[HECnet] VAX/VMS 1.50

[Clem Cole]

I'm scratching very stale memory bits here, but Ultrix for the Vax/750 circa 1982/83 might have had a MOP server that did not need a full DECnet install.    We did not run DEC-Net at one of my jobs because we had TCP/IP which did everything DECNet could do and worked across vendors.    But I thought had a couple of LAT devices to support some dial-up modems and a funky DEC printer that after it booted, spoke TCP fine, but used MOP to boot.      I was not involved with configuration or maintaining any of it, so none of the details ever stuck and lend together in my mind.    But I would think you look at Ultrix around that time you might find something.

I know we had a 3Com terminal server that was a piece of work, but we ran the UUCP link of the Vax for a long time and the modems I thought were on a LAT.     I just don't remember.

My memories of LAT were that it was it's own protocol in the ethernet sense (i.e. had it's own packet type IIRC I want to say 6003) which was different from what DECnet used.   It was a very low overhead protocol, very MIT Chaos-Net like, and much more efficient for terminals and other low speed devices than TCP.

Clem


On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 8:07 AM, Bob Armstrong <bob at jfcl.com> wrote:
> LAT is _NOT_ part of DECnet.   LAT can be run without DECnet installed
> or running.   IIRC, LAT was licensed with VMS.

   Yeah, but most (actually, "all" I think) of the DECservers required MOP to
download them.   How did you do that without DECnet?

   Or was it just an unwritten catch-22 that you had to have a DECnet node
somewhere to boot up your terminal server, even if it wasn't the node you
actually wanted to connect to ?

Bob