A Brief History

The Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was an American company and a major supplier of computer equipment, most renowned for its Programmed Data Processor (PDP) and Virtual Address eXtension (VAX) ranges of computer products. The VAX system design began with the range of models using a 32 bit Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) architecture using the companion Virtual Memory System (VMS) operating system. The VAX architecture was updated when DEC introduced the 64 bit Alpha AXP range of Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) processors and the operating system was renamed OpenVMS. The Alpha range, along with most of the other parts of DEC were sold to Compaq in 1998, Compaq itself was bought by Hewlett-Packard in 2002.

This image above shows the login screen for a system running OpenVMS 6.2 running the Motif GUI (image downloaded from Joachim Buss)

The Wikipedia entry for OpenVMS has a useful article on the history of OpenVMS and some good links to VMS documentation. The OpenVMS documentation library is substantial, I remember it taking up quite a few feet of shelf space - you won't be reading it cover to cover I'm sure! The reference library is an essential resource though, particularly if you need to understand the internals of VMS for programming etc.