[HECnet] Here there be dragons...

[Mark Wickens]

It is great being part of hecnet, it is quite unique.

My interest in the technology waxes and wanes over the years depending on
family, other hobbies, the weather, all sorts of parameters. I have seen
the same in others.

It is an very niche hobby.

Mark

On Sat, 5 Sep 2020, 16:52 Thomas DeBellis, <tommytimesharing at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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>
> 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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