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<p>Huh, now that is interesting. I guess that's something that
never made it into Tops-20, although it doesn't sound immediately
difficult for some functionality to be implemented in NFT. The
1982 DECnet-20 User Guide that I have is very specific that <u>only</u>
names (SIXBIT subset) can be given to <font size="+1"><tt>GTJFN%</tt></font>.
But it may be out of date or may have never been updated.</p>
<p>The <font size="+1"><tt>GTJFN%</tt></font> file parsing code is
formidable; not a few hours to look through, so I won't be looking
at that tonight. It seems to me that a very simple experiment
will suffice: undefine a node (assuming the -1 undocumented
feature works) and then see what breaks. The most important area
would be the <font size="+1"><tt>NICE</tt></font> handler, <font
size="+1"><tt>NMLT20</tt></font>. If that can't do a TELL to an
undefined node, then that is pretty definitive.<br>
</p>
<p><font size="+1"><tt>NFT</tt></font> will not parse for an
area.number, although it could be made to (with sufficient
coaxing). It's using <font size="+1"><tt>COMND%</tt></font> and
<font size="+1"><tt>GTJFN%</tt></font> to parse for the node name,
so alternate parse tables would need to be done. However, that
still leaves you with the fact that you would need to pump those
numbers through the <font size="+1"><tt>.NDRNN</tt></font>
function of the <font size="+1"><tt>NODE%</tt></font> JSYS if you
were going to get anywhere.<br>
</p>
<p>Regretfully, I do not appear to have sources for <font size="+1"><tt>NMLT20</tt></font>,
so I can't tell what it does. The parse tables for it (<font
size="+1"><tt>NCPTAB</tt></font>) accept an area.number, but I
don't see that anything in the Tops-20 operator interface resolves
it as above (Tops-10 does).<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I'll tinker with it some more. Wish I
could find another Galaxy nerd, but we were very rare.<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:716D6259-7FA5-429A-AA2D-7568BF74FD42@comcast.net">
<hr width="100%" size="2">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">On 3/3/20 8:34 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
The area.node notation, and the Phase 3 numeric address notation, were intended to be standard, not just limited to NCP. And indeed DECnet/E (in RSTS) does both:
$ dir 1.13::[decnet]nodenames.dat;0
Node: 1.13
User: guest
Password:
System Password:
Directory 1.13::DU1:[DECNET]
Name .Typ Size Prot Access Date Time UIC
NODENAMES.DAT;254 30/30 < 40> 28-Feb-20 28-Feb-20 01:08 [7,14]
Total of 30/30 blocks in 1 file.
$ dir 1037::[decnet]nodenames.dat;0
Node: 1037
User: guest
Password:
System Password:
Directory 1037::DU1:[DECNET]
Name .Typ Size Prot Access Date Time UIC
NODENAMES.DAT;254 30/30 < 40> 28-Feb-20 28-Feb-20 01:08 [7,14]
Total of 30/30 blocks in 1 file.
These are DECnet kernel features. The connect call takes a 6-character ASCII node argument, and if that's numeric string (possibly with a . in it) it's interpreted as a node number in the way shown. Of course, 63.1023 doesn't fit in 6 characters so for that one you'd be forced to write it as 65535.
paul
<blockquote type="cite"><hr width="100%" size="2"><pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">On Mar 3, 2020, at 6:57 PM, Thomas DeBellis <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:tommytimesharing@gmail.com"><tommytimesharing@gmail.com></a> wrote:
You've put your finger on something that's puzzled me for quite some time about Tops-20's lexical implementation.
There is no standardized syntax in the generalized parsing interface (COMND% and GTJFN%) for using numeric node names. If you ask COMND% to parse a node name and do not shut off standard syntax, then you must specify a maximum six character word which conforms to the SIXBIT character set followed a double colon, which looks like what you would think it would, viz: VENTI2::
However, the integration into the monitor isn't as seamless as it appears to be under VMS. In order to make a connection, you must build a special string for GTJFN% to swallow. Let's suppose I wanted to grab the latest node list from MIM:: (which I do on a weekly basis); you would type MIM::FIX.T20;0 as the source to NFT. That's not what GTJFN% wants and you must transmogrify the string into DCN:MIM-FAL. Once that connection is open, you negotiate DAP and then ask MIM:: to send the file.
There is no standardized "[a.b.c.d]" syntax such as what you might use to get to an IP4 host which is neither in the DNS nor host tables. You can use COMND% to parse for a number optionally followed by a dot and another number and the operator NICE interface (NCP) does in fact do this. Indeed, it is the only interface besides SETNOD which does this (in order to define nodes). So I can give an area.address to NCP as an argument to a TELL verb in order to get remote information.
...
Curiouser and curiouser. Do the above two functionalities exist in other operating systems?
</pre></blockquote></pre>
</blockquote>
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