Camicom SSC

13^th-17^th September 2010, Nashua, NH 

Camiel Vanderhoeven is presenting two presentations at the Connect OpenVMS Bootcamp 2010.

Developing the FreeAXP and Avanti Emulators

This session will share the architecture and some of the implementation details of the FreeAXP and Avanti Alpha emulators, presented by the main architect and developer behind these emulators. Questions are welcomed.

Lessons to learn from OpenVMS development practices

Based on input gathered from past and present OpenVMS engineers, this session seeks to explain what development practices are partly responsible for OpenVMS's status a the most secure and stable general-purpose operating system we know. If you are more interested in careful crafting of high quality software that in rapid development approaches, this session is for you.

Sadly, the classic emulators system I mentioned earlier has been temporarily shut down due to cooling problems. It will likely be a few weeks before it's back on line.

Mandalay Bay - Las Vegas, NV - Thursday June 18th 09:15 AM

Camiel presented a session on behalf of Migration Specialties at the HP Technology Forum & Expo 2009.

Session ID 2021, "Legacy VAX and Alpha Systems: Refresh, Replace or Emulate" [PDF] covered the pros and cons of hardware refreshment, hardware replacement, and hardware emulation. This session stems from a recognition that time catches up with us all, even our dependable VAX and Alpha hardware. These systems often support legacy applications that remain relevant and business critical. So when the hardware starts to go, you are faced with three choices: refresh, replace, or emulate.

Read a review of the HPTF here.

On May 22nd, 2009, Colin Butcher of XDelta and Camiel Vanderhoeven of Camicom SSC set up an AlphaServer 4100 at the National Museum of Computing located at Bletchley Park in the UK. This AlphaServer is used to serve emulators running classic operating systems to visitors from all over the world. We invited the public to come along and share in the experience of properly designing and setting up such a system. This included setting up the CSWS web server and the SIMH emulator.

Check out the system at http://retrobeep.no-ip.org. You can get your own instance of an emulated PDP8/E (running OS8 or DMS), PDP11/44 (running RT11 or RSTS), VAX (running VMS) or Altair Z80 (running CP/M). You can also play the classic games Adventure and Dungeon.