[HECnet] Projects...?

[Johnny Billquist]

John Wilson wrote:
My projects come and go (except for E11 of course, which is always the main
one but it's *about* PDP-11s, not *on* PDP-11s -- current project is writing
FS drivers so the stand-alone version will be useful), but the one that's the
closest to being something is KSERVE, a server-only Kermit, originally for
RT-11 but I'm slowly working on a stand-alone version (for transferring raw
disk images).   To make that build from the same sources, I've been isolating
the OS-dependent parts so hopefully I'll do RSTS and RSX versions some day.
Anyway it's a Kermit like any other, except that it supports sliding windows
and large packets, and it's a lot smaller (and way easier to build) than the
"official" Kermits, what with not having a command line interpreter (although
it still sort of does, for "REM K" commands).   All in MACRO-11, naturally.
It would have been kind of cool 25 years ago when anyone might have cared.

Still sounds like a fun project. KERMIT is another thing that someone should look into for RSX. The RT-11 (and I believe RSTS/E) version got additional development done that wasn't done in a portable way, so that K11 actually isn't as up to date as it should be. But that is way down on any list I have... Anyone else feel like playing with it? :-)

I too had a project to write a BBS for RSTS a million years ago -- I guess
everyone did!   Yes, with its own RTS since that's the only way to be 100%
^^C proof.   This was on V7.0-07, mostly MACRO-11, a little bit of BASIC, but
the machine never had more than one modem (actual Bell 212A and later a Vadic
VA3451PA, I still have them somewhere) and I was using it half the time to
dial out to the RPI mainframe anyway so the whole idea was kind of pointless.

KOM wasn't using an RTS for the ^C trapping (even if that is a nice perk), but to actually squeeze as much out of the address space as possible. The people who wrote KOM even had to write their own linker to get things massaged down into a form that would make it run. It have loads of functionality in it, including a nice command parser a'la TOPS-20.

	Johnny