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<p>Yes and No. Some of the design concepts are quite similar which
is unsurprising.<br>
</p>
<p>The NICE task on Tops-20 has a named object called NCU. The
(fork) listener is NMLT20 which will also accept local (and
cluster) IPCF% communications. In OPR, you enter NCP submode,
which parses nearly the exact same command set as NCPACP. It
then (via Orion) sends this to NMLT20 which performs the action
(or crashes) or sends it to another NCU (or crashes).</p>
<p>So that sounds analogous to NCPACP to NICE.TSK architecture.
Remind me how RSX does the inter-task communication? I haven't
programmed it since 1977... I remember it being different from
IPCF%, but still thought it was neat.<br>
</p>
<p>There is no permanent store in Tops-20 for this DECnet
information. It is scattered through various configuration files
that are swallowed depending on criticality during boot up an
operation. Tops-20 does *not* like having either the MAC address
nor the local DECnet node number numbers changed, ever and
configuration for router and local area must be done 'early' and
once only; so all that stuff is in SYSTEM:7-1-CONFIG.CMD. You
have to reboot to get changes updated.</p>
<p>Other stuff (like setting the executor identification) and
enabling services goes into SYSTEM:SYSTEM.CMD where OPR hands it
to NMLT20.</p>
<p>There is much to be learned by comparing the architectures.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:74490dd2-5c1c-8f85-e71d-1937b03a3729@softjar.se">
<hr width="100%" size="2">On 7/4/2019 2:37 PM, Johnny Billquist
wrote:<br>
<br>
NETACP in RSX (and I suspect VMS) is just the process/program that
implements a lot of the DECnet protocols. It is actually pretty
much not related to anything here.
<br>
<br>
At least in RSX, the NICE protocol is handled by a separate task
called NICE.TSK.
<br>
<br>
And when you run NCP under RSX, it pretty much talks to NICE for
any operations requested, also for the local node.
<br>
<br>
I know that this is very different from how things work under
TOPS-20. There are no handling of objects from NCP using NICE in
TOPS-20, and there is no permanent database (as far as I know),
compared to RSX or VMS.
<br>
<br>
Johnny
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<hr width="100%" size="2">On 2019-07-04 03:06, Thomas DeBellis
wrote: <br>
<br>
Tops-20 has a subtly different architecture, in part perhaps
reflective of the previously described 'bolt on'.
<br>
<br>
The closest thing to NETACP is NMLT20, which implments NCU.
Parts of that are in written BLISS and at one point, it had a
shared a partly common code base with some RSX/VAX stuff.
Interfacing to Galaxy (the Tops-10/Tops-20 Operator Interface
and Queuing system), NMLT20 was /notorious/ for crashing in
early (Phase III) releases. I wrote many SPR's...
<br>
<br>
I can't define objects. FAL itself puts up the FAL object and
speaks DAP over it. Communication with it is either over a
DECnet FAL object (via DAP) or with Tops-20 IPCF. The only
messages that gets are (the largely useless) logging messages
from inferior FAL processes and checkpoint messages from Quasar,
the queue manager. It doesn't process any other messages from
Galaxy, so it doesn't seem that it would know how to swallow
anything that NMLT20 might hand off.
<br>
<br>
I can define the following:
<br>
<br>
CIRCUIT
<br>
EXECUTOR
<br>
KNOWN
<br>
LINE
<br>
LOGGING
<br>
MODULE
<br>
NODE
<br>
<br>
I'll see what I turn up when I finish polishing off that pesky
DAP bug (after I finish the VIKING OCR).
<br>
<br>
Lots for you to look forward when you get back into it, eh? :-D
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<hr width="100%" size="2">On 7/3/2019 5:34 PM, Robert
Armstrong wrote:
<br>
<br>
> I'll have a look at FAL; at first glance it has no hooks
for a default account
<br>
<br>
It’s probably handled by NETACP, or whatever passes for that
on TOPS20. Does your NCP understand the command
<br>
<br>
DEFINE OBJECT FAL USER <whatever> PASSWORD
<whatever>
<br>
<br>
Bob
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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