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<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">One can speculate on a
number of reasons for this, my top two guesses are that DEC was
rapidly evolving the protocol and yet hadn't converged on the
degree of productization it would have on the PDP8 platform
(what PDP-8 OS was this?)</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">I don't know what
wasn't wound down except VMS and Digital Unix (née Ultrix). I
had heard that DEC walked away from the PDP-15 so abruptly that
"customers didn't even realize it had happened" or something
along those lines.<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Under Tops-20, there
are all sorts of extremely interesting hooks for DECnet
functionality. For example, the file system was being modified
to hold DECnet nodes, user names and passwords. There are hooks
for an NFT: device and one assumes that this would have
implemented a kind of transparent file access. A lot of stuff
doesn't appear to have been fully production ready; there are a
number of issues with DAP, for example. One assumes a UETP
suite for DECnet might have caught this.</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">And all those nifty
PDP-11 OS's!!</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Sigh; I have COBOL and
assembler programs that I wrote (on punched cards) as a student
in the 1970's that will still execute just fine on z/OS (née
MVS) and z/VM. I oversee development under z/TPF, which some
assembler modules going back to the the early 1980's.</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">To say that JCL is not
intuitive is not to do its arcane, obfuscated syntax true
justice. And it's all very 3270 half-duplex terminals
(simulations), blah. Yet, there's something to be said for
reverse compatibly. None of my (very early) Windows programs
will work anymore. A number of my Unix programs still will.</font><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/22/20 3:43 PM, R. Voorhorst
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:011201d6a8ab$8eefea10$accfbe30$@swabhawat.com">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">@John
Forecast:</span><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Hi
John,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">The
oddity is just the other way around ….<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">The
release date of the primitive software, say Phase-I+ is
dated at 8-april-1977.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">The
Nip printout is dated 28-dec-1976 which aligns with your
story.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">So
why ship something clearly broken with an obvious simple bug
that should have been easily catched with a minor level of
release quality control.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">When
the Pdp8 development was dropped around may-1977, why not
release the current stuff instead?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Some
form of date editing in the software was clearly done on
package level as the date 8-apr-77 appears all over the
place, but why for a product at that time already 1-3 years
ago?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Best
regards,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Reindert<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1
1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:simh@groups.io">simh@groups.io</a> [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:simh@groups.io">mailto:simh@groups.io</a>] <b>On Behalf Of
</b>John Forecast<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, 22 October, 2020 17:23<br>
<b>To:</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:simh@groups.io">simh@groups.io</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [simh] Decnet8: Who has any
knowledge about this product and has seen it actually
working in whatever versions? Cross post from Hecnet<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Oct 19, 2020, at 6:07 PM,
R_Voorhorst <<a href="mailto:simh@swabhawat.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">simh@swabhawat.com</a>>
wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">The
following oddities – amongst more - can be seen:</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<ol type="1" start="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;mso-list:l0
level1 lfo1"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">The
date is 28-dec-76, the various edit dates in the
current software are all centered on april/may-77.</span><o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<ol type="1" start="2">
<li class="MsoNormal"
style="color:#1F497D;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;mso-list:l0
level1 lfo1"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Ddcmp
is dated 7-apr-77 with version 1A, the doc
mentiones already 4B</span><o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<ol type="1" start="3">
<li class="MsoNormal"
style="color:#1F497D;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;mso-list:l0
level1 lfo1"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">KL8
ISR is versioned 3A while the current available
version is 1A and dated at 8-apr-77</span><o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<ol type="1" start="4">
<li class="MsoNormal"
style="color:#1F497D;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;mso-list:l0
level1 lfo1"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">And
then the Nip version V1 as documented is older
than the V1C version of the internet release!!</span><o:p></o:p></li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">If these
dates are correct it’s unlikely this code is Phase II.
Phase II design was mostly done in 1976 (maybe late
1975) with protocol design along with prototype code
running standalone on various PDP-11’s. In January
1977 a group was constituted in the Mill to develop
networking products (mostly DECnet) for
RSX-11M/S/D/IAS, RT-11 and the PDP-8 (I joined that
group in late January 1977). In early May, there was
an off-site meeting to finalize the API’s that the RSX
systems would use - running code wasn’t available for
another 4 or 5 months. Around that May timeframe the
PDP-8 development was dropped, I don’t know if it was
cancelled or transferred back to the OS group (as
later happened with RT-11).</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">As Johnny
pointed out it’s more likely to be a snapshot of the
Phase II development specs from late 1976 - bug
fixes/changes were happening all through the summer
of 1977.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"> John.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">And
there are a lot more things going on. So the bottom
question remains: has anyone seen the internet
versions working or is there a clobber up between an
advanced laboratory (Phase-II??) version as
documented (look at the Ddcmp versions) and a
preleased or prior old Decnet version. And if so,
can anything be retrieved or is it lost forever.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Best
regards,</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">RV</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:white">_._,_._,_<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center" align="center">
<hr width="100%" size="2" align="center"></div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Groups.io Links:<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:white">_._,_._,_<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
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</blockquote>
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