Very true!
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE on behalf of Johnny Billquist
Sent: Wed 10/21/2009 10:17
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Next retro comms project?
Sampsa Laine wrote:
On 21 Oct 2009, at 14:55, Bob Armstrong wrote:
Well, if we're going to go off into Wishful Thinking Land here :-)
* DECnet for BSD, especially 2.11 PDP-11 bsd. Yes, a 16 bit version is
significantly harder than a 32 bit version, I know, but there are several
real PDP11s out there running BSD that could be on HECnet. I know - I've
got one! We could use the Linux DECnet as a starting point - the dn
userspace utility programs might not even be that hard to port - but we'd
need a kernel wizard to do the tricky bits :-)
Just an idea, and I'm not a network programming guru at all, but do we
really need to have stuff in the kernel? Could we not just have a
userland process that writes frames to the network interface* and then
apps talk to the server process? I imagine this is easier to both write
and debug...
Sampsa
* assuming we are able to write raw frames to the net interface of
course...
Performance will be horrible, and it will also probably be very
problematic. You also need some sort of a transition point between the
kernel and user space to even start doing this. Any user process who
would like to talk DECnet will either want to do system calls, or open a
device to do the communication. That system call, or device will then
access the memory area of the user process to read/write data from the
user process. If your protocol implementation also were in user space,
you then need to send it back from the kernel back into userspace again,
for the protocol process. And you also need to keep track of the
original user process, to keep a connection living, and you need to know
if the user process goes away, so that you can tear down stuff when it
happens. There are a lot of headaches in there, and having a user
process doing it isn't really that helpful.
It's a common mistake to think that this will actually be easier just
because the protocol is implemented as a user space process. It isn't.
The only thing that becomes easier is that once the basic framework is
in place, you can more easily install and remove the code that
implements the protocols. But since buggy protocol implementations often
corrupt more than can be fixed, you often end up needing to reboot anyway.
And we still have the horrible performance issues...
Johnny
Sampsa Laine wrote:
On 21 Oct 2009, at 14:55, Bob Armstrong wrote:
Well, if we're going to go off into Wishful Thinking Land here :-)
* DECnet for BSD, especially 2.11 PDP-11 bsd. Yes, a 16 bit version is
significantly harder than a 32 bit version, I know, but there are several
real PDP11s out there running BSD that could be on HECnet. I know - I've
got one! We could use the Linux DECnet as a starting point - the dn
userspace utility programs might not even be that hard to port - but we'd
need a kernel wizard to do the tricky bits :-)
Just an idea, and I'm not a network programming guru at all, but do we really need to have stuff in the kernel? Could we not just have a userland process that writes frames to the network interface* and then apps talk to the server process? I imagine this is easier to both write and debug...
Sampsa
* assuming we are able to write raw frames to the net interface of course...
Performance will be horrible, and it will also probably be very problematic. You also need some sort of a transition point between the kernel and user space to even start doing this. Any user process who would like to talk DECnet will either want to do system calls, or open a device to do the communication. That system call, or device will then access the memory area of the user process to read/write data from the user process. If your protocol implementation also were in user space, you then need to send it back from the kernel back into userspace again, for the protocol process. And you also need to keep track of the original user process, to keep a connection living, and you need to know if the user process goes away, so that you can tear down stuff when it happens. There are a lot of headaches in there, and having a user process doing it isn't really that helpful.
It's a common mistake to think that this will actually be easier just because the protocol is implemented as a user space process. It isn't. The only thing that becomes easier is that once the basic framework is in place, you can more easily install and remove the code that implements the protocols. But since buggy protocol implementations often corrupt more than can be fixed, you often end up needing to reboot anyway.
And we still have the horrible performance issues...
Johnny
Could you possible ZIP it up and send to me? I'd love to have a play...
Sampsa
On 21 Oct 2009, at 15:04, Steve Davidson 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>
<winmail.dat>
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>
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!
-Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE on behalf of Bob Armstrong
Sent: Wed 10/21/2009 09:55
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: RE: [HECnet] Next retro comms project?
Well, if we're going to go off into Wishful Thinking Land here :-)
* DECnet for BSD, especially 2.11 PDP-11 bsd. Yes, a 16 bit version is
significantly harder than a 32 bit version, I know, but there are several
real PDP11s out there running BSD that could be on HECnet. I know - I've
got one! We could use the Linux DECnet as a starting point - the dn
userspace utility programs might not even be that hard to port - but we'd
need a kernel wizard to do the tricky bits :-)
* DECnet for OS/8. There was a version started by DEC - it actually ran
under RTS/8, which then also ran OS/8 at the same time as another task.
I've got some partial sources for it, but it's not clear that my sources are
complete or even that DEC ever actually finished it in the first place. It
never saw the light od day as a customer product.
* 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.
* A repository of software kits and manuals for old hardware. Yes, I know
there are all sorts of legal issues associated with this, but as a purely
pragmatic issue the main problem with putting up old hardware on the 'net is
finding software kits and manuals to install on it. A lot of this stuff is
already on the Internet here and there, so maybe we could just keep an
informal directory of pointers to other sites, rather than the actual
software or manual. Yes, I'm not the first one to suggest this idea, but
it's still a good one.
* Drivers to implement DECnet over IP tunnels (like Multinet) on other
OSes besides VMS. I can't see why we'd want to implement our own routing in
the bridge program when DECnet already has perfectly good routing - we'd
just be defeating the DECnet routing in order to replace it with our own.
Whew! Usually when I get urges like this I just go lie down until they go
away :-)
Bob
Well I know what I'm doing with my SE/30 and Quadra 650 in the next few weeks :)
On 21 Oct 2009, at 15:05, Christine Caulfield wrote:
On 21/10/09 14:41, Sampsa Laine wrote:
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?
There certainly did use to be a PATHWORKs for 68K macs, we used it at the place I worked many moons ago. I didn't get to use it much myself ... we only had one mac in the department and it was jealously guarded by it's 'owner'. I do remember it being very stange and highly unreliable though. Oh hang on, of course, it was PATHWORKS ;-)
Chrissie
I'd love to set SNA up & running on Hercules but I think it's TCP/IP only... :(
I've always wondered about the fesability of doing a reverse tn3270 gateway... As to pretend you are a FEP and to serve 3270 sessions you pull from a tn3270 gateway.... I should have kept network captures when I had SNA access to a 390 years ago.. :|
On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 8:31 AM, Fred <fcoffey at thrifty.misernet.net> 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.
On 21/10/09 14:41, Sampsa Laine wrote:
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?
There certainly did use to be a PATHWORKs for 68K macs, we used it at the place I worked many moons ago. I didn't get to use it much myself ... we only had one mac in the department and it was jealously guarded by it's 'owner'. I do remember it being very stange and highly unreliable though. Oh hang on, of course, it was PATHWORKS ;-)
Chrissie
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 21 Oct 2009, at 14:55, Bob Armstrong wrote:
Well, if we're going to go off into Wishful Thinking Land here :-)
* DECnet for BSD, especially 2.11 PDP-11 bsd. Yes, a 16 bit version is
significantly harder than a 32 bit version, I know, but there are several
real PDP11s out there running BSD that could be on HECnet. I know - I've
got one! We could use the Linux DECnet as a starting point - the dn
userspace utility programs might not even be that hard to port - but we'd
need a kernel wizard to do the tricky bits :-)
Just an idea, and I'm not a network programming guru at all, but do we really need to have stuff in the kernel? Could we not just have a userland process that writes frames to the network interface* and then apps talk to the server process? I imagine this is easier to both write and debug...
Sampsa
* assuming we are able to write raw frames to the net interface of course...
