[HECnet] Oldest VAX/VMS for VAX-11/730 on HECNET

[Tony Nicholson]

On Thu, Dec 9, 2021 at 10:25 AM Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:

> I'm trying to find the oldest VAX/VMS version which:
>
> * Supports DECnet Phase IV over ethernet
> * Supports the VAX-11/730
> * I can get my hands on images of the OS installation and anything
> (licenses?) needed for DECnet Phase IV
>
[snip]

> I have not found any scans of the DECnet-VAX Software Installation Guide
> or the DECnet-VAX System Manager's Guide yet, and I don't know what needs
> to be done to install and/or configure DECnet in such an old VMS version. I
> see that stuff related to DECnet is present after installation, such as
> STARTNET.COM and NCP.EXE, but DECnet-VAX is referred to as an optional
> component which must be licensed separately. I gather from discussions
> elsewhere that there may be at least one critical file missing that serves
> as the "license" for DECnet-VAX?
>

The VAX/VMS DECnet license "key" for old versions (V4.7 and prior) came in
the form of a saveset (on a TK50 or magtap) that you installed.  It did a
binary patch on the NETACP.EXE image to enable things. There are separate
versions for routing and end-node configurations.

The thing that bothers me running old versions of VAX/VMS is the lack of
Y2K updates.  You will probably need to boot with a date last century
(subtract 28 years to get matching calendar days) to avoid some gotchas.
For VAX/VMS V3.0 there may have been some mandatory upgrade patches too.

I have the VAX/VMS V4.7 mandatory patches and DECnet "key" for a routing
node should you need them.

Tony
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