Re: VMS Pascal article

On 1/10/2025 8:25 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:

On 2025-01-09, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:

About 20 years ago I found the VMS device drivers in C book in
a local large bookshop (either York or Leeds, I don't remember).
>
Such a thing would be utterly unheard of these days.

 I was curious so I looked further and found the receipt still in the
book. I purchased it from Waterstones at 9-10 High Ousegate in York
on 26.06.01 at 16:05.
 So, 20 years ago, you could purchase VMS Digital Press books directly
from a major high street bookseller. I also very strongly suspect it
was on the shelf in the shop because I would have used a more local
Waterstones if I was going to ask them to order it.

There may be another problem for VMS books hidden in that story.
The switch from "VT terminals connected to server" to "PC GUI talking
to servers" has killed the demand for VMS user books.
The decrease in number of VMS systems has hit demand for all VMS books
(system management, application programming, internals) hard.
But the changes in book distribution may also have hurt
sales of niche books like VMS books. Your book store actually
had a relative specialized VMS book in stock, because that
was expected of a serious book store. That was good for
sale, because there must have been thousands of book stores
world wide that bought one copy just to have one. In todays book
market I would expect Amazon to buy a couple of handfuls and
a few smaller online book sellers to buy a handful to have it
and then they will order more if the books starts to sell.
Arne