[HECnet] Re: DECnet Implementation and Productization of RSX-11M, 11S, 11D and IAS (was Re: Anonymous FAL (Tops-20))

[Thomas DeBellis]

Whoops, an IBMSPL communications endpoint was called a DN60, not a DN20.

None of that stuff ran over an Ethernet, which IBM did not sell, yet.  
You had to use KMC11's.

On 7/14/2019 1:48 PM, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
>
> I had been wondering about the RSX DECnet packaging.
>
> Pre-CI DECSYSTEM-20's may be modeled according to a loosely coupled 
> multi-processor paradigm, with the main KL being communicated with 
> DTE20's, the master one having additional rights.  These were 
> connected to either a front end communications processor (which 
> handled the communications, unit record equipment and I believe the 
> ANF10) and other networking. These were packaged in separate cabinets 
> as DN20's.
>
> The DN20 subsystems were 11/34 - 11/40 class machines, which might now 
> be better thought of as ancillary processors or even embedded systems, 
> but sometimes were running cut down versions of full blown operating 
> systems.   The front end ran a version of RSX called RSX20F and was 
> somewhat stripped down, not having a login.
>
> A DN20 was termed a DN20 if it ran the 2780/3780/HASP communications 
> code that IBMSPL talked to.  Since I was Columbia Galaxy nerd and knew 
> PDP-11 assember, I also maintained that code (and worked with our 
> VM/MVS folks to fix a pesky bug in the multi-leaving 
> implementation).   As I recall, this was embedded code and precisely 
> RSX based (but it's been at least 35 years since I assembled any of 
> that).  I think I used a 20 based cross assembler to do it.
>
> We did have an RSX20F pack, but I don't recall as I ever looked at 
> source on that.  Or maybe it was on microfiche.
>
> Do you know how DECnet would have been packaged for the DN20 and DN200 
> (the DECnet based RJE station)?  One assumes it would have been built 
> off of RSX.
>
> I can't remember whether the DN20 would do anything past Phase III.
>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> On 7/5/2019 7:57 PM, John Forecast wrote:
>> What you see in CEXBF.MAC is all there ever was for CEX. When I joined the development team in Jan ’77, an implementation of Phase II NSP was running standalone under a “Communications Executive”. The decision was made to “port” this “Communications Executive” into each of the RSX-11 Decnet implementation (11M/11S/11D and IAS) and they would all use this NSP implementation. As a side benefit we would get all the device drivers that had been implemented as well.
>>
>> [...] that would be too expensive if every packet had to flow through NETACP. When a packet is queued to a process (asynchronous rather than direct call) it is queued to the NS: fork block. When NS: driver runs as a result it peeks at the request and may queue it to NETACP or process it immediately.
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