[HECnet] Here there be dragons...

[Mark J. Blair]

I just got connected for the first time yesterday, thanks to Johnny and Robert (YAY!!!). I'm now squatting on the 2.600-2.699 range (which is WAY larger than I expect to fill up!), with HUSKY being my "most likely to be turned on and connected" node since it's a simh emulation on the same Linux box where my PyDECnet router runs. If area 2 ever starves for node addresses, I could easily give up at least half of that chunk.

But unfortunately, I'll be connected only intermittently for now, and probably down for extended periods when my front-burner focus drifts away from DEC-related things. I have awful internet connectivity at home, so even when I'm connected, the link will bounce like a superball. If and when I can solve my internet last-mile problem I will hopefully be persistently connected to HECnet even when my attention is elsewhere.

My pipe dream would be to create some sort of fun service(s) for other HECnet users to connect to. It's really neat to be able to network like it's the 1980s again, but I gather that there's not a lot of regular user activity on HECnet yet? If my attention span was long enough, I'd consider writing a VMS-native MUD in order to learn VMS innards (I'm totally a UNIX guy; VMS is still a very strange place to me). Then I'd put it on HECnet so y'all could get an hour or so of passing enjoyment out of my year of effort! :)

Anyway, I just thought I should chime in about why my nodes will usually not be reachable. It'll be mostly because of my choice to live in a rural area, with a side effect of having very substandard internet connectivity.

-- 
Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/