Chuck McManis drunkenly mumbled...
> 
> Silly you. :-)

and even sillier of me to think i wanted to run VMS.  what a NIGHTMARE!!! :)

> Well you must enter it as it asks (although you can leave off the time and 
> it will default to 00:00 (ie midnight) try 22-JAN-2001 and see what it 
> says. Note you must have all four digits of the year, the month must be 
> spelled out, and you may need leading zeros for the day (not sure about that)

so, it asks me this every time i boot it.  is this a bad battery, or a 
"feature"?

> Several:
>          1) See the VMS FAQ for how to "break in" since you don't have the 
> system password.

awsome.  that did the trick.  SYSUAF.DAT was on SYS$COMMON, so the first time
i tried hung the system, (since i was assuming it was in SYS$SYSTEM) but after
looking around (what an ugly file listing) i was able to get it working.  i am
now in control of this beast.  not sure what that gains me, but still...

>          2) Use 'LICENSE LIST' to see what licenses you have
>          3) Use LICENSE ISSUE to save the non-expiring licenses to a file 
> so that you can re-install them later when you put fresh installs on 
> the disk.

will do.  speaking of which, i see UCX is licenced, so how do i get it
running so i can telnet/ftp etc.?

>          4) Sign up for DECUS (see www.decus.org) so that you can get a 
> license for all the unbundled products and then you can fart around with 
> COBOL :-)

woo hoo, cobol!!!!!  actually, i'm one step ahead of you, already am a member
of DECUS (ever since DEC wasn't owned by those bastards at Compaq)

>          5) Get a half dozen terminals and amaze your friends with the 
> "data center" in your room :-)

i'm about 20 steps ahead of you here. :)

> PS use HELP LICENSE to figure out all the options but basically you can 
> re-create the PAKs (license kits) that were originally used to install the 
> machine. While you can get new PAKs from DECUS, they typically only last 
> for 1 year whereas DEC generally issued lifetime VMS and VMS-SUP (aka 
> networking) PAKs with all of their systems.

excellent advice, thank you very much chuck.

-brian