[HECnet] DECnet on 4.3BSD/TOPS-20 and other questions

[Steve Davidson]

Cory,

I run the Eastern US Backbone connection for HECnet.   This end supports
Dynamic-IP addressing via Multinet Tunnels.   If you can get Multinet
running on a physical (or virtual) VAX (or Alpha) then you can connect
to this site (bridge.declab.org) (or bridge.hecnet.org).

-Steve 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE 
[mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Cory Smelosky
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 16:06
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: [HECnet] DECnet on 4.3BSD/TOPS-20 and other questions

Was anyone ever crazy enough to try to implement any DECnet 
bits for 4.3BSD?

I doubt it was very highly demanded, thus the "crazy" bit. 
I'd consider trying to implement it myself, but I don't know 
C, BSD internals, or in-depth DECnet info and the craziest 
I've done is gotten a crippled Perl 5 built on Quasijarus. 
(while i'm on that topic, anyone ever manage to build 
autoconf/automake on 4.3BSD?) My eventual end goal is to 
build irssi on 4.3BSD and ignoring the fact it's pretty much 
impossible.

I'm having trouble finding good documentation for latest 
TOPS-10 and TOPS-20, anyone know of links off hand? I'd like 
to get more familiar with them. Also, how would I go about 
configuring DECnet on TOPS-20? (using pre-built panda, grab 
me some good manuals and some product tape images and I can 
roll my own if need be). I suck at google and I get a lot of 
"top" lists every time I try to find TOPS-10/TOPS-20 stuff...

Yeah, I don't know everything about all of DEC's older stuff, 
but I like learning my way around, I just need good 
resources...and an explanation of the document naming conventions.

Also, it's probably better I mention connecting here so all 
the crazy solutions get mentioned. Dynamic IP, located in 
Ohio, US. I have several spare UNIX systems to run a bridge 
on, and I would prefer to get several systems connected (what 
area should I use? I'll get back with node names...once I 
figure out how to change them in RSTS/E and TOPS-20) I'm not 
very good with using emacs, maybe I should just stick with a 
more basic editor. Or find a better terminal emulator...I don't 
have any real DEC terminals or any real DEC hardware...yet.

Apologies if any of my questions are a bit annoying or anything.

Thanks!

-- Cory