Who here has ever used a mainframe? There were some pretty nifty OSes for those. I'm thinking specifically of the DEC PDP-10 and VAX. There's actually free public access systems available for both of those up.
For the PDP-10, check out http://sdf.lonestar.org/twenex/
It runs TOPS-20, an operating system that was way ahead of its time and introduced such things to the command line as a history mechanism and command completeion. Be sure to check out the HAUNT text adventure.
For the VAX (and it's OS, VMS) check out http://deathrow.vistech.net/
There you can get a free shell acount on a VMS cluster including a VAX and two Alpha systems, all names after (in)famous serial killers. Don't try to hack it though. VMS is banned from the Defcon convetion because it's been declared "unhackable"
Anyway, try these out and give opinions. Then you can say you've used a mainframe.
For the PDP-10, check out http://sdf.lonestar.org/twenex/
It runs TOPS-20, an operating system that was way ahead of its time and introduced such things to the command line as a history mechanism and command completeion. Be sure to check out the HAUNT text adventure.
For the VAX (and it's OS, VMS) check out http://deathrow.vistech.net/
There you can get a free shell acount on a VMS cluster including a VAX and two Alpha systems, all names after (in)famous serial killers. Don't try to hack it though. VMS is banned from the Defcon convetion because it's been declared "unhackable"
Anyway, try these out and give opinions. Then you can say you've used a mainframe.
