[HECnet] Quiet list and a question about setting up a system

[Johnny Billquist]

Bob Armstrong wrote:
Johnny wrote:
I have actually also done DDCMP connections in the past. DDCMP is basically just a serial line, so I tunneled that traffic using some freeware with a little massaging.
  But even tunneling DDCMP as you described still requires another machine
to run the "freeware"?       BTW, this is essentially what Multinet does, although it's not actually
using DDCMP of course, but it does emulate a point-to-point connection (i.e.
a DECnet line and circuit) that uses the Internet for the actual transport.
  Still, if you happen to have, say, a PDP-11 in the garage, there's still
no way to put that -11 on HECnet without another machine to serve as an
intermediary.   For many people this isn't an issue because they already have
a suitable machine anyway, but for those who just want to put one machine on
HECnet it's a problem. 

Correct. However, DDCMP, as well as tunneling of it, is something you can probably accomplish using any system you can find. All you need is a plain serial port capable of running at rather slow speeds (I can't find a way of going above 9600 bps using RSX atleast, even if the hardware supports that.)
Tunneling ethernet is far more complicated.

Good question. I know that I've had problems when running DECnet/Linux in the past, but that's definitely another possibility.
  I have one machine running Ubuntu w/DECnet here and haven't had any
problems, but my machine is just an end node.

Don't try to talk with anything but VMS, though... ;-)

	Johnny