably also a real life question.)
>

We have discussed that many times Phillip and the answer has not changed.
You are not going to be seeing modern full web browsers on VMS.

However, I wonder what would be involved in getting Dillo to build on VMS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillo

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 12/12/2022 6:53 AM, Andreas Gruhl wrote:
> We have successfully ported our first application (Planning for
> public transport companies, 1.6 Mio Lines of Pascal) to X86.
>
> But: the application generates HTML and Postscript files. On Alpha
> and Itanium we can directly show these to the user via an old Mozilla
> browser and via Ghostview/Ghostscript. The browser is automatically
> launched by our application and directed to the correct page.
> Everything works just fine.
>
> Where can we get an equivalent of these display products for X86?
>
> Well, we have Sourcecode for Ghostscript and will try to build it -
> it doesn't look easy though.
>
> But we see no chance of raising an HTML browser on X86. We do not
> need all the latest bells and whistles. The software might be 10
> years of age or even older - if it can be built on Alpha or Itanium,
> we could try building it on X86, provided we had access to the source
> code.
>
> And before you ask, why we not simply use display software on the
> user's desktop, here is my answer: the only connection between the
> desktop and our VMS server is via the X Protocol. This is commonly
> routed through products like Citrix or Teamviewer and the Exceed
> display server. So interactions between the VMS server and the
> desktop are quite limited.

I believe GS and GV are written in C. And VMS C is VMS C. So it should
be possible to get those running on VMS x86-64. Maybe someone
even already got them running.

Web browser is an entirely different story. I think the short
version is that it will not happen. VSI does not have a commercial
justification for porting a browser to VMS and the VMS community are
not able to mobilize enough volunteers to do so. Technically it is
of course possible - and when the CLang compiler become available for
VMS x86-64 it will become even easier, but I don't think it will happen.

Bottom line is that you will need a different workflow. Time to sit down
with the network people and the security people to discuss what can
be done.

There are plenty of possibilities to discuss (hopefully there is at
least one that will be considered acceptable):
* VMS FTP/SFTP/FTPS files out to a Linux server inside the
secure zone and browser on that Linux server is accessed
via tunneled X (requires a new Linux server inside the secure
zone)
* VMS FTP/SFTP/FTPS files out to a Linux server outside the
secure zone where the files can be accessed from the desktop
(requires some outgoing connectivity, but outgoing is sometimes
easier to get approved than inbound)
* install a HTTP server on VMS and serve the files from that
(requires opening up port 80)
* install a HTTP server on VMS and serve the files from that
and setup -firewall-proxy server-firewall-VMS (requires
some configuration and possible even some hardware)
* find/write a tool that are able to copy files over X protocol
and use that tool to move the files from VMS to a Linux server
outside the secure zone where the files can be accessed from
the desktop (requires software, and even though it does not
require new protocols to be allowed then it may actually be
the same from a real security perspective)

[there may be other options, but that was those I could think of]

Arne

In article <tn7fft$1i5h$1@gioia.aioe.org>, =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?=
<arne@vajhoej.dk> writes:

> Web browser is an entirely different story. I think the short
> version is that it will not happen.

I remember when people were saying that VMS on x86 would never happen.

> * install a HTTP server on VMS and serve the files from that

> (requires opening up port 80)

Or any other port.

On 12/12/2022 10:07 AM, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> In article <tn7fft$1i5h$1@gioia.aioe.org>, =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?=
> <arne@vajhoej.dk> writes:
>> Web browser is an entirely different story. I think the short
>> version is that it will not happen.
>
> I remember when people were saying that VMS on x86 would never happen.

x86-64 became more capable and Alpha and Itanium was dropped, so
suddenly there were a business case for porting VMS to x86-64.

Maybe it is my lack of imagination, but I cannot see any change
in circumstances that would create a business case for web browser
on VMS.

>> * install a HTTP server on VMS and serve the files from that
>
>> (requires opening up port 80)
>
> Or any other port.

It could listen on any port. But the port number does not really matter.

Arne

> Also, I think that the PostScript source is now publicly available.

The Computer History Museum recently arranged to release a very early
version of Adobe's interpreter for personal non-commercial use. It's
probably not very useful for anything other than software archaeology.

De

On 12/12/2022 8:21 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> However, I wonder what would be involved in getting Dillo to build on VMS:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillo

The two main potential problems must be compiler version support
(especially C++) and X11 version support.

The first will be solved when CLang becomes available on
VMS x86-64.

We will not know the actual problems until someone
actually tries building it.

Arne

On 12/12/2022 8:13 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 12/12/2022 8:21 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> However, I wonder what would be involved in getting Dillo to build on
>> VMS:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillo
>
> The two main potential problems must be compiler version support
> (especially C++) and X11 version support.
>
> The first will be solved when CLang becomes available on
> VMS x86-64.
>
> We will not know the actual problems until someone
> actually tries building it.

If one could live with very old HTML standards, then
the easiest graphical browser to get to build would
probably be VMS Mosaic. It builds with VMS C and I would
expect it to build on (currently: for) VMS x86-64.

But it is 25 years old - older than VMS NetScape. There must
be a lot of missing features in 2022.

Arne

Arne Vajhøj wrote:

> I believe GS and GV are written in C. And VMS C is VMS C. So it should
> be possible to get those running on VMS x86-64. Maybe someone
> even already got them running.
>
Sure it is C and they run both on Alpha and Itanium.

But the problem at this moment (please correct me if not true) is that
for displaying they use DECWindows. I thought I read somewhere that on
x86-64 this still is a dummy library which only is included to get no
linking problems for programs that also have a text-interface I did not
see in any of the road maps that this will be changed in the near
future. Probably a X-server is not needed, but a client library would be
welcome, so that we can display on a "remote" server (i.e. by tunneling
via an ssh-connection)

Regards
Jouk

Arne Vajhøj schrieb am Montag, 12. Dezember 2022 um 15:57:05 UTC+1:
> On 12/12/2022 6:53 AM, Andreas Gruhl wrote:
> > We have successfully ported our first application (Planning for
> > public transport companies, 1.6 Mio Lines of Pascal) to X86.
> >
> > But: the application generates HTML and Postscript files. On Alpha
> > and Itanium we can directly show these to the user via an old Mozilla
> > browser and via Ghostview/Ghostscript. The browser is automatically
> > launched by our application and directed to the correct page.
> > Everything works just fine.
> >
> > Where can we get an equivalent of these display products for X86?
> >
> > Well, we have Sourcecode for Ghostscript and will try to build it -
> > it doesn't look easy though.
> >
> > But we see no chance of raising an HTML browser on X86. We do not
> > need all the latest bells and whistles. The software might be 10
> > years of age or even older - if it can be built on Alpha or Itanium,
> > we could try building it on X86, provided we had access to the source
> > code.
> >
> > And before you ask, why we not simply use display software on the
> > user's desktop, here is my answer: the only connection between the
> > desktop and our VMS server is via the X Protocol. This is commonly
> > routed through products like Citrix or Teamviewer and the Exceed
> > display server. So interactions between the VMS server and the
> > desktop are quite limited.
> I believe GS and GV are written in C. And VMS C is VMS C. So it should
> be possible to get those running on VMS x86-64. Maybe someone
> even already got them running.
>
> Web browser is an entirely different story. I think the short
> version is that it will not happen. VSI does not have a commercial
> justification for porting a browser to VMS and the VMS community are
> not able to mobilize enough volunteers to do so. Technically it is
> of course possible - and when the CLang compiler become available for
> VMS x86-64 it will become even easier, but I don't think it will happen.
>
> Bottom line is that you will need a different workflow. Time to sit down
> with the network people and the security people to discuss what can
> be done.
Unfortunately these are different persons for each of our customers.
So we simpy can't have too much discussion with all of them.
We have to come up with a solution which minimizes discussions.
>
> There are plenty of possibilities to discuss (hopefully there is at
> least one that will be considered acceptable):
> * VMS FTP/SFTP/FTPS files out to a Linux server inside the
> secure zone and browser on that Linux server is accessed
> via tunneled X (requires a new Linux server inside the secure
> zone)
> * VMS FTP/SFTP/FTPS files out to a Linux server outside the
> secure zone where the files can be accessed from the desktop
> (requires some outgoing connectivity, but outgoing is sometimes
> easier to get approved than inbound)
> * install a HTTP server on VMS and serve the files from that
> (requires opening up port 80)
> * install a HTTP server on VMS and serve the files from that
> and setup -firewall-proxy server-firewall-VMS (requires
> some configuration and possible even some hardware)
> * find/write a tool that are able to copy files over X protocol
> and use that tool to move the files from VMS to a Linux server
> outside the secure zone where the files can be accessed from
> the desktop (requires software, and even though it does not
> require new protocols to be allowed then it may actually be
> the same from a real security perspective)
>
> [there may be other options, but that was those I could think of]
>
Thanks for your suggestions. We will consider them.
But whatever we do - it won't make things easier for us.
But
> Arne

Arne Vajhøj schrieb am Dienstag, 13. Dezember 2022 um 02:22:04 UTC+1:
> On 12/12/2022 8:13 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> > On 12/12/2022 8:21 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> >> However, I wonder what would be involved in getting Dillo to build on
> >> VMS:
> >>
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillo
> >
> > The two main potential problems must be compiler version support
> > (especially C++) and X11 version support.
> >
> > The first will be solved when CLang becomes available on
> > VMS x86-64.
> >
> > We will not know the actual problems until someone
> > actually tries building it.
> If one could live with very old HTML standards, then
> the easiest graphical browser to get to build would
> probably be VMS Mosaic. It builds with VMS C and I would
> expect it to build on (currently: for) VMS x86-64.
>
> But it is 25 years old - older than VMS NetScape. There must
> be a lot of missing features in 2022.
Well, we could live with very old standards. We need no fancy stuff at all.
If we just could find the source for one of the last browser versions compiled for Itanium we would dive into it and see what's coming out on X86.
That would be far better than having nothing at all.
Andreas
>
> Arne

Joukj schrieb am Dienstag, 13. Dezember 2022 um 08:49:40 UTC+1:
> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>
> > I believe GS and GV are written in C. And VMS C is VMS C. So it should
> > be possible to get those running on VMS x86-64. Maybe someone
> > even already got them running.

A least we are trying...

> >
> Sure it is C and they run both on Alpha and Itanium.
>
> But the problem at this moment (please correct me if not true) is that
> for displaying they use DECWindows. I thought I read somewhere that on
> x86-64 this still is a dummy library which only is included to get no
> linking problems for programs that also have a text-interface I did not
> see in any of the road maps that this will be changed in the near
> future. Probably a X-server is not needed, but a client library would be
> welcome, so that we can display on a "remote" server (i.e. by tunneling
> via an ssh-connection)
>
Here I can offer some good news: DEC Windows and Motif run on X86
VMS 9.2 without any issues. We use them heavily.
There is no X-server, however, but we do not need it.

Andreas
>
> Regards
> Jouk

Andreas Gruhl wrote:
> Arne Vajhøj schrieb am Dienstag, 13. Dezember 2022 um 02:22:04 UTC+1:
>> On 12/12/2022 8:13 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 12/12/2022 8:21 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>> However, I wonder what would be involved in getting Dillo to build on
>>>> VMS:
>>>>
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillo
>>> The two main potential problems must be compiler version support
>>> (especially C++) and X11 version support.
>>>
>>> The first will be solved when CLang becomes available on
>>> VMS x86-64.
>>>
>>> We will not know the actual problems until someone
>>> actually tries building it.
>> If one could live with very old HTML standards, then
>> the easiest graphical browser to get to build would
>> probably be VMS Mosaic. It builds with VMS C and I would
>> expect it to build on (currently: for) VMS x86-64.
>>
>> But it is 25 years old - older than VMS NetScape. There must
>> be a lot of missing features in 2022.
> Well, we could live with very old standards. We need no fancy stuff at all.
> If we just could find the source for one of the last browser versions compiled for Itanium we would dive into it and see what's coming out on X86.
> That would be far better than having nothing at all.

Some info is at (I did not test the compilation) at
https://openvms-opensource.blogspot.com/2019/03/secure-web-browser-source.html

From the same location as the CSWB sources I could download in the past
the sources of the firefox port for itanium.

Jouk

On Tue, 2022-12-13 at 02:19 -0800, Andreas Gruhl wrote:
> Here I can offer some good news: DEC Windows and Motif run on X86
> VMS 9.2 without any issues. We use them heavily.
> There is no X-server, however, but we do not need it.

That is good news. I can't wait until they make the hobbyist OpenVMS
for x86 available then it could be an interesting exercise to port over
Gnome and other programs. I've always wanted an OpenVMS desktop on x86.
I have a threadripper that would /love/ to run it. That's got 48
logical cores and 128Gb ECC RAM.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

On 12/13/2022 5:14 AM, Andreas Gruhl wrote:
> Arne Vajhøj schrieb am Dienstag, 13. Dezember 2022 um 02:22:04 UTC+1:
>> On 12/12/2022 8:13 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 12/12/2022 8:21 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>> However, I wonder what would be involved in getting Dillo to build on
>>>> VMS:
>>>>
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillo
>>>
>>> The two main potential problems must be compiler version support
>>> (especially C++) and X11 version support.
>>>
>>> The first will be solved when CLang becomes available on
>>> VMS x86-64.
>>>
>>> We will not know the actual problems until someone
>>> actually tries building it.
>> If one could live with very old HTML standards, then
>> the easiest graphical browser to get to build would
>> probably be VMS Mosaic. It builds with VMS C and I would
>> expect it to build on (currently: for) VMS x86-64.
>>
>> But it is 25 years old - older than VMS NetScape. There must
>> be a lot of missing features in 2022.
> Well, we could live with very old standards. We need no fancy stuff at all.
> If we just could find the source for one of the last browser versions compiled for Itanium we would dive into it and see what's coming out on X86.
> That would be far better than having nothing at all.

I don't know where source for VMS NetScape is and I don't know
how difficult to port to VMS x86-64.

VMS Mosaic is here:

https://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v70/mosaic/

Arne

In article <tn9aqg$9ab$1@gioia.aioe.org>, Joukj
<joukj@hrem.nano.tudelft.nl> writes:

> > I believe GS and GV are written in C. And VMS C is VMS C. So it should
> > be possible to get those running on VMS x86-64. Maybe someone
> > even already got them running.
> >
> Sure it is C and they run both on Alpha and Itanium.
>
> But the problem at this moment (please correct me if not true) is that
> for displaying they use DECWindows. I thought I read somewhere that on
> x86-64 this still is a dummy library which only is included to get no
> linking problems for programs that also have a text-interface I did not
> see in any of the road maps that this will be changed in the near
> future. Probably a X-server is not needed, but a client library would be
> welcome, so that we can display on a "remote" server (i.e. by tunneling
> via an ssh-connection)

For what it's worth, VSI stated that they would support the on-chip
graphics, which should be enough for DECwindows and CDE.

On 13/12/2022 12:24, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
> On Tue, 2022-12-13 at 02:19 -0800, Andreas Gruhl wrote:
>> Here I can offer some good news: DEC Windows and Motif run on X86
>> VMS 9.2 without any issues. We use them heavily.
>> There is no X-server, however, but we do not need it.
>
> That is good news. I can't wait until they make the hobbyist OpenVMS
> for x86 available then it could be an interesting exercise to port over
> Gnome and other programs. I've always wanted an OpenVMS desktop on x86.
> I have a threadripper that would /love/ to run it. That's got 48
> logical cores and 128Gb ECC RAM.

Slight problem here is that VSI are not currently supporting AMD CPUs,
although I understand that is on the roadmap

--
Chris

On Tue, 2022-12-13 at 13:51 +0000, Chris Townley wrote:
> > That is good news. I can't wait until they make the hobbyist
> > OpenVMS for x86 available then it could be an interesting exercise
> > to port over Gnome and other programs. I've always wanted an
> > OpenVMS desktop on x86.

> > I have a threadripper that would /love/ to run it. That's got 48
> > logical cores and 128Gb ECC RAM.
>
> Slight problem here is that VSI are not currently supporting AMD
> CPUs, although I understand that is on the roadmap

Yes, I've also got an Intel machine, can't wait to play with OpenVMS
x86 out as soon as it's ready.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

On 12/12/22 4:53 AM, Andreas Gruhl wrote:
> Here comes a real life question:
>
> We have successfully ported our first application (Planning for public transport companies, 1.6 Mio Lines of Pascal) to X86.
>
> But: the application generates HTML and Postscript files. On Alpha and Itanium we can directly show these to the user via an old Mozilla browser and via Ghostview/Ghostscript. The browser is automatically launched by our application and directed to the correct page. Everything works just fine.
>
> Where can we get an equivalent of these display products for X86?
>
> Well, we have Sourcecode for Ghostscript and will try to build it - it doesn't look easy though.
>
> But we see no chance of raising an HTML browser on X86. We do not need all the latest bells and whistles. The software might be 10 years of age or even older - if it can be built on Alpha or Itanium, we could try building it on X86, provided we had access to the source code.
>
> And before you ask, why we not simply use display software on the user's desktop, here is my answer: the only connection between the desktop and our VMS server is via the X Protocol. This is commonly routed through products like Citrix or Teamviewer and the Exceed display server.
> So interactions between the VMS server and the desktop are quite limited.
>
> Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you.

https://www.theberrymans.com/php_kits/ghostscript-9_56_1.zip has
ghostscript for x86.

Mark Berryman

Mark Berryman schrieb am Dienstag, 13. Dezember 2022 um 18:32:11 UTC+1:
> On 12/12/22 4:53 AM, Andreas Gruhl wrote:
> > Here comes a real life question:
> >
> > We have successfully ported our first application (Planning for public transport companies, 1.6 Mio Lines of Pascal) to X86.
> >
> > But: the application generates HTML and Postscript files. On Alpha and Itanium we can directly show these to the user via an old Mozilla browser and via Ghostview/Ghostscript. The browser is automatically launched by our application and directed to the correct page. Everything works just fine.
> >
> > Where can we get an equivalent of these display products for X86?
> >
> > Well, we have Sourcecode for Ghostscript and will try to build it - it doesn't look easy though.
> >
> > But we see no chance of raising an HTML browser on X86. We do not need all the latest bells and whistles. The software might be 10 years of age or even older - if it can be built on Alpha or Itanium, we could try building it on X86, provided we had access to the source code.
> >
> > And before you ask, why we not simply use display software on the user's desktop, here is my answer: the only connection between the desktop and our VMS server is via the X Protocol. This is commonly routed through products like Citrix or Teamviewer and the Exceed display server.
> > So interactions between the VMS server and the desktop are quite limited.
> >
> > Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you.
> https://www.theberrymans.com/php_kits/ghostscript-9_56_1.zip has
> ghostscript for x86.

Hey, that's good news. I will gladly test it (as soon as I can reach theberrymans again).
Thank You
Andreas
>
> Mark Berryman

Arne Vajhøj schrieb am Dienstag, 13. Dezember 2022 um 13:45:20 UTC+1:
> On 12/13/2022 5:14 AM, Andreas Gruhl wrote:
> > Arne Vajhøj schrieb am Dienstag, 13. Dezember 2022 um 02:22:04 UTC+1:
> >> On 12/12/2022 8:13 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> >>> On 12/12/2022 8:21 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> >>>> However, I wonder what would be involved in getting Dillo to build on
> >>>> VMS:
> >>>>
> >>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillo
> >>>
> >>> The two main potential problems must be compiler version support
> >>> (especially C++) and X11 version support.
> >>>
> >>> The first will be solved when CLang becomes available on
> >>> VMS x86-64.
> >>>
> >>> We will not know the actual problems until someone
> >>> actually tries building it.
> >> If one could live with very old HTML standards, then
> >> the easiest graphical browser to get to build would
> >> probably be VMS Mosaic. It builds with VMS C and I would
> >> expect it to build on (currently: for) VMS x86-64.
> >>
> >> But it is 25 years old - older than VMS NetScape. There must
> >> be a lot of missing features in 2022.
> > Well, we could live with very old standards. We need no fancy stuff at all.
> > If we just could find the source for one of the last browser versions compiled for Itanium we would dive into it and see what's coming out on X86.
> > That would be far better than having nothing at all.
> I don't know where source for VMS NetScape is and I don't know
> how difficult to port to VMS x86-64.
>
> VMS Mosaic is here:
>
> https://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v70/mosaic/
>
> Arne

Thank you very much. We will check it out.
Andreas

Joukj schrieb am Dienstag, 13. Dezember 2022 um 12:47:42 UTC+1:
> Andreas Gruhl wrote:
> > Arne Vajhøj schrieb am Dienstag, 13. Dezember 2022 um 02:22:04 UTC+1:
> >> On 12/12/2022 8:13 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> >>> On 12/12/2022 8:21 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> >>>> However, I wonder what would be involved in getting Dillo to build on
> >>>> VMS:
> >>>>
> >>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillo
> >>> The two main potential problems must be compiler version support
> >>> (especially C++) and X11 version support.
> >>>
> >>> The first will be solved when CLang becomes available on
> >>> VMS x86-64.
> >>>
> >>> We will not know the actual problems until someone
> >>> actually tries building it.
> >> If one could live with very old HTML standards, then
> >> the easiest graphical browser to get to build would
> >> probably be VMS Mosaic. It builds with VMS C and I would
> >> expect it to build on (currently: for) VMS x86-64.
> >>
> >> But it is 25 years old - older than VMS NetScape. There must
> >> be a lot of missing features in 2022.
> > Well, we could live with very old standards. We need no fancy stuff at all.
> > If we just could find the source for one of the last browser versions compiled for Itanium we would dive into it and see what's coming out on X86.
> > That would be far better than having nothing at all.
> Some info is at (I did not test the compilation) at
>
> https://openvms-opensource.blogspot.com/2019/03/secure-web-browser-source..html
>
> From the same location as the CSWB sources I could download in the past
> the sources of the firefox port for itanium.
>
> Jouk

Thank you for the link. I missed it. I have some difficulties in accessing the sources but we will give it further tries.
Andreas

On 12/13/2022 7:24 AM, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
> That is good news. I can't wait until they make the hobbyist OpenVMS
> for x86 available then it could be an interesting exercise to port over
> Gnome and other programs. I've always wanted an OpenVMS desktop on x86.
> I have a threadripper that would /love/ to run it. That's got 48
> logical cores and 128Gb ECC RAM.

I guess the main reason for the x86-64 port is that all the
older HW platforms are now EOL.

But that fact that running on x86-64 makes very powerful
hardware available at very modest cost is a nice side effect
for sure.

Just don't run commercial software that charge per core!

Arne