[HECnet] Multinet alternatives ...

[Rob Jarratt]

I can't remember now what the problems were, but I think I had problems
getting Phase III running on SIMH with the KMC or KDP (or whatever it was).

 

From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of
Thomas DeBellis
Sent: 25 February 2020 20:14
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Multinet alternatives ...

 

What issues had you encountered talking to Tops-20??

If you are using the SIMH emulator for a KS processor, then the latest
version of Tops-20 you can run is 4.2, which I believe will do Phase III.
Since there was never any Ethernet adapter for the KS (it was a massbus
device), I believe you must speak DDCMP, which we used with KMC's, which
would do 56Kbs.  There was a slower adaptor for 9.6Kbs, but the name escapes
me at the moment.

I've had little trouble with Tops-20 V7 DECnet; that is, once I got it to
working.  When I was modifying FAL/DAP to accept anonymous transfers, I and
and others beat on it quite a lot to wring the bugs out.  These regression
tests were against another 20, RSX 11M+ (or whatever MIM:: is running) and a
couple of Vaxen.  The operating system level code was robust; no crashes.

We found some interesting bugs; I think my favorite was RSX wanting all
capital letters for months and Tops-20 sending capitalized months, so file
dates got messed up.  There were others, but they took some effort to
remediate; so, not so favorite...

On 2/25/20 1:38 PM, Rob Jarratt wrote:

Mine has been built to be portable (it is in C). I have it running on
Windows, Debian and FreeBSD. I have not tried on VMS, but I did do a partial
port to VAXELN. I don't foresee great difficulties getting it to run on VMS.
It looks like I may have done some partial VMS work, but it has been a while
since I looked. I could look into reviving/continuing that if there is
interest.

 

Mine won't talk to TOPS10/20, yet. I started something on that too if I
remember correctly, I did build a DDCMP implementation which I think
partially worked. I think I foundered on just getting DECnet running on
TOPS20 on SIMH, I did some work with Mark Pizzolato and Timothe Litt to
build a KDP emulation, but I struggled to keep up with them and gave up in
the end. I am not sure where that went.

 

I need a bit of time to work out what my status is I think as it has been a
while.

 

Regards

 

Rob

 

From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE>
<mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of
Robert Armstrong
Sent: 25 February 2020 14:42
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE <mailto:hecnet at Update.UU.SE> 
Subject: [HECnet] Multinet alternatives ...

 

   What are the alternatives for bridging DECnet systems across the Internet
that don't require any special hardware and can be self hosted on
OpenVMS/VAX?

 

  I'm aware of Paul's Python router, but I didn't think it ran on a VAX.  Am
I wrong about that?  Is there a Python for OpenVMS/VAX?  I believe there's a
port for AXP but I didn't know about one for VAX.

 

  And I saw Rob mentioned his user mode DECnet router.  Same questions -
what environment does that require?   And I saw mention it being both
Multinet and simh DDCMp compatible - will it talk to a simh KS10/TOPS10/DMR
?

 

Bob

 

 

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