[HECnet] DECnet/Python

[Paul Koning]

> On Oct 27, 2021, at 8:44 PM, Peter Lothberg <roll at stupi.com> wrote:
> 
> ...
> The 4.x DECnet over DDCMP DUP/KMC for 2020 has reduced "segment size' 
> from 576 to 390 or something like that due to limited buffer space.

256 actually.  Why, I don't know, but since that is communicated to the other end in the connect initiate or connect confirm message, it doesn't cause any problems only than some possible drop in performance.

PyDECnet can talk to those Phase II nodes, at least to some extent; it needs some cleanup.  The intercept support in particular is incomplete.

Speaking of which, I noticed that TOPS-20 upon connecting sends to its neighbor (my PyDECnet router) a connect request for an object named "TOPOL".  That suggests some sort of topology information service, which makes sense.  But I have no idea what that thing does, what requests it excepts and what its reply should look like.

Very long shot: does anyone have any idea?  Any way of getting a network trace, perhaps?

	paul