[HECnet] Decnet8: Who has any knowledge about this product and has seen it actually working in whatever versions? -> Pydecnet etc.

[August Treubig]

You will find after much bashing head against wall, Redhat/Centos is a “not so good” choice.  Great for enterprise.  Bad at home.  Way behind.  
As a Unix rookie, you will have much grief adding things to it.
You will find Ubuntu and others based on Debian much easier.

Aug

Sent from my iPad

> On Oct 19, 2020, at 4:58 PM, R. Voorhorst <R.Voorhorst at swabhawat.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Paul,
> 
> I have tried your router but it gave some problems on Centos 6.10 to get it
> running, though at first it ran well but had some routing problems I told
> you about.
> I had to do some things to get it up, but later in the process of updating
> pydecnet, Centos started at a certain point complaining about corrupted
> kernel.
> I do not speak Unix very well, so I may well have installed to many basic
> things to get it running and therewith contaminated something.
> 
> Point is that with simh logging, I already can see enough about packets
> interchange, however there is no exchange at all at the moment: it is stone
> dead.
> Activating Tlk to force some internal activity leads directly to a halt
> instruction with not a very illuminating comment as explanation.
> Injecting a packet from a Vax async ddcmp line leads to reception and
> discarding of the sync preamble and then a halt instruction for packet
> fragmentation.
> Of course I was playing false with it, as the start message had C0 for flags
> that Decnet8 expects to be a fill, whatever the fill value may have been
> expected.
> There I can make use of your product to excite the system somewhat.
> By the way, the current Decnet8 is imho NOT phase II; I suspect they had it
> running in the laboratory (viz Ddcmp version 4B versus V1C) and in the spd
> claiming compatibility with Pdp11 phase-II products, but it probably never
> got outside the gates. 
> The mixed dates are a mystery but some Dec people should be around with
> knowledge about this.
> Moreover, I suppose the main driving force for the Pdp8A with notably the
> Kt8 was from LSG as the Psdp8a was also an Anf10 workstation (680) though
> with limited caps.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Reindert 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf
> Of Paul Koning
> Sent: Monday, 19 October, 2020 23:27
> To: hecnet at update.uu.se
> Subject: Re: [HECnet] Decnet8: Who has any knowledge about this product and
> has seen it actually working in whatever versions?
> 
> 
> 
>>> On Oct 19, 2020, at 5:01 PM, R. Voorhorst <R.Voorhorst at swabhawat.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> L.S.
>> 
>> Currently I am finishing testing for the release of the last member of the
> Pdp8 series computers: Simh Pdp8a with some new devices (and some from old
> not present in Ppd8).
>> 
>> Current state of affairs is, that it is running Os8 V3S 128k monitor and
> the Kt8 diagnostics and is stable. 
>> Also F4 runs and basic Rts8 V2b and V3.
>> The last hurdle is to activate Decnet8 as the last test station to really
> load a Pdp8 with some realistic real time work.
> 
> Nice!
> 
>> ... 
>> And there are a lot more things going on. So the bottom question remains:
> has anyone seen the internet versions working or is there a clobber up
> between an advanced laboratory (Phase-II??) version as documented (look at
> the Ddcmp versions) and a preleased or prior old Decnet version. And if so,
> can anything be retrieved or is it lost forever.
> 
> I can't help with your detailed questions.  But in case it wasn't well
> known: yes, I believe DECnet/8 is Phase II.  That means you need either a
> Phase II, or Phase III DECnet product to talk to it, or you need PyDECnet.
> That's Phase IV but unlike the normal case, it supports all the way back to
> Phase II.
> 
> It also has detailed packet tracing, so you might find it a useful peer to
> use for debugging your DECnet/8 system.  For example, if DDCMP is giving you
> trouble you should be able to see what you're receiving from the DECnet/8
> system.
> 
>    paul
> 
>