The merit of this book is mainly due to the rarity of user’s guides for digital computer systems. In the 1980s, VMS on VAX computers was a sophisticated operating system, and many expected it to become extensively used. The versatility of the Unix system installed on these machines almost eliminated VMS, which is now somehow revived by Digital Alpha systems. I believe that Alpha under Unix would have been a much better choice for the success of this wonderful machine, but I am to talk here about the virtues of OpenVMS, not of its competition with Unix, though only with difficulty can they be separated.

The book contains seven chapters and eight appendices. The material is presented in an attractive manner; each topic is accompanied by experiences with OpenVMS, which are meant to capture readers’ interest and to deepen their understanding of the capabilities offered by OpenVMS. I found the description of the use of the native editors EVE and EDT on the VT100 and VT200 keyboards of real practical interest, particularly when comparing it with the use of vi, the Unix native editor, on the same keyboards.

Chapter 1, “Discovering OpenVMS,” provides a shallow introduction to the command language of an interactive system, as illustrated by the Digital Command Language (DCL), used by OpenVMS. The basics of logging in and out of the computer are also discussed in this chapter. The author takes this opportunity to introduce the VT100 and VT200 keyboards and a series of other concepts used later in the book. Chapter 2, “A Beginner’s Guide to OpenVMS File Management,” introduces this topic. Chapter 3, “Full-Screen Editing with EVE,” presents the main features of the EVE text editor. Chapter 4, “Full-Screen Editing with EDT,” presents the main features of the EDT text editor. Chapter 5, “The Phone and Mail Utilities,” introduces two utility programs that allow users to communicate with one another. Chapter 6, “More Work with Files,” continues the discussion of files, showing alternative ways to create and manipulate files. Chapter 7, “Command Procedures,” discusses command language procedures of the sort one can write using C-shell. Appendices A through H present a guide to selected commands, file protection, information on EDT line mode commands, remote host access, program development, an ASCII table and DCL characters, ANSI mode control sequences, and DECTPU programming.