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

[Thomas DeBellis]

I was in touch with Lars recently, talking with him about putting 
Chaosnet back into the PANDA distribution as a number of programs (such 
as the mailer and FTP) know how to use it.  I also wanted to put the VTS 
(SUPDUP) service back in, too.

I've spent some looking at the code and I believe there were two 
different Tops-20 implementations, one for the KL which ran on XX and 
EECS and /maybe/ another that ran on the 2020.  ITS uses that hardware 
configuration.  I don't remember anything about OZ, I don't think it was 
on the 9th floor, at least not when I was hanging out there.

I'm not sure if the IBMSPL software had extensive usage.  Earlier 
versions of it were /very/ cantankerous, but it improved.  I knew one of 
the authors at Marlboro (K. Reti) who I thought was one of the more 
brightest bulbs I had come across.  Columbia used IBMSPL extensively, 
but not for the reasons you'd think.

In addition to routing CCnet (DECnet) email to the ARPAnet, we also 
routed the _entirety_ of BITnet, which was a 'network' of IBM mainframes 
that sent email to each other.  It wasn't SNA, they all looked like RJE 
workstations and 'punched' card decks of email to each other.  I think 
our news feed may have come through IBMSPL too.

In other words, that particular software was beat on day and night and 
eventually functioned quite competently.  I keep thinking about putting 
that up, too, although I don't know how I'd get the PDP-11 code working 
(or what it might talk to)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 11/7/21 7:02 PM, Peter Lothberg wrote:
>
>     >MIT Chaos on a KL uses a DN20 for the Ethernet communications (an
>     NI not being available at the time)
>
> For Chaosnet on tops20, for example OZ was runing "Minits" on the 
> front end and the chaos interface is a
> MIT-Special Unibus device.  1822 was spoken with a LH-DH interface.
>
> (For those who don't knew, Chaos was a LAN technology using 75 ohm 
> cable and 3 Mbit and it had
>  16 bit addresses, 8 bit for network and host each.)
>
> Chaos over Ethernet came way later..
>
> Sorry for leaving out DN60, thought it was irrelevant for most users...
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