[HECnet] KLH10 noob questions

Sun Mar 10 12:29:51 PDT 2019

Hi John,

You are almost certainly correct and this would have been around 86-87. I don’t recall using a PPN to login though. To be honest, the only PPN-like thing I remember is my VMS UIC [210,035] which followed me from my very first account on the computing department’s VAX11/780.

Keith

From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of John Forecast
Sent: 10 March 2019 18:41
To: hecnet at update.uu.se
Subject: Re: [HECnet] KLH10 noob questions

Keith,
    Are you sure Essex was running TOPS-20? When I was there, they were running (a heavily modified) TOPS-10 but this was way before MUD was available . If you look at Quentin’s blog (https://www.quentin.org.uk/category/retro-computing/), it shows how to build MUD from scratch and indicates they were still running TOPS-10 as late as 1986.

  John.

On Mar 10, 2019, at 1:30 PM, Keith Halewood <Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org<mailto:Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org>> wrote:

Hi,

I've just got the klh10-2 system (mentioned http://ancientbits.blogspot.com/2013/05/ten-over-pi.html) running on a debian box connected to networking via a tap interface. I've 'installed' the panda distribution of tops-20 and got its tcp/ip and decnet services running (but not autostarting at the moment). You can hecnet to 29.108 to see the default message. I haven't set up any users yet. My only memory of tops-20 is connecting over Janet to Essex to play MUD which was quite a while ago.

Keith

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE<mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Johnny Billquist
Sent: 10 March 2019 16:58
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE<mailto:hecnet at Update.UU.SE>
Subject: Re: [HECnet] KLH10 noob questions

Vern, your memory is either not fully up to date, or else you've developed a few memory errors over the years. :-)

Anyway, to start from (hopefully) the right end - really cool to have someone who worked on the code around. It should be a big benefit in the discussions.

Now, trying to backtrack a few things. I know that Tops-10 and TOPS-20 used the same codebase. DECnet routing is something I can only make half a comment on. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere about the end-node only stuff, and yes, it was also related to the DTE. Basically, parts of the whole DECnet stack is actually offloaded to the PDP-11, and not really done on the PDP-10 to start with. But I'm sure you can correct me on that one. But this also relates to the comments below about KL and ethernet...

Now, on a KS, TOPS-20 never got beyond V4. Any later TOPS-20 development never came to the KS. That includes DECnet phase IV. So, a KS never supported DECnet over ethernet to start with. I remember having a discussion with MRC on this many years ago. He did manage to get DECnet phase IV up and running on a KS, and it was some kind of project supported from DEC, but it was never productified. I'm also not sure if KS ever supported DECnet phase III, but maybe it did over serial lines or something. There is no DTE on a KS, so this does feel somewhat speculative to start with. I certainly used KS a lot, but mostly with Tops-10, ANF-10 and no other networking...

Ethernet on a KL is not done through the DTE. There was/is an ethernet adapter for the KL, called the NIA-20, which was installed in the same cabinet where the massbuses were. And installing the NIA-20 removed two massbuses from the system. There was also the CI-20, which was similar, in that it also took out two massbuses, and I think was also installed in that area.

  Johnny

On 2019-03-10 17:25, Vern Brownell wrote:

Hi folks,

I’m not sure if this will help.  I am the original author of much of
DECnet for TOPS-10 and Tops-20.  The code base is the same for both
OSes, written in Macro, and it was called internally DECnet-36.  It
was developed with full DECnet routing capability and unless it was
restricted in later releases should be able to act as a full routing
node.  It supported KL and KS machines.  Real KL’s were only shipped
with PDP-11’s as front ends using an adapter called the DTE - so
that’s how they where connected to Ethernet.  KS’s had an UNIBUS
adapter, so I could talk directly to NI adapters.  So even though a KL
was a full DECnet node with routing, it only really acted as an
end-node, since it’s only connection to Ethernet or DDCMP was through
an -11.  I would imagine that you could configure a KS with multiple NIs.

At least that’s how I remember it through 38 years of fog.

Have fun!

Vern

On Mar 10, 2019, at 8:23 AM, Supratim Sanyal <supratim at riseup.net<mailto:supratim at riseup.net>
<mailto:supratim at riseup.net>> wrote:

On 3/10/19 10:40 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:

As far as I am aware, it was never supported to have more than one
NIA-20 on a KL10.
Also, since I think that TOPS-20 is endnode only, I suspect it would
be of limited use, had it even been supported.
(Yes, you could have had a second interface for just fallback, in
case the first one broke, but it was rare that you would have two
separate ethernets in the first place, so then it would only be if
the NIA-20 itself broke, but then you'd probably want to power down
the machine anyhow.)

Very likely true. The original KL10 doc clearly says only one NIC is
supported. I just try my best to keep my DECnet and IP subnets
isolated if I can; two NICs help.

I know of KLH10s, but I don't know if any have a guest account.
Although, I'm not sure what you think you would see from inside TOPS-20.

Never seen or logged into a TOP-20 system ... as you say below,
curious about what it looks like. Anyway, have a Panda release up
now, working through tips for the basics.

But it's a good question if there is any TOPS-20 machine on HECnet
with guest account. I guess it could be interesting for others to
just experience what TOPS-20 looks and feels like.
I don't have any myself.
Johnny
On 2019-03-10 15:28, Supratim Sanyal wrote:

Starting from zero with both KLH10 and TOPS-20. Newbie questions,
surely:

1) Is there a KLH10 distribution for Linux that supports VDE2? (It
appears it was at the least added  to the NetBSD target by Olaf
'Rhialto' Seibert after being reuested by Cory Smelosky, going by
https://github.com/PDP-10/klh10/issues/2)

2) Is it possible in KLH10 to have two network adapters, for
example, something like

# DECnet adapter
devdef ni0 564 ni20 dedic=true ifmeth=vde ifc=/tmp/vde-dnet
enaddr=aa:00:04:00:XX:YY # IP adapter devdef ni1 1500 ni20
dedic=true ifmeth=vde ifc=/tmp/vde-ip enaddr=12:34:56:aa:bb:cc

3) Are there any KLH10 TOPS-20 systems active on HECnet now on
which I could have an account to look around?

Thanks
Supratim

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Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
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