There were factions in VMS that wanted to port it to x86 as long ago as 1995, maybe even earlier. Was that part of Dave’s vision? I don’t know.
I was involved with the port of VMS to ia64 (itanium).
With ia64 probably going away, the rumor is that VMS will be ported to x86. About 15 years too late.
Of course, there are technological obstacles to overcome; compilers, linkers, and loaders being the first. Then there is the port of applications using the new compilers and linkers.
It’s a huge effort. So I don’t know if it will actually happen.
As a past VMS user (20 years ago on large VAXen) I agree it would be a cool blast from the past to see it working on Windows/Linux hardware.
Maybe the first port could be a virtual one under Linux.
We would need to start with a working Bliss-64 (or Bliss-32) compiler.
No small feat, that. And then there’s the consideration of extended instruction sets too.
The one small consolation prize is that the VAX was like the x86 currently is - little endian.
As much as I’d like to see the results, when I think of the effort involved... my tendency is to get a beer, sit down and drink it quietly until the thought goes away...
Wasn’t it an interesting effort to port BLISS-32 (64) to any other architecture? (Alpha was the only port while I was involved).