[HECnet] Area 48.....

[Steve Davidson]

Sure...   Just one more example of PMR!   :-)

-Steve 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE 
[mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Ian McLaughlin
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2013 14:49
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Area 48.....

Sounds like bang-path routing from the good-old-days of UUCP.

Ian

On 2013-01-07, at 11:41 AM, "Steve Davidson" <jeep at scshome.net> wrote:

When DEC began to run out of node names/addresses (64512) they 
resorted to something called hidden areas.   "Spitbrook Rd" (Nashua, 
NH) had nodes that were in areas 61-63 that could not be 
seen beyond that facility.
Other sites, like the "The Mill" and "Parker Street" (Maynard, MA) 
also reused those same addresses just not the node names.   
If the node 
you were on was in a hidden area then you had to do your 
own "routing" 
of sorts to get the areas outside your facility.

As an example:   If I was on node FOO::, and FOO:: was in a hidden 
area, and I wanted to send email to another site on node BAR:: then 
the DECnet path might look something like this:

ROUTR1::BAR::<username>.   Where ROUTR1:: is a non-hidden area node 
within my facility.

If the other end had the same issue then the chosen path might look 
something like:

ROUTR2::FOO::DAVIDSON.   Where ROUTR2:: is a non-hidden area node 
within the source facility.

This was referred to as PMR (Poor Mans Routing).   The 
concept was not 
new because it had been used in previous versions of DECnet anyway, 
the application was... Sort of...   HECnet has reserved area 63 for 
hidden area nodes - to play with mostly.   I did some 
playing around last year.
If I can ever find my notes (from DEC days) about the whole setup I 
will get back to playing some more with it.