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

[Cory Smelosky]

On 22 Oct 2012, at 16:38, "Rob Jarratt" <robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com> wrote:

That is a lot of questions! :-) I have answered only one of them below.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE]
On Behalf Of Cory Smelosky
Sent: 22 October 2012 21:06
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?


What part of DECnet do you mean? I have some DECnet Router code out now that
runs a DECnet router in user mode. But it is only the router part, none of
the higher level protocols. If you want to try that there is code for
Windows and for Linux, the latter has been tested on a Debian distribution
(on the Raspberry Pi). I have not tried on BSD and no longer remember the
differences between that and other Unix flavours.

I'm referring to how Ultrix implemented bits of the DECnet protocol suite, I doubted anyone had ported any of it back to something as ancient as 4.3BSD as I highly doubt anyone needed it. :-).



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