Pipes very much existed before v7. At a bare minimum they're in v6 as I remember them from Lyon's, but I think they were as far back as v3.

Yeah, sure...from § 11.13.2 of TFM[1]:

> In OpenVMS Version 7.1, the DCL PIPE command was introduced.

Ask me how I really know OpenVMS v6 doesn't have pipes.

[1] http://h30266.www3.hpe.com/odl/axpos/opsys/vmsos84/6489/6489...

I thought you were talking about Unix, hence my Lyon's comment.

I thought the GP's context made that clear, but fair enough.