[HECnet] Speaking of old decnet releases

[John Forecast]

I worked on DECnet Phase II (11-D and IAS) starting in February 1977. As I recall, the protocol specs were complete by then, so design had probably started sometime in 1976. The original goal was to complete the project in 9 months but it ended up taking 18+ months. 

I used Phase I on a pair of 11/40’s running RSX-11D around the middle of 1976. The CHM has a transcript of an interview from 1988 with Stu Wecker who did the original DECnet architecture where he claims that Phase I development was done for 11-M, 11-D, PDP-8 and PDP-10 (Tops-10) - not sure if they were all released.

  John.

> On Sep 18, 2018, at 6:44 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
> 
> A couple of more comments:
> 
> The manual I have for DECNET-8 is dated February 1977.
> The timeline for DECnet on Wikipedia claims that phase II was introduced in 1975.
> According that same article, it would appear that only RSX ever had DECnet phase I.
> 
> But information on Wikipedia should as usual be taken with a grain of salt. Especially when it a bit more obscure information, for which there are few sources, and the information might be written by someone without direct experience.
> 
> A couple of quotes from the code, that might help:
> 
> From NSP.PA:
> /NETWORK SERVICES PROTOCOL FOR DECNET/8
> / IMPLEMENTED AT SPEC LEVEL 2.2
> /
> /J. ROTH        23-NOV-75
> /JR             17-DEC-76       ADDED VERSION 2.2 CHANGES
> /
> /  WARNING:
> /
> /  THERE EXISTS A BUG IN THE NETWORK DESIGN, SUCH THAT DROPPAGE
> /  OF LEADING 0 BITS IN THE FIRST FRAME OF THE NSP DATA MESSAGE
> /  IS NOT DETECTED BY CRC. TO CIRCUMVENT THIS BUG, THIS NSP CODE
> /  ALWAYS SETS THE NSP 'BLOCKING' BIT WHEN SENDING, AND IGNORES IT
> /  WHEN RECEIVING.
> /
> /
> / DECNET/8 RELEASE VERSION 1
> / DECNET/8 PATCH LEVEL A
> / APRIL 8,1977
> /
>        VERSION=01
>        PATCH="C
> /JR01   16-MAY-77       FIX CONNECT REJECT BY DISCONNECT BUG
> /  NSP02        SCR 9/77        FIX INTERRUPT PACKET BUG        [02]
> /
> 
> 
> So, despite the comments, it's version 1C, and not 1A. And the last fix was in September 1977.
> And "SPEC LEVEL 2.2" might be useful in figuring out what phase it might be, and it might be a hint for phase 2.
> 
>  Johnny
> 
> On 2018-09-19 00:30, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> Hmm. Thinking some more, I remember that we had a discussion about this about 2 years ago.
>> At that time, I tried to figure it out, and found DECnet-8 to look like it was somewhere between phase I and phase II, so I guess my previous comment was too hasty, and it don't seem to be a proper phase II implementation.
>> But, like I mentioned the previous time, I can go and dig more into the code, if someone is interested.
>>   Johnny
>> On 2018-09-18 22:56, Paul Koning wrote:
>>> Phase 2, or phase 1?  I have seen (and read, cursorily) a manual for a PDP-8 based DECnet phase 1.  It made it quite clear that there is no plausible way to be compatible with that, it's quite a different protocol than Phase 2 and later.
>>> 
>>>     paul
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Sep 18, 2018, at 4:50 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> There is a phase ii release for rts-8. How easy it would be to get it up and running might be a different story, but the sources are on the internet.
>>>> 
>>>> Johnny
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> skrev: (18 september 2018 19:30:56 CEST)
>>>> Does anyone have the Phase II DECnet that goes with RSTS V7.0?  I think it calls itself DECnet/E V1.1, rather confusingly.
>>>> 
>>>> For that matter, are there any Phase II DECnet releases around?  I know of the TOPS-20 one; any others?  Ditto for Phase III.
>>>> 
>>>>     paul
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -- 
>>>> Skickat från min Android-enhet med K-9 Mail. Ursäkta min fåordighet.
>>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
>                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
> email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
> pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol