[HECnet] VMS/RSX Guest accounts

Wed Apr 22 20:59:58 PDT 2020

Indeed, I thought it was seriously neat.

Yet nothing PDP-6 or 10 as I saw.  But those are some serious beasts to 
have around.

I mean, woof.

On 4/22/20 11:55 PM, Gregg Levine wrote:
> Hello!
> And we are neighbors. I am in Astoria Queens. Dave has an amazing
> collection of machines, everything imaginable.
> -----
> Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
> "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
>
> On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 11:43 PM Thomas DeBellis
> <tommytimesharing at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Oh, I'm in Looooong Island, South Shore.
>> I actually have relatives not far from you in PA, but I hadn't gotten
>> around to noodging you yet for the distinct lack of 20's in your
>> collection.  I mean, you have a 4341 yet no 20?  Tisk, tisk...
>> Well, I'm pulling your leg a bit; a 20 is a seriously heavy lift.  A KL
>> has three purposes in life: 1) Generate Heat, 2) Suck Power, 3) Run
>> winning code.  A 2020 uses far less power, but doesn't have extended
>> addressing, so it is stuck at Tops-20 4.1, which leaves out a lot of
>> DECnet (and ARPAnet) stuff.  Apparently, you can squeeze 5.0 in; MRC did
>> this, but that was MRC.  Tops-20 is at version 7.0 now.
>> And both of them are seriously cranky beasts that needed care and
>> feeding from trained service personnel; wire wrap and all that (yech).
>> Remember, it's not a mainframe unless you can't fit it in your house and
>> have to take out a second mortgage to pay for the electricity and tons
>> (60 for a 20) of air conditioning.
>> So Paul Allen had a KL based 20, which is now in the the Living Computer
>> museum.  But that cost was apparently less than a rounding error
>> compared to what he was worth.  A mere monetary blip, as it were.
>> On 4/22/20 11:28 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
>>>     Hey, I'm 5hrs from DC, where are you based Tom?
>>>                -Dave
>>> On 4/22/20 11:25 PM, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
>>>> For VMS, for the moment I've gone with one of Bob's machines as that is
>>>> on the 'local' DECnet area.  Perhaps I'll get better performance
>>>> although Supratim is closer, milage-wise.  D.C. is about a 5 hour drive
>>>> from here, while Bob's neck of the woods is a serious hike (Atlantic to
>>>> Pacific).
>>>> On 4/22/20 11:14 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>>>> Well, the more the better, so get that VMS account. If you want to, I
>>>>> can create an account for you on MIM as well. (But it will be
>>>>> tomorrow, I need to go to bed...)
>>>>>     Johnny
>>>>> On 2020-04-23 05:12, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
>>>>>> Yes, but the MIM guest account is shared; I'm going to need to store
>>>>>> a few files (captures, control files, Etc.)
>>>>>> Wow, you've kept a real VAX running from 1993?  Good for you! I'll
>>>>>> contact you off-list.
>>>>>> On 4/22/20 11:07 PM, Supratim Sanyal wrote:
>>>>>>> Thomas - MIM already has a guest account ... I have had fun sending
>>>>>>> Johnny smtp emails to that account.
>>>>>>> I can give you an account on MARIAH (a real VAX) if you wish, shoot
>>>>>>> me a note offline if you decide to follow up ...
>>>>>>> Regards
>>>>>>> Supratim
>>>>>>> On 4/22/20 10:49 PM, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
>>>>>>>> I've had my fill of FAL and DAP for the moment and have turned to
>>>>>>>> some other things as sort of a 'break'.  The Tops-10 NFT client
>>>>>>>> breaks on certain file names that the 20 sends it, so there is
>>>>>>>> going to be some debugging to track that down.  Fortunately, a very
>>>>>>>> patient person gave me PPN on one of their 10's.
>>>>>>>> Right now, I'm working on bringing the Tops-20 mail system a bit
>>>>>>>> more up to date with respect to DECnet communications. These were
>>>>>>>> largely put aside when full Internet connectivity happened. Still,
>>>>>>>> the PANDA distribution has some bit rot because I know that certain
>>>>>>>> Columbia changes for DECnet (to support CCnet) are not there.  I
>>>>>>>> can't imagine that we didn't send them to MRC; that would have been
>>>>>>>> unthinkable.
>>>>>>>> Fortunately, I was able to remember enough to put some of them back
>>>>>>>> so that I got SMTP over DECnet working well, again.  It had been
>>>>>>>> suffering from about two minute timing delays and now it's
>>>>>>>> instantaneous between 20's, like I remember.   Oddly enough, I
>>>>>>>> don't remember what else ran SMTP over DECnet; I'm certain that RSX
>>>>>>>> and VMS could have done it.  I think some VMS site might have.
>>>>>>>> However, most non-SMTP DECnet hosts on CCnet were running Mail-11,
>>>>>>>> which the 20 also groks.  In fact, it can convert Mail-11 addresses
>>>>>>>> to SMTP and route over other transports such as PUP, Chaos and
>>>>>>>> TCP/IP as well as DECnet.  We did a lot of mail routing for CCnet
>>>>>>>> to the Internet on CU20B, back in the day.
>>>>>>>> Unfortunately, there is some bit rot in some of the Tops-20 Mail-11
>>>>>>>> code, so I've got some tinkering to do.  Does anyone have a VMS or
>>>>>>>> RSX system that they'd care to give me a guest account on?  It
>>>>>>>> doesn't need any special capabilities; I'm just going to be sending
>>>>>>>> mail and looking a few raw headers over.
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Supratim Sanyal, W1XMT
>>>>>>> 39.19151 N, 77.23432 W
>>>>>>> QCOCAL::SANYAL via HECnet
> And this spot belongs to the Rebel Alliance to Restore the Republic Again