[HECnet] A2RTR downtime

[Johnny Billquist]

I have some vague recollection that T10 in the last incarnation(s) could 
use the KL10 paging, but I could be remembering wrong.

But maybe there are some other T10 people around who might/could know...

   Johnny

On 2021-10-19 01:13, Peter Lothberg wrote:
> This is kind of a bit off topic.. But...
> 
> So I have a lot of T10 7.02 based code for KI10 (using tops10 KI 
> paging...). None of the PDP10 emulators do T10 KI paging..
> 
> 7.03 has lots of internal changes that did not work on KI, so back 
> ported  DECnet 4 etc from 7.03 to 7.02 (remember we had KI CPU's..)
> 
> Was there 7.02 that used KL10/Tops20 paging? I don't have the dist tapes 
> any longer?
> 
> Or is there a PDP10 emulator that do KI Tops10 paging that would run my 
> 7.02?
> 
> --P
> 
> So what's the actual T20 patch for NOV 2021 DECnet?
> 
> Ps, tops10 does not  "cross compile" between versions well (or at all..)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>     *From: *"tommytimesharing" <tommytimesharing at gmail.com>
>     *To: *"hecnet" <hecnet at Update.UU.SE>
>     *Sent: *Monday, October 18, 2021 3:00:00 PM
>     *Subject: *Re: [HECnet] A2RTR downtime
> 
>     I wouldn't worry about it; I don't use VENTI all that much, either. 
>     …/Except/ when I do…  Then I have to tell you that it has proven to
>     be positively invaluable and I am very grateful for that!
> 
>     If this were critical, then I'd think about getting off my butt and
>     putting up Tops-10 somewhere on one of my home systems.  But that
>     would blow a lot of time; I haven't done a MONGEN since…well, I
>     honestly can't remember—it's well over four decades and I never knew
>     that part of it well to begin with.    Come to think of it, I might
>     have been doing a ONCE and not a MONGEN.
> 
>     Actually, having a guest account on other HECnet systems has also
>     proved invaluable for chasing down arcane Tops-20 issues.  Thanks all!!
> 
>     I reached out to Lars Brinkhoff concerning my Tops-10 patch and he
>     said he would distribute wherever it made "sense" to do so.  If I
>     get any feedback, I will forward it.  Otherwise, let me know if
>     there is any way I can provide assistance.
> 
>     Yes, it is a shame about the STOPCODE, but it would appear that the
>     maintainer had some different ideas in the mid-1980's when this code
>     was put in about what the usage of Tops-10 would be.  This comment
>     is illustrative, the first sentence being key:
> 
>         _I doubt very much that the date itself has really gone past
>         2021_.  Probably someone smashed an AC or the routine to get the
>         time from the monitor is returning junk. However, on November 9,
>         2021, it appears that many people will see this problem so
>         prepare your SPR for that date.
> 
>     I think the problem is that Tops-10 didn't have the kind of die-hard
>     fanatics supporting it (read, MRC) that Tops-10 did, so stuff like
>     this was caught and fixed years ago.  D36COM has an edit date of
>     2001 for this, but since it is from Gorin, it's probably older.
> 
>     I continue to find Y2K things to clean up, these days mostly in the
>     listings from various compilers and the remaining CUSP's that MRC
>     didn't catch.
> 
>     Another thing I fix are internal time of day comparisons.  This is
>     stored as an unsigned 36 bit fixed fraction having resolution to
>     about ⅓ of a second, 35 bits bringing you to 27-Sep-2217 20:00:00
>     EST US, the full 36 taking you to 7-Aug-2576 19:59:59 EST US.  Since
>     the PDP-10 only has signed comparisons, all single comparison
>     arithmetic will break in a mere 195 years.  Fixing that double word
>     signed compares has given me some more breathing room.  In 554
>     years, I'm sure I'll have thought of something else…
> 
>         ****
> 
>         ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>         On 10/18/21 11:19 AM, Robert Armstrong wrote:
> 
>         ***
> 
>             *Second* is VENTI; I had wanted to test something on it and
>             it doesn't appear to be online.
> 
>         *
> 
>         Sorry, I’m somewhat lazy about booting it up when the host
>         system is rebooted.  I don’t use VENTI that much.
> 
>         **
> 
>             Had you had any interest in trying it?
> 
>         It sounds like I’m going to have to.  It’s a shame this STOPCODE
>         was a halt and not just a debug one; at least the latter would
>         have allowed the system to continue running.
> 
>         This also means I have to re-discover how to do a MONGEN and
>         build.  There was a time, 30 years ago (actually, 40 years ago)
>         when I could have done it from memory but now I’ll have to read
>         the manual again
> 
> 

-- 
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