[HECnet] DECnet-10 doesn't work past Nov 9 2021?

[John Forecast]

> On Dec 27, 2020, at 1:10 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
> 
> On 2020-12-27 19:06, Robert Armstrong wrote:
>>> John Forecast wrote:
>>> DECnet event logging for any system may fail after Nov 9th 2021.
>>   Oh, that's a much bigger deal!  Do you happen to know if VMS handles this field as unsigned??  A lot of people here are going to be bummed if VMS quits working next fall...
> 
> As mentioned, RSX will handle it fine.
> But anyway, I'm not sure this really is that much of a deal. Logging will get the wrong dates, or may fail more fatally. But that's just logging. It don't actually have much to do with the actual operations.
> 
> Of course, I have no idea what may fall out if logging throws a wrench into the system, though.
> 
> For RSX, even after 2065, it won't really be a problem. Logs will just have the wrong date, which have some implications if you are going to be searching through logs for things on a specific date, or if you look at printouts.
> 
>  Johnny
> 

I agree. A significant number of events are generated in system or driver code. RSX (in kernel mode) allocates a buffer, copies the event information into the buffer and queues it for the event logger task (EVL…). Ultrix is similar although it uses a special socket to get the data up into user mode. I don’t know what VMS does. Obviously, Tops-10/20 went the extra step of checking for overflow - probably the best bet there is to follow the RSX model and get rid of the BUGCHK.

  John.