This book is intended to introduce the reader to Hewlett-Packard’s OpenVMS operating system. It assumes some familiarity with modern computer operating systems, such as UNIX or Microsoft Windows. It will also be helpful to the reader to have access to an OpenVMS system upon which to try the examples given in this book.

Those readers accustomed to UNIX will probably notice that OpenVMS has features that will seem somewhat familiar; UNIX and OpenVMS have similar (but far from identical) approaches to memory management, multi-user access, command line interfaces, devices, and processes. OpenVMS also uses the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) GUI, identical to that in use on several different UNIX systems. The Windows user may find OpenVMS to be somewhat less intuitive than the UNIX user, but those readers familiar with the MS-DOS command prompt interface will notice some similarities to the Digital Command Language command structure. The Windows user may also find the mechanics, if not the design and layout, of the CDE GUI environment to be fairly intuitive.

Users of either Windows or UNIX will already be familiar with the concepts of a multi-level directory structure, multiple disk drives, and perhaps printer queues and e-mail.