[HECnet] TOPS-10 and DECnet

[Cory Smelosky]

On 22 Dec 2012, at 01:14, Cory Smelosky <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:


On 22 Dec 2012, at 01:03, Cory Smelosky <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:


On 22 Dec 2012, at 00:48, G. <gerry77 at mail.com> wrote:

On Fri, 21 Dec 2012 18:50:05 -0500, you wrote:

Hey everyone,

I'm having a bit of trouble configuring DECnet on TOPS-10 in klh20.
[...]
As you can see, I changed the configuration to 9.10, yet it changes the mac 
address from 9.10 back to that of 24.172.

Where else do I need to reconfigure this? ;)

Well, to be honest I didn't even remember the ONCE option to reconfigure the
network (are those settings sticky over reboots?)... Anyway, whenever I had to
reconfigure DECnet I've simply rebuilt the monitor with a new set of custom
parameters: once setup, the process is straightforward.

Monitor sources usually are in [10,7,MON] so you just go there with PATH or
SETSRC, then you have to run MONGEN and answer all its questions, notably the
one that asks if it has to write a MONGEN.MIC file (say yes). This produces a
tailored .MIC file with all your answers, which you can modify whenever you
need to change something, and two parameter files (SYSCNF.MAC and F.MAC).

Then I suggest you put something like what follows in a .MIC file, I've called
mine MONBLD.MIC:

.DAYTIME
.COMPILE/COMPILE F,S
.COMPILE/COMPILE DEVPRM,DTEPRM,NETPRM,D36PAR
.COMPILE/COMPILE SYSCNF+<COMMON,COMDEV,COMMOD>
.R LINK
*SYSTEM/SAVE/NOINITIAL/HASH:13K = /LOCALS -
*COMMON,COMDEV,COMMOD,REL:TOPS10/SEARCH-
*/PATCH:200/COUNTERS/GO
.DIRECT/DETAIL SYSTEM.EXE
.DAYTIME

So, whenever you need to rebuild your monitor with different parameters, you
can just edit your MONGEN.MIC (or a copy of) and then at the dot prompt simply
type DO MONGEN followed by DO MONBLD (or whatever names you have used). On a
modern system the whole process takes no more that 1-2 minutes. :)

The bunch of commands above comes from DEC manuals (I'm not so expert); note
that between /LOCALS and the hypen there must be a space, I do not know why
but manuals warn about this. You must have TOPS10.REL somewhere on your disk
(usually in REL:) and that place has to be clearly specified just before
/SEARCH. TOPS10.REL is the library file that contains almost every monitor
module. When MONBLD finished its work, you'll have a new SYSTEM.EXE in the
current directory: you can then rename and move it as you please.

If you need to modify standard modules (such as CLOCK1.MAC to implement KLH10
idle detection) the procedure is not much more complex than this.

Please excuse me if I wrote things you already know!

HTH, :)
G.

Thank you! I've not played much with TOPS-10, but you've helped a lot.

I learn a lot about DEC OSes by tuning them   oftentimes incorrectly. ;)

Such as:

% DSK:MONGEN.MIC will not be written
% File DSK:MONGEN.MIC already exists

And then:

.do monbld
?MICCOF	Cannot open file MIC:MONBLD.MIC - in "DO" command

OH! I GET IT NOW!