[HECnet] Here there be dragons...

[Thomas DeBellis]

Yes, it is disappointing, but one has to remember that HECnet is a 
'hobby', which usually implies a few things:

 1. If you are working with these protocols, then you have a certain
    amount of talent.  That means you are in demand to work on other
    technical issues.  Like fixing an Office installation...
 2. Where the domestic sphere exists, one ignores those requests at
    one's peril.
 3. Work done here either does not immediately generate revenue or (more
    likely) doesn't generate any revenue at all.
 4. Job.

So it's completely normal for people to get interrupted for days or even 
weeks at a time (or months).

It sadly happens; that's today's life.  Even assuming 3. or 4. were not 
of any concern, 1. & 2. can blow a lot of time.  I'm thankful for what I 
can do, but not finishing things IS annoying...

On 9/5/20 11:13 AM, Supratim Sanyal wrote:
> Equally or more frustrating is when someone reaches out to get into 
> the fun, we get to a point where I open a port waiting for a 
> connection, then complete silence! Leaves me wondering what happened. 
> I am sure you have had the same experience.
> ---
> Supratim Sanyal, W1XMT
> 39.19151 N, 77.23432 W
> QCOCAL::SANYAL via HECnet <http://www.update.uu.se/~bqt/hecnet.html>
>
>
> On Sep 5, 2020, at 9:46 AM, Keith Halewood 
> <Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org <mailto:Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org>> 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I know HECnet “should not be regarded as a serious networking setup, 
>> nor should it be expected to work 24/7” to quote Johnny’s web page on 
>> the subject. I find it fun in a ‘way back when’ sense because way 
>> back then, as a student encountering VMS for the first time, the real 
>> DEC VAX 11/780 two-node cluster at the university was connected 
>> together via its CI and to the outside world by KMV X25 devices. The 
>> latter devices only talked the old UK ‘Coloured Books’ protocols and 
>> DECnet wasn’t (officially) allowed over Janet. So you can imagine how 
>> underwhelming the output of various NCP SHOW commands was, even with 
>> the addition of a standalone Systime VAX and the odd departmental 
>> MicroVAX to the DECnet, using a mixture of KMVs, asynch DDCMP, 
>> eventually X25 1984 (pink book?) over Ethernet and then 
>> unencapsulated DECnet over Ethernet. All this was around the time of 
>> VMS 5.4 I think. Departmentally, we also used CMUTEK TCP/IP software 
>> to talk to the world when UK Academia finally accepted that IP was 
>> the way to go and OSI just wasn’t going to happen.
>>
>> Anyway, the point(s).
>>
>> It’s really nice to be able to see a page full of circuits, nodes, 
>> areas etc. as a result of being connected to the HECnet. In 
>> combination with Paul’s excellent mapper joining up geography with 
>> connectivity, there’s a certain ‘warm fuzzy feeling’ being part of a 
>> community like this… even if our nodes do more of the talking than we 
>> do. Harking back to the hobbyist bit though, I have to stop myself 
>> from being disappointed when nodes drop off for whatever reason 
>> especially long term. I’ve not seen inbound links from 29.400 and 
>> 29.500 for a while now. I occasionally wonder where area 8 is too – 
>> geographically less than 10 miles away possibly yet I’ve not seen any 
>> of it up and running on the HECnet during my connection to it.
>>
>> I’m not complaining about any of this, just wondering… as well as 
>> staying as far away from source-code control topics as possible :)
>>
>> Keith
>>
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