[HECnet] TOPS-10 D-Day, DECnet failure on November 9th is less than six days away

[Thomas DeBellis]

Tops-20 gives you essentially the same functionality being able to 
launch the monitor of your choice, having (I believe) the similar 
restriction that the monitor in question has to be on a locally attached 
disk (I.E., no CFS).

Personally, I prefer Tops-10's syntax format because I have to type less 
at BOOT time.  Historically, a system being out of operation was a time 
of extremely high pressure to get it back online (data center phones 
would glow white hot...)

And then there was the sneezing which could fat key you. Although we had 
four 20's in one room, we had some 55 tons of glycol chiller plus 
environmental HVAC; Translation: the machine room was /arctic/.  
Pre-global warming.

    So the less you type, the better...

One problem I have (if you want to call it that) is forgetting that I've 
booted a different monitor.  So my 'production' 20 (TOMMYT) has been up 
some 7,021 hours whilst the development machine (VENTI2) is currently at 
a relative paltry 3,279 hours.

So in certain cases, I've gone and completely forgotten what the heck 
I've been running...  Consequently, on a reboot, the previous monitor 
comes up and I'm clueless, the result being I start asking myself, "Gee, 
why am I seeing this failure mode?  I wonder what I missed when I fixed 
this?"

As far as I can remember, the only way you can tell what monitor you're 
running is by updating the version, typically the edit level, so that 
INITIA, SYSTAT or INFO MON can see it.  I only remember to do that when 
everything is debugged.  Most of the time...

One assumes that Bob will bump the edit number sometime after the 9^th .

On 11/5/21 6:59 AM, G. wrote:
>>    FWIW, you don't actually need to do a MONGEN in this case, 
>> assuming you've previously done one and you're not changing any 
>> selections.  Just skip straight to relinking...
>
> Yup! Those instructions were originally written for someone doing a new
> installation, hence the need to run a MONGEN too as they had to setup 
> several
> parameters. For example, I have used it to configure DECnet and LAT, 
> change
> the default buffer size and hello timer, and so on... :)
>
>>> 12. Copy the new monitor to the system directory giving it some 
>>> unique name:
>>>
>>>      .COPY SYS:MYMON.EXE=DSK:SYSTEM.EXE
>>
>>    This works fine, however the other common option is to copy your 
>> new monitor to [1,5].  On TOPS-10, [1,5] is NEW:, [1,4] is SYS: and 
>> [1,3] is OLD:.  At the BOOT> prompt you can simply type "[1,5]" 
>> (assuming you used the name SYSTEM.EXE) and BOOTS will load the new 
>> one.  If all is well, then you rename the [1,4]SYSTEM.EXE to [1,3], 
>> and then [1,5]SYSTEM.EXE to [1,4].  In the future BOOTS will load the 
>> one from [1,4] by default, and if you ever find that you need to go 
>> back then you can tell BOOTS "[1,3]" and it'll load the old one.
>
> Indeed, both solutions work perfectly. :)
>
> Personally I find it more practical to type some monitor name rather than
> brackets because I'm not a native English speaker hence my keyboard is 
> mapped
> differently. Now that I think of it, maybe having several monitors with
> different "speaking" names may come handy in some experimental 
> situations...
>
> Thanks for your thanks, :)
> G.
>
>
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