[HECnet] Is this the most up to date version of DECnet OS numbers?

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2021-11-07 15:55, Paul Koning wrote:
> I never heard of an attempt in DECnet to keep a single list of OS code numbers, but interestingly enough the ones I can find are MOSTLY the same.  There's one in the old remote terminal protocol, another one in the foundation layer of Cterm, yet another in DAP.   Mostly they match, although interestingly enough one of them has OS/8 and RTS/8 swapped around.  Not that this matters much...

I've never seen an official list, but the fact that pretty much the same 
list appears in several protocols/tools suggest that there was some kind 
of agreed on list.

And yes, I found one where RTS-8 and OS/8 were swapped as well. But 
since I think neither every had any implementation that was relevant 
here, I suspect it ended up more as a token value to have a complete 
list, but no implementation ever claimed them.

   Johnny

> 
> 	paul
> 
>> On Nov 7, 2021, at 6:17 AM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>>
>> Thomas, I'm not sure where you got that list from.
>>
>> It seems slightly mismatching what I can find. Looking at the NRT code in RSX (which uses object 23, and is shared by code in RSX for connecting to both RSTS/E, VMS and Tops-20), I find this:
>>
>> 1  RT-11
>> 2  RSTS/E
>> 3  RSX-11S
>> 4  RSX-11M
>> 5  RSX-11D
>> 6  IAS
>> 7  VMS
>>
>>
>> Those are the documented values for the configuration message that I can find.
>>
>> However, extrapolating from this, in NFT/FAL, there is a much more extensive list, which seems to align with this list, which contains:
>>
>> 8  TOPS-20
>> 9  Tops-10
>> 10 RTS-8
>> 11 OS/8
>> 12 RSX-11M-PLUS
>> 13 COPOS/11 (TOPS-20 frontend)
>> 14 P/OS
>> 15 VAXELN
>> 16 CP/M
>> 17 MS-DOS
>> 18 Ultrix-32
>> 19 Ultrix-11
>> 20 DTF/MVS
>> 25 Windows NT
>> 26 Linux
>>
>>
>> Now, Linux is a value I believe I added just based on observation, so it's much less official. But I think all the other ones are ones DEC did assign. Unfortunately, I think Windows NT was also added by me, based on observation of Pathworks. So I do not know what the values between 20 and 25 could/should be.
>>
>> But maybe this helps some anyway?
>>
>>   Johnny
>>
>>
>> On 2021-11-07 11:23, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
>>> Since its inception, Kermit-20 (one the first three Kermit implementations) has had the 'limitation' that it will only talk to a remote Kermit via a physical terminal line (I.E., something like TTY6:).  It doesn't do network terminals in part because it has no code to handle the out-of-band or meta-data that one finds on TVT's (like IAC's) or CTERM's.
>>> This doesn't exist for the early NRT terminals which were implemented for Tops-10 and Tops-20.  Once you've read the initial configuration message and decided what to do, you basically never have to bother with meta-data.  Because I'm trying to look at an NFT issue between Tops-10 and Tops-20, I needed another transport mechanism and modifying Kermit-20 to do DECnet 36 NRT's seemed like an easy hack.  Since Tops-10 Kermit isn't making an outgoing connection, it is none the wiser.
>>> Thus far, it has been fairly straightforward.  Right now I'm just catching the few cases where certain operations don't make sense or otherwise wouldn't work (like setting the terminal speed). Another thing I'd like to prevent is Kermit-20 bothering non-36 bit systems.  This is easily enough done by checking some 'magic' bits in the initial configuration message and restricting by OS type.  This raises two questions:
>>> First, is the list below complete?  What about Ultrix and ... what else?
>>>       1    RSTS  2    RT-11  3    RSTS/E  4    RSX-11S  5    RSX-11M
>>>       6    RSX-11D  7    IAS  8    VMS  9    TOPS-20 10    TOPS-10 11       RTS-8 12    OS-8 13    RSX-11M+ 14    MCB
>>> Second, the configuration isn't well documented.  Actually, I'm not sure if it's documented, period.  All I have is are some notes that Johnny wrote up in the process of reverse-engineering it and very kindly gave me.  They are certainly fine for this particular implementation, but I was just wondering what else there might be. Plenty for LAT and CTERM, but I don't think I've stumbled over NRT.
>>
>> -- 
>> 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
> 

-- 
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