Bob Armstrong wrote:
re: 2.11bsd DECnet
Performance will be horrible, and it will also probably be very problematic
Not clear whether you mean that in general, or just about the entirely
userspace version.
I don't think a completely user space DECnet implementation is even
possible on a PDP-11 but I don't see why a kernel-integrated version
couldn't be done. 2.11bsd already has TCP/IP networking that works
perfectly well. It's not super fast, but then a PDP-11 (at least if we're
talking about real ones) isn't a super fast machine either. The TCP/IP
speed is on a par with the performance of the rest of the system. We'd
probably have to replace the TCP/IP networking in the kernel with DECnet
because of address space limitations, so it'd be a kernel build choice for
either TCP/IP networking OR DECnet, but I think most people could live with
that.
Well, the TCP/IP for 2.11BSD is all in kernel space...
And the ping times for my TCP/IP under RSX is better than 2.11, if I remember my test right. :-)
No need to replace it. Just add DECnet in parallel.
Johnny
At 10:07 AM -0400 10/21/09, Steve Davidson wrote:
I have a DECnet kit for RT-11. From what I remember it is HUGE!
It can not make use of I/D space so at one point RT Engineering stopped
development on it. When I joined the RT group in 1984 I was supposed to
work on DECnet but within a week of me joining they cancelled the project.
I had a hard time understanding why a company that billed itself as a network connected company would ever cancel such a product! I wound up doing user-mode utilities and SPR's instead. Yuch!
Any chance you can image the kit and make it available? If it's that old it's covered by the Supnik license. Do you have documentation?
As I just mentioned in a post, I've been looking for this for years!
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
This runs over serial (DL, X.25, etc) or parallel links (DR something). So no Ethernet hardware. It predates that by quite a while. Marty Gentry wrote the Ethernet hardware handler (driver) but it was never used for DECnet. DECnet was cancelled right after he finished it.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE on behalf of Zane H. Healy
Sent: Wed 10/21/2009 10:36
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: RE: [HECnet] Next retro comms project?
At 6:55 AM -0700 10/21/09, Bob Armstrong wrote:
* DECnet for RT11. This is easier at least, because DEC actually sold
such a product, but I don't know if actual kits and documentation for it
still exists. In either case, I've got PDP-11s and PDP-8s that could be on
HECnet if they had networking software.
As many know finding a copy of this has been a goal I've had for a
*LONG* time. I know of one person that might a copy, but last I
heard, couldn't get to where the floppies were and didn't have time.
Keep in mind this doesn't run over Ethernet.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
re: 2.11bsd DECnet
Performance will be horrible, and it will also probably be very problematic
Not clear whether you mean that in general, or just about the entirely
userspace version.
I don't think a completely user space DECnet implementation is even
possible on a PDP-11 but I don't see why a kernel-integrated version
couldn't be done. 2.11bsd already has TCP/IP networking that works
perfectly well. It's not super fast, but then a PDP-11 (at least if we're
talking about real ones) isn't a super fast machine either. The TCP/IP
speed is on a par with the performance of the rest of the system. We'd
probably have to replace the TCP/IP networking in the kernel with DECnet
because of address space limitations, so it'd be a kernel build choice for
either TCP/IP networking OR DECnet, but I think most people could live with
that.
Bob
I forgot about the SNA product for Windows NT 3.51/4.0. I have a couple of those kits hanging around. I don't have the SNA hardware but I do have the software.
Any takers? I certainly don't need them?
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE on behalf of Jason Stevens
Sent: Wed 10/21/2009 10:33
To: hecnet at update.uu.se
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Next retro comms project?
Microsoft SNA server works pretty well for that, and it's easy to find...
Many moons ago I had TONNES of machines setup in that kind of manner, with
type 1 token ring to boot! (4mbit).
Even with Windows NT 3.51 & 4.0 it worked surprisingly well. (SNA Server 2.x
was waaay better then 3.x & 4.x IMHO). Anyways it was easy to connect the
tokenring to the FEP, but later on we got cisco routers that would do
translational bridging and local ack so we moved our SNA servers to
ethernet only.. Just remember to flip the bits of the FEP address as the
endian is different from ethernet to tokenring.
I've also done the netware SNA gateway, but it was living hell to setup... I
doubt I could get it to work again...
On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Fred <fcoffey at thrifty.misernet.net> wrote:
On Wed, 21 Oct 2009, Sampsa Laine wrote:
I thought SNA mostly ran on Token Ring or something?
I have an IBM PS/2 model (something) with both an MCA Token Ring card and
and MCA Ethernet - and I even have a passive Token Ring Mau! (and a cable,
somewhere ...)
Now if I could just find that gateway software. When I had access to a
real mainframe, all of the PC's went through a handful of these PS/2's via
Ethernet, and the PS/2's had token ring cards in them connected to a real
FEP.
Fred
At 6:55 AM -0700 10/21/09, Bob Armstrong wrote:
* DECnet for RT11. This is easier at least, because DEC actually sold
such a product, but I don't know if actual kits and documentation for it
still exists. In either case, I've got PDP-11s and PDP-8s that could be on
HECnet if they had networking software.
As many know finding a copy of this has been a goal I've had for a *LONG* time. I know of one person that might a copy, but last I heard, couldn't get to where the floppies were and didn't have time. Keep in mind this doesn't run over Ethernet.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
At 2:41 PM +0100 10/21/09, Sampsa Laine wrote:
Old-school (68K) Macs: I don't know where I got this idea but I think there might be a PATHWORKS client for classic Macs? Anybody ever use it?
I think there was a *VERY* old client. Plus the company that did classic Samba support also did DECnet support, IIRC. For many years I ran the Appletalk server on my Alpha. I had to give that up so I could move to OpenVMS v8.3 and Mac OS X 10.4.x. :-( I *REALLY* miss the classic Appletalk support, as it worked *REALLY* well.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
Microsoft SNA server works pretty well for that, and it's easy to find...
Many moons ago I had TONNES of machines setup in that kind of manner, with type 1 token ring to boot! (4mbit).
Even with Windows NT 3.51 & 4.0 it worked surprisingly well. (SNA Server 2.x was waaay better then 3.x & 4.x IMHO). Anyways it was easy to connect the tokenring to the FEP, but later on we got cisco routers that would do translational bridging and local ack so we moved our SNA servers to ethernet only.. Just remember to flip the bits of the FEP address as the endian is different from ethernet to tokenring.
I've also done the netware SNA gateway, but it was living hell to setup... I doubt I could get it to work again...
On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Fred <fcoffey at thrifty.misernet.net> wrote:
On Wed, 21 Oct 2009, Sampsa Laine wrote:
I thought SNA mostly ran on Token Ring or something?
I have an IBM PS/2 model (something) with both an MCA Token Ring card and and MCA Ethernet - and I even have a passive Token Ring Mau! (and a cable, somewhere ...)
Now if I could just find that gateway software. When I had access to a real mainframe, all of the PC's went through a handful of these PS/2's via Ethernet, and the PS/2's had token ring cards in them connected to a real FEP.
Fred
I'm not ready to part with it just yet. Sorry...
-Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE on behalf of Jason Stevens
Sent: Wed 10/21/2009 10:08
To: hecnet at update.uu.se
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Next retro comms project?
Would you be willing to sell it?
On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 10:04 AM, Steve Davidson <jeep at scshome.net> wrote:
I have a copy of PATHWORKS for MAC. It includes a DECnet client.
Haven't used it for years though...
-Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE on behalf of Sampsa Laine
Sent: Wed 10/21/2009 09:41
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Next retro comms project?
More ideas I just thought of:
Amiga - I've got a DECNET package here for my Amiga, unfortunately the
license key only works with one node address - and I naturally have no
idea what that address is. I'll have a play once my Amiga is up and
running again though, the product looks pretty full-featured (comes
with MAIL, CTERM and file transfer client and server).
Old-school (68K) Macs: I don't know where I got this idea but I think
there might be a PATHWORKS client for classic Macs? Anybody ever use it?
Sampsa
On 21 Oct 2009, at 14:31, Steve Davidson wrote:
SNA can run on multiple physical transports using the gateways.
Serial, X.25, network adapter (specialized), etc are available. The
SPD's specify what is supported. Like Johnny said however, finding
some of this hardware may be a problem. One of the SPD's mentions
an intermediate server that I have never seen/heard of.
Sort of reminds me of the fun and games (not to mention expense) to
get
SNA to talk to Netware.
-Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE on behalf of Sampsa Laine
Sent: Wed 10/21/2009 09:27
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Next retro comms project?
I thought SNA mostly ran on Token Ring or something?
On 21 Oct 2009, at 14:24, Johnny Billquist wrote:
There was a SNA product for RSX as well. Don't know if it required
special hardware as well.
But I very much doubt anyone will be able to find that now
anyway. :-)
Johnny
Steve Davidson wrote:
It can via the gateway software. I see several and it appears that
many
(if not all) require specialized hardware for the
interconnection. A
search for (vms sna gateway) will point you to the SPD's.
-Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE]
On
Behalf Of Sampsa Laine
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 08:34
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Next retro comms project?
Can VMS talk SNA? If so, I'm in :)
Sampsa
On 21 Oct 2009, at 13:31, Fred wrote:
On Wed, 21 Oct 2009, Sampsa Laine wrote:
Where should we go from here? Setting up our own virtual X.25
PSDN tunnelled over IP maybe? Something crazy with SNA?
SNA! SNA! :)
I could set up Hercules here running MVS 3.8J ... ;) I'm sure
the folks have been able to get SNA to work within the emulator.
I set up Hercules and MVS once, but other than a novelty, I
really didn't do much with it, because most of my associates
wouldn't know a mainframe if it ran them over. I think it would
be interesting to get something quasi-public (on HECmet) going.
Fred
----
Lets call it for what it is - "legacy" is a term that people use
in a
polite but derogatory manner to imply that the future direction
they
prefer is not that which they view as the current direction.
<winmail.dat>
On Wed, 21 Oct 2009, Sampsa Laine wrote:
I thought SNA mostly ran on Token Ring or something?
I have an IBM PS/2 model (something) with both an MCA Token Ring card and and MCA Ethernet - and I even have a passive Token Ring Mau! (and a cable, somewhere ...)
Now if I could just find that gateway software. When I had access to a real mainframe, all of the PC's went through a handful of these PS/2's via Ethernet, and the PS/2's had token ring cards in them connected to a real FEP.
Fred
