[HECnet] Who's emulating?

[Mark Abene]

Sorry to report, but DECnet/E on RSTS/E v8 has no support for networking
over such devices.   Else I would've done this years ago.   Remember *v8*.
Not 9, and not Mentec.   :)


Johnny Billquist wrote:
Mark Abene wrote:
While I have been running three public access emulated systems for a few
years now (TOPS-20 on KLH10, RSTS/E v8 and 2.11BSD on SIMH), there are
several problems with me getting on HECnet.   First, my host server is
FreeBSD, and FreeBSD doesn't support multicast on tap network
interfaces, nor have I heard about any plans to.   Which means no DECnet.
At some point I plan to migrate my emulators over to a beefy linux
server, and linux does have the necessary support.   Second problem, is
that SIMH doesn't support any DDCMP-aware network devices, which means
that even if I solve the first problem (it'll allow me to get TOPS-20 on
DECnet), I don't have any way via SIMH to get DECnet/E working on my
RSTS system.   Call me crazy, but I just don't think I'll be paying 4,000
dollars for E11/linux.   So that's out.

Huh? What do you mean simh don't support any DDCMP-aware devices. You do
know that DDCMP can be run over asyncronous serial lines do you?
This means as long as you can emulate something like a DL11, DZ11, DH11,
or any other stupid serial port, you'll be able to play DDCMP.
Atleast if you are running RSX. Because the next question is what your
OS on your simulated machine can talk DDCMP over, which is a relevant
question here. :-)

      Johnny


-Mark


Marc Chametzky wrote:
The recent downtime thread has sparked much discussion about a variety
of DEC (and perhaps some Compaq) hardware, but who among us is living in
HECnet lives in software?

I have two systems nominally connected to HECnet, both emulated. I have
the SIMH VAX emulator running VMS (DUSTY) and I have Mark Crispin's
Panda system running TOPS-20 (CALHAN). Both of these are running as part
of virtual Unix systems (one Linux, one Solaris) on a single ESXi box.

I've also played with a couple Alpha emulators from Stromasys
(CHARON-AXP on Windows and CHARON-AXP NCE on Linux), but I've not set up
a more permanent virtual Alpha system.

I'd set up a virtual PDP-11 to play with as well, perhaps running
RSTS/E, but it's been far too long since I've used a PDP-11 to remember
how to set it up and maintain it. Same thing with VM/370 or z/VM on
Hercules. It's sad how much I've forgotten over the years.

--Marc