[HECnet] TOPS-20 DECnet

[gerry77 at mail.com]

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 21:49:49 -0500, you wrote:

With all of the recent, invigorating HECnet discussion, I am curious if
anyone has a decent [approachable] resource for getting a TOPS-20 instance
on the [HEC] net. I have a non-panda instance up (ARPAnet), and have a
version of DECnet [apparently] installed, but no dice with HECnet
connectivity. Worse case I guess I may use a captive account of sorts to
gateway from WOPR:: to the 20x node via telnet.... but that just seems
wrong in principle...

Well, I've seen no answer on this topic from other members, so I'll try
myself. In truth I've no TOPS-20 DECnet experience, but I've it on TOPS-10.
BTW, I seem to remember that years ago there was a TOPS-20 host on HECnet.

I do know that TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 are quite dissimilar, but I've to say
that setting up DECnet on TOPS-10 was not so difficult, so I think that on
TOPS-20 it will be even easier, given the overall OS look and feel. After a
brief Google search, if I'm not wrong, it appears that you need at least
TOPS-20 V6.1 to partecipate in an Ethernet DECnet network.

On TOPS-10 I had just to load the DECnet tape contents into the relevant
directories (i.e. help files in HLP: executables in SYS: and so on) and to
rebuild the monitor to include Ethernet network support by following an
on-screen procedure not so different from an old Linux make config.

For help, I consider alt.sys.pdp10, Bitsavers archive and Trailing-Edge
repository to be the most valuable sources (along with many other tiny sites
you may discover by just using the right search terms with Google).

Are you experiencing some particular problem?

Bye, :)
G.