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

[Trevor Heartfield]

Hey Guys,
I wouldn't give up on TOPS-10 just yet. I've recently been playing around with it quite a lot. It was the first real OS I used back in my school days (and I just retired so it was a looong time ago).

I have a fully loaded TOPS-10 7.04 KL system running here and it has DECNet installed. I'm also building one of Rob Doyle's FPGA KS10 machines.

I'm currently trying to get LAT working on TOPS-10. It's definitely borked in the release I have but there's probably a patch for it. If anyone has it working, I'd be grateful for information.

I have several real VAXes, a PDP11/83 and an HP Integrity running most of the time. They can talk to HECNet but they aren't in the node database yet. I'll be sending their details to Johnny in the near future.

I'm grateful to the guys who posted the patch for the Nov 9th bug - I'll be trying it today.

Once the machines are registered, I'll drop a line here. All are welcome to come and play 😊

Trev.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of Chris Berry
Sent: 06 November 2021 08:57
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] TOPS-10 D-Day, DECnet failure on November 9th is less than six days away

Well I have 35-40 DECnet systems up and running almost all the time - a mix of VMS, RSX, RSTS, U*IX, TOPS and I would love to get them connected up to HECnet ...

I did try about a year ago, but we didn't manage to move things forward due to pressures of work etc...

Chris
declab.uk


On 06/11/2021, 08:37, "Johnny Billquist" <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE on behalf of bqt at softjar.se> wrote:

    There are actually a number of RSX systems up and running, even though I 
    might be the only one who is doing a lot of development on one.

    There are usually a couple of RSTS/E systems online as well. A few more 
    Tops-20 systems, even though they are not many either.

    A lot of VMS, obviously, but not that much noise from that crowd. :-)

    A few Ultrix machine. A few very random, odd things...

    And then more and more PyDECnet.

       Johnny

    On 2021-11-06 00:59, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
    > I would hate to say "none", but I fear this is really close enough to 
    > the truth as makes no difference...  It seems that only the VMS people 
    > are online and Johnny, who keeps RSX up.
    > 
    > Anytime I've checked a Tops-10 system, I've been unable to connect, but 
    > I don't do that a lot.
    > 
    > It's little different with Tops-20 systems, although a few are online 
    > (SOL:: is a notable example) I used to use Supratim's TWENEX:: (31.29) 
    > machine to try to do regression tests, but this was fruitless.  His host 
    > table is years out of date, so I only show up as a number which can not 
    > be entered as a node name.  And he has bugs and things I fixed aeons ago.
    > 
    > He never responds to any query and now TWENEX:: is seldom up.  Well, let 
    > me rephrase that, it hasn't been up when I've checked, but I stopped 
    > doing that and gave up on him.
    > 
    > That's what I'm building TERZO:: for, regression tests.
    > 
    > I'll bet 28NH:: has some of that information; it looks like it does.
    > 
    > On 11/5/21 7:44 PM, Robert Armstrong wrote:
    >>
    >> > what are you all doing, anyhow?
    >>
    >> I suspect nobody actually uses their TOPS-10 machines much.  Of those 
    >> on your HECnet list, how many are actually running now?
    >>
    >> Bob
    >>

    -- 
    Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                       ||  on a psychedelic trip
    email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
    pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol