- HECnet - lists @ Update

by Alastair.Boyanich＠au.fujitsu.com

Hi Johnny, Your welcome. Yes, it's pretty chatty. MIPSPro and DECC are my favourite C compilers as they're quite anal and chatty warning wise. Sounds good. New code arrives I'll check it out. :) Al. -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Johnny Billquist Sent: Friday, 8 June 2012 4:35 PM To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] New bridge.c feedback On 2012-06-08 01:30, Boyanich, Alastair wrote: Hi Johnny, Yes. It seems to want<strings.h> 6.5.24 and above (or 6.5.29f in my case) was aiming at SUSv3 compliance away from base XPG4 so things were moved to strings.h (http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/index.html) .. it's also in the 3c index man page, you were right. Excellent. Included strings.h as well now. Not a problem on the systems here. We'll see if it hits problems for anyone else. So, compiles on IRIX 6.5.29 if the header is included. Worth gating it in via #ifdef ? I'm also a fan of enum types. Binary emitted is ~298kb. Also, your welcome to an account on the system if you wish to poke/play around, it's accessible over ssh and the general internet (it's my daily shell/hacking on code box). -Wall makes the MIPSpro runtime *extremely* chatty. It's quite anal. See below. Even better. Thanks. cc-3201 cc: REMARK File = bridge.c, Line = 158 The parameter "data" was never referenced. int lookup(struct sockaddr_in *sa, char *data) ^ Yeah. I noticed that one too. I don't remember why data was in there in the first place, since I'm not using it. Might as well drop it. cc-1506 cc: REMARK File = bridge.c, Line = 460 There is an implicit conversion from "unsigned long" to "long"; rounding, sign extension, or loss of accuracy may result. delta = timedelta(bridge[index].lasttime); ^ Thanks. cc-3201 cc: REMARK File = bridge.c, Line = 559 The parameter "r" was never referenced. void dump_nomatch(struct sockaddr_in *r, struct DATA *d) ^ That one is because dump_nomatch is a function I wrote for debugging help. The body of the function is normally empty, since it's inside a #if Need to think a little about how/if I'll get rid of that warning... cc-3201 cc: REMARK File = bridge.c, Line = 559 The parameter "d" was never referenced. void dump_nomatch(struct sockaddr_in *r, struct DATA *d) ^ Same story... cc-1185 cc: WARNING File = bridge.c, Line = 579 An enumerated type is mixed with another type. d->type = classify_packet(d); ^ That one should already have been fixed... cc-1171 cc: WARNING File = bridge.c, Line = 685 The indicated expression has no effect. if (port == 0) port == DPORT; ^ Also alredy fixed... cc-1498 cc: REMARK File = bridge.c, Line = 709 There is no prototype for the call to read_conf. read_conf(); ^ Think I fixed that. However, this is a little messy, since I'm doing things slightly unconventional. read_conf() is called both in the normal main program, and is also the signal handling function for SIGHUP. However, signal functions actually takes one argument. By setting up a prototype, I had to include one argument here, which is unused (I totally don't care about it), so now you might get a warning about an unused parameter. But prototypes are a good thing, so the unused parameter warning is better to have. cc-1209 cc: REMARK File = bridge.c, Line = 715 The controlling expression is constant. while(1) { ^ Yes. That's how you get an infinite loop. :-) Thanks for the feedback. See what happens with the fixed code... Johnny

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New bridge.c feedback

by bqt＠softjar.se

On 2012-06-08 01:30, Boyanich, Alastair wrote: Hi Johnny, Yes. It seems to want<strings.h> 6.5.24 and above (or 6.5.29f in my case) was aiming at SUSv3 compliance away from base XPG4 so things were moved to strings.h (http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/index.html) .. it's also in the 3c index man page, you were right. Excellent. Included strings.h as well now. Not a problem on the systems here. We'll see if it hits problems for anyone else. So, compiles on IRIX 6.5.29 if the header is included. Worth gating it in via #ifdef ? I'm also a fan of enum types. Binary emitted is ~298kb. Also, your welcome to an account on the system if you wish to poke/play around, it's accessible over ssh and the general internet (it's my daily shell/hacking on code box). -Wall makes the MIPSpro runtime *extremely* chatty. It's quite anal. See below. Even better. Thanks. cc-3201 cc: REMARK File = bridge.c, Line = 158 The parameter "data" was never referenced. int lookup(struct sockaddr_in *sa, char *data) ^ Yeah. I noticed that one too. I don't remember why data was in there in the first place, since I'm not using it. Might as well drop it. cc-1506 cc: REMARK File = bridge.c, Line = 460 There is an implicit conversion from "unsigned long" to "long"; rounding, sign extension, or loss of accuracy may result. delta = timedelta(bridge[index].lasttime); ^ Thanks. cc-3201 cc: REMARK File = bridge.c, Line = 559 The parameter "r" was never referenced. void dump_nomatch(struct sockaddr_in *r, struct DATA *d) ^ That one is because dump_nomatch is a function I wrote for debugging help. The body of the function is normally empty, since it's inside a #if Need to think a little about how/if I'll get rid of that warning... cc-3201 cc: REMARK File = bridge.c, Line = 559 The parameter "d" was never referenced. void dump_nomatch(struct sockaddr_in *r, struct DATA *d) ^ Same story... cc-1185 cc: WARNING File = bridge.c, Line = 579 An enumerated type is mixed with another type. d->type = classify_packet(d); ^ That one should already have been fixed... cc-1171 cc: WARNING File = bridge.c, Line = 685 The indicated expression has no effect. if (port == 0) port == DPORT; ^ Also alredy fixed... cc-1498 cc: REMARK File = bridge.c, Line = 709 There is no prototype for the call to read_conf. read_conf(); ^ Think I fixed that. However, this is a little messy, since I'm doing things slightly unconventional. read_conf() is called both in the normal main program, and is also the signal handling function for SIGHUP. However, signal functions actually takes one argument. By setting up a prototype, I had to include one argument here, which is unused (I totally don't care about it), so now you might get a warning about an unused parameter. But prototypes are a good thing, so the unused parameter warning is better to have. cc-1209 cc: REMARK File = bridge.c, Line = 715 The controlling expression is constant. while(1) { ^ Yes. That's how you get an infinite loop. :-) Thanks for the feedback. See what happens with the fixed code... Johnny

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Introducing myself... and my little network

by roll＠Stupi.SE

I've got also some emulated PDP10 which I've not networked (yet). I'm having trouble plugging into DECNET a TOPS20/Panda machine... If someone could point me to any docs I would appreciate it a lot. Does Ethernet-Multicast get set up correclty on your host? I'm trying too to DECNETize a TOPS10 running on a KLH10 simulated machine; this one kinda works... I get the adjacency up messages but I can't talk to the machine (neither FROM the machine). The only docs I've found are for the 7.03 version of the monitor, but I've got 7.04. Again, any pointers to docs will be appreciated. There is no real change to DECnet 703a/7.04, the changes are 7.01/7.02. I don't think your problems are in the PDP10 code, it's KLH/Host_Networking. Can the T10 box talk to itself? -P

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Multinet Tunnel Connections to SG1::

by bqt＠softjar.se

On 2012-06-07 23:12, Rob Jarratt wrote: -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner- hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Benson Sent: 07 June 2012 07:27 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Multinet Tunnel Connections to SG1:: Now, you have due permission to beat me with a dried haddock if I'm being naive (I'm not a programmer, just a user observing a conversation that's 50% over my head) but... Wouldn't a kernel-agnostic DECnet implementation be a better shot? I mean if you can skim DECnet packets using libpcap (which is kernel agnostic as far as I can tell, hell it even works on Windows :)) and use that to handle DECnet for the bridge or SimH what's stopping it being used for a full DECnet comms package? It might not be very *fast* and it's sure as hell not secure but it'd work, right? With the fast pace of kernel change and the dropping of kernel support (and OSs like Ubuntu update the kernel regularly which will break things) for DECnet in the 3.x kernel it may be that kernel-based support is no longer practicable on modern Linux. Just a thought... This is such a big thread that it breached my attention span limit, so apologies if I miss something. This was exactly my plan, and I intend to give it a go, but no promises on when I will have something. I think it would be running a user-mode program running as root, use promiscuous mode, and on linux/unix run as a daemon, while on Windows it would run as a service. Being user mode it would be possible to run it on multiple platforms with ease. I am no DECnet expert, so I don't fully understand why I would need some kind of other interface to the routing function, I got a bit lost when people started talking about needing sockets to talk to the daemon. I think I would probably just use a config file to drive it, rather than provide some kind of command interface. Not sure if this would break something? Welcome to the world of confusion. No, you would not need an interface to a routing function. The problem is that people are not talking about a routing function. You went down the same path I was going... :-) What people are talking about now is a full blown DECnet implementation. Then you need an API for all the user land programs who might want to talk DECnet, and then you need an interface to it. Johnny

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Multinet Tunnel Connections to SG1::

by bqt＠softjar.se

On 2012-06-08 07:21, Peter Lothberg wrote: On 06/07/2012 02:26 AM, Mark Benson wrote: It's a good idea, but I'm not sure it can be done. We need to change the MAC address on the interface...can that be done outside the kernel? This should be possible, OSI-IP requred this function to, but in addition to that you need to get the MAC-level multicast packets in both directions. Changing the MAC address outside of the kernel? Depends on the kernel. Linux have an API to do this. Some other Unixes does not. In fact, some Unixes have no capabilities for doing so even in the kernel, although if your code is in the kernel you can definitely do such a thing yourself. Problem is how to interface it to userland... (If I remember right, there is an ioctl() to do it in Linux... You do need to be root, obviously...) Johnny

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promiscuous mode, was Re: [HECnet] Multinet Tunnel Connections to SG1::

by bqt＠softjar.se

On 2012-06-08 01:13, Dave McGuire wrote: On 06/07/2012 08:16 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: Any program that needs access to raw ethernet packets needs to run as root. Promiscuous mode or not. Promiscuous mode itself has little to do with this. So if you want to run anything like a bridge or a router, you will need to run it as root. Promiscuous mode is basically just allowing you to share the same interface as the system is otherwise using, instead of having to dedicate a separate ethernet interface for this. Maybe you're just putting this another way, but promiscuous mode is correctly defined a bit differently than this. When an Ethernet controller is placed into promiscuous mode, its on-chip MAC address filters, which normally either select or ignore inbound packets based on their MAC address, are disabled. ALL packets are received by the hardware and passed to the Ethernet driver in the OS, rather than only the ones destined for that specific interface as defined by its MAC address. I'm reasonably certain that you know this but were just explaining it in a more abstract way...? Yes. Well, actually I wasn't describing it in a more abstract way, but in a way more in terms of why you need promiscuous mode instead of what it actually does on the interface. But reading it through now, I see that there was one implicit assumption in my text which I could have pointed out. If you need to share the device with the system, while using a different MAC address, you need to place the device in promiscuous mode. And such is the case if we talk DECnet, since DECnet requires that you use a specific MAC address which is not the same as the default MAC address of a device. And to make a correction to your text, when not in promiscuous mode, your ethernet controller will filter out packets that do not have your MAC address, and packets that don't have the multicast bit set (possibly you can also get it to filter more specific on multicast ethernet packets, but multicast is a separate story from unicast packets on ethernet controllers anyway). Johnny

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netowrk flapping....

by roll＠Stupi.SE

NCP> %%%%%%%%%%% OPCOM 8-JUN-2012 07:07:16.01 %%%%%%%%%%% Message from user DECNET on STUPI DECnet event 4.18, adjacency down

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Introducing myself... and my little network

by roll＠Stupi.SE

I will set it aside if I find it, and make sure to image it. Image all your TK50's with distribution stuff on drop Al K a copy. -P

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Multinet Tunnel Connections to SG1::

by roll＠Stupi.SE

On 06/07/2012 02:26 AM, Mark Benson wrote: It's a good idea, but I'm not sure it can be done. We need to change the MAC address on the interface...can that be done outside the kernel? This should be possible, OSI-IP requred this function to, but in addition to that you need to get the MAC-level multicast packets in both directions. -P

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Reaching SOL::, was Re: [HECnet] Multinet Tunnel Connections to SG1::

by roll＠Stupi.SE

On 06/07/2012 02:14 AM, Peter Lothberg wrote: Can you talk to sol:: I can't seem to get to it from my Linux desktop machine, no, but I can SET HOST to it from my Alpha running VMS. (which I'm reaching from the aforementioned Linux machine!) It seems that off-net DECnet routing isn't happening from the Linux machine..? What's up with this, does anyone know? Is it connetivity (routing), or the fact that the linux implementation only speaks VMSnet? Does the linux box talk to stupi:: -P

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lunchbox VAXen, was Re: [HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On 06/08/2012 12:13 AM, Boyanich, Alastair wrote: @DaveMc: *Snip!* .. here we called the VS2000's "wine casks" or "goon vax" because cask wine is oft called "goon" over here. I like it! -----Original Message----- I think someone even wrote a driver for VMS to use disks on that controller. I have several of those machines; I really should look into that. Does anyone have any further information on, or actual copies of, those boot ROMs and/or the VMS device driver? Reinhard Heuberger I think? Might've been a controller out of a rainbow in an 11/23 http://www.pdp11gy.com/indexE.html No, the SCSI host adapter in question is actually integrated onto the MicroVAX-2000 and VAXstation-2000 main board. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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lunchbox VAXen, was Re: [HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network

by Alastair.Boyanich＠au.fujitsu.com

@DaveMc: *Snip!* .. here we called the VS2000's "wine casks" or "goon vax" because cask wine is oft called "goon" over here. -----Original Message----- I think someone even wrote a driver for VMS to use disks on that controller. I have several of those machines; I really should look into that. Does anyone have any further information on, or actual copies of, those boot ROMs and/or the VMS device driver? Reinhard Heuberger I think? Might've been a controller out of a rainbow in an 11/23 http://www.pdp11gy.com/indexE.html

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Introducing myself... and my little network

by gregg.drwho8＠gmail.com

On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 11:37 PM, Boyanich, Alastair <Alastair.Boyanich at au.fujitsu.com> wrote: @Sampsa: There was wordperfect on VMS? Wow. I used to use the shared version of it on SCO in the early 90's. I didn't know there was a VMS version. That'd be interesting to see. Al. -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Sampsa Laine Sent: Thursday, 7 June 2012 8:50 PM To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network Speaking of old software, does anybody happen to have WordPerfect for VMS lying around? Would love to play with that.. Sampsa On 7 Jun 2012, at 11:48, Jordi Guillaumes i Pons wrote: Al 07/06/12 12:11, En/na hvlems at zonnet.nl ha escrit: Jordi, You wrote that the NIC on the 4000-90 was broken. Did you try an external transceiver on the AUI connector (there's a switch on the back). An Alllied Telesys or DEC transceiver might solve the issue. The logic that drives the BNC connector is on a separate module IIRC. I didn't. Actually, I thought you needed a thickwire segment to use a transceiver and a drop cable. I should have researched it better. Any idea of the DEC name for that thinwire transceiver? (Or a compabtible one). Anyways, I think I canibalized that machine a little bit, so I'm not sure what is actually inside of the inclosure. It looks like a nice summer vacation project :) If you need software kits for the VAX, post your needs. If I have the kit(s) I'll burn them on a CD. Hans Oh, thanks. As I said, I've plenty of "modern" stuff, but I miss some of the older software I used back in those days (pre-5.0), a (call it nostalgia) I'm quite trying to reproduce that first environment I worked on. Right now, I miss: - FMS - TDMS - VAX BASIC - LSE That's pretty all. I also used AI1 (the dreaded office package) but I'm not sure I'll want to fight that monster again ;). No need to burn a CD, we could arrange the transfer by network (HECnet or regular internet). I understand the use of that stuff is covered by the hobbyist license (not sure about TDMS though), so we would not do anything out of the law. Hello! I'm not Sampsa, he's busy at the moment.... But yes there was indeed a version of WP for VMS. It was better supported for the VAX, then the one for SCO. As it happens I found out about it when I participated in a discussion with the fellow who sold it for SCO. Sadly the SCO one dropped out of site when that company started to crater. Strangely enough it happened well before the history of VMS started to get interesting. The VMS one was very popular at an agency I had, well an interest in. However the secretaries all typed poorly using it and worse for the PC release..... But yes it was there. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

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Introducing myself... and my little network

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On 06/07/2012 11:41 PM, Boyanich, Alastair wrote: Dave: I have I have enough of a 4000-m60 laying around and could try it if there's support for Mariah in there. 4000-VLC also. Doesn't look like there was support for that stuff until at least 5.5, according to another list member's research. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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Introducing myself... and my little network

by Alastair.Boyanich＠au.fujitsu.com

Dave: I have I have enough of a 4000-m60 laying around and could try it if there's support for Mariah in there. 4000-VLC also. -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire Sent: Thursday, 7 June 2012 9:15 PM To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network On 06/07/2012 07:10 AM, Jordi Guillaumes i Pons wrote: Will pre-5.0 VMS run on a 4000-90? I don't recall when NVAX CPU support was added to VMS. I don't think so. I've built a 4.7 system running in a 11-780 SIMH emulator :) I doubt 4.7 would run even in my 3300 (my oldest real machine). I was still running 4.7 on one machine (11/750) when I installed my first 3100. I'm pretty sure I installed 5.0 on the 3100 though. I was already running 5.0 on a pair of MicroVAX-3600s, and then 5.1 came out very shortly thereafter. BTW, 4.7 boots so fast under SIMH than at first I thought it had somehow crashed or hung. When I got the "username:" prompt after pressing return I was amazed :) Nice. :-) I bet 4.7 would absolutely scream on a 4000-90 if it had CPU support. The difference between 4.7 and 5.0 on a 2.8VUP MicroVAX-III is like night and day...I can only imagine it on a 4000-90, more than ten times faster! -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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Introducing myself... and my little network

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On 06/07/2012 11:37 PM, Boyanich, Alastair wrote: There was wordperfect on VMS? Wow. I used to use the shared version of it on SCO in the early 90's. I didn't know there was a VMS version. That'd be interesting to see. There was even a version for SunOS, with a fairly respectable WYSIWYG GUI. I used that quite a bit Back In The Day(tm). I think I still have it somewhere. Those binaries will likely run under current Solaris on UltraSPARC; I've been amazed at the degree of both architectural and ABI compatibility between BSD-based SunOS 4 and SysV-based Solaris. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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Introducing myself... and my little network

by Alastair.Boyanich＠au.fujitsu.com

@Sampsa: There was wordperfect on VMS? Wow. I used to use the shared version of it on SCO in the early 90's. I didn't know there was a VMS version. That'd be interesting to see. Al. -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Sampsa Laine Sent: Thursday, 7 June 2012 8:50 PM To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network Speaking of old software, does anybody happen to have WordPerfect for VMS lying around? Would love to play with that.. Sampsa On 7 Jun 2012, at 11:48, Jordi Guillaumes i Pons wrote: Al 07/06/12 12:11, En/na hvlems at zonnet.nl ha escrit: Jordi, You wrote that the NIC on the 4000-90 was broken. Did you try an external transceiver on the AUI connector (there's a switch on the back). An Alllied Telesys or DEC transceiver might solve the issue. The logic that drives the BNC connector is on a separate module IIRC. I didn't. Actually, I thought you needed a thickwire segment to use a transceiver and a drop cable. I should have researched it better. Any idea of the DEC name for that thinwire transceiver? (Or a compabtible one). Anyways, I think I canibalized that machine a little bit, so I'm not sure what is actually inside of the inclosure. It looks like a nice summer vacation project :) If you need software kits for the VAX, post your needs. If I have the kit(s) I'll burn them on a CD. Hans Oh, thanks. As I said, I've plenty of "modern" stuff, but I miss some of the older software I used back in those days (pre-5.0), a (call it nostalgia) I'm quite trying to reproduce that first environment I worked on. Right now, I miss: - FMS - TDMS - VAX BASIC - LSE That's pretty all. I also used AI1 (the dreaded office package) but I'm not sure I'll want to fight that monster again ;). No need to burn a CD, we could arrange the transfer by network (HECnet or regular internet). I understand the use of that stuff is covered by the hobbyist license (not sure about TDMS though), so we would not do anything out of the law.

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DECnet-DOS, was Re: [HECnet] Size of HECnet

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On 06/07/2012 07:08 PM, Gregg Levine wrote: Is this the same as DECnet-DOS? I ran that a long time ago. Does anyone have a copy? It included drivers for that weird DEC ISA Ethernet card, the DEPCA, which was a full-length 8-bit board that also included (strangely) a mouse interface. I have the programs for that thing. (Don't have the card.) I, ah, made a copy of the programs onto a floppy from a PC/AT that I was repairing for a customer, oh say about twenty years ago. The customer, (not mine Dave the store I was working at) was a student at one of the schools, (college) who had a remarkable DEC installation running at it, it might have been Columbia. I found the card in it, and asked the manager who was double checking my work, as was his wont, and of course he didn't know what it was. I found out later what it was, and yes it was what you've described. I'd love a copy of that stuff, if you can arrange it. Obviously I never got the stuff to connect to a for real DEC setup, but heck it would be fun to try and do so. Indeed! By the way Dave outside your door is a well dressed gentleman in a suit that looks like something a certain outrageous poet and author wore, and has hair to match. (Hint: its the same daft stuff I sometimes pull on Sampsa.) There's also a blue colored box outside......... Ok, you lost me there, my friend. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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rtVAX 300, was Re: lunchbox VAXen, was Re: [HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On 06/07/2012 09:10 PM, Gregg Levine wrote: Oh my field density equalizers! So THAT'S what they're calling them now. ;) That gizmo is the one. I thought so! And if I had the space I'd track the thing down, again. I already have an M68K based VME board here. My problem isn't now finding a card cage for it, its working on how to get our old friend Tux working there. VME card cages aren't too tough to find. They're used all over the industrial world, though, which keeps the prices high. Best to find one at a surplus place who doesn't sell into industry much. Well someday perhaps. If you do find the time to get it working with your favorite OS, can you do me a favor and work on how to get me access onto it? Of course! -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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rtVAX 300, was Re: lunchbox VAXen, was Re: [HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network

by gregg.drwho8＠gmail.com

On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 9:01 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: On 06/07/2012 08:29 PM, Gregg Levine wrote: I don't know why, but here goes, a while ago there were advertisements for a thing DEC called the "rtVAX", it was the processor element in a case about the size of a paperback and mounted on a VME board. Like this one? http://www.neurotica.com/misc/rtVAX-300-1.jpg http://www.neurotica.com/misc/rtVAX-300-2.jpg I picked that up at a hamfest just this past weekend! =) The rtVAX-300 is significantly smaller than a paperback, by the way. If memory serves, it contains a CVAX chipset, an Ethernet controller (SGEC I think), and some ROM. They advertised it as an embedded processor for specialty applications. The user would, what else? build their code on a host such as what we are talking about and including the implied difficulties of debugging it of course, and then deploy it onto the unit's storage media. And then off it went wearing the code written and the rest of it on something else. Why I want one (or two or three or four) is any number of reasons, but it would be an interesting job getting one of the things working on our network. I think it wouldn't be too tough to get most any OS running on it that supports a CVAX-based machine. I'm looking forward to messing with it. It's on a 6U VME module made by Aeon, and with it I also got a 6U VME mass storage module (a SCSI hard drive, and a floppy drive with a SCSI bridge board) and a very nice card cage with attached power supply. There's also a Motorola MVME-series 68040 CPU board in the card cage. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA Hello! Oh my field density equalizers! That gizmo is the one. And if I had the space I'd track the thing down, again. I already have an M68K based VME board here. My problem isn't now finding a card cage for it, its working on how to get our old friend Tux working there. Well someday perhaps. If you do find the time to get it working with your favorite OS, can you do me a favor and work on how to get me access onto it? ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

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Size of HECnet

by jeep＠scshome.net

PATHWORKS V6 supplies a DECnet "stack" for DOS and Windows (16-bit). -Steve From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Joe Ferraro Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 22:05 To: hecnet at update.uu.se Subject: Re: [HECnet] Size of HECnet On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 7:13 PM, Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> wrote: I've got a Windows NT 4.0 VM up occasionally too.. Sampsa boy that gives me bad memories of long days ... perhaps you should've gone for NT 3.50 while you were at it... I do have a Win 3.11 box running... perhaps there's a decnet stack for it?!!?

13 years, 1 month

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rtVAX 300, was Re: lunchbox VAXen, was Re: [HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On 06/07/2012 08:29 PM, Gregg Levine wrote: I don't know why, but here goes, a while ago there were advertisements for a thing DEC called the "rtVAX", it was the processor element in a case about the size of a paperback and mounted on a VME board. Like this one? http://www.neurotica.com/misc/rtVAX-300-1.jpg http://www.neurotica.com/misc/rtVAX-300-2.jpg I picked that up at a hamfest just this past weekend! =) The rtVAX-300 is significantly smaller than a paperback, by the way. If memory serves, it contains a CVAX chipset, an Ethernet controller (SGEC I think), and some ROM. They advertised it as an embedded processor for specialty applications. The user would, what else? build their code on a host such as what we are talking about and including the implied difficulties of debugging it of course, and then deploy it onto the unit's storage media. And then off it went wearing the code written and the rest of it on something else. Why I want one (or two or three or four) is any number of reasons, but it would be an interesting job getting one of the things working on our network. I think it wouldn't be too tough to get most any OS running on it that supports a CVAX-based machine. I'm looking forward to messing with it. It's on a 6U VME module made by Aeon, and with it I also got a 6U VME mass storage module (a SCSI hard drive, and a floppy drive with a SCSI bridge board) and a very nice card cage with attached power supply. There's also a Motorola MVME-series 68040 CPU board in the card cage. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

13 years, 1 month

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Multinet Tunnel Connections to SG1::

by Paul_Koning＠Dell.com

On Jun 7, 2012, at 7:10 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: On 06/07/2012 08:23 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote: Howabout starting it as a daemon (running as root) via the boot scripts, and have non-root users's programs access it via a socket? Cool idea - you could even have multiple hosts connect this way but export one DECNET endpoint, i.e. run CTERM on Box A whilst FAL goes to Box B, and MAIL to Box C :) Yes, you could multiplex/demultiplex it any way you wanted. It would open up all sorts of interesting configuration possibilities. I think it would help if you actually explained a little more what you actually want to accomplish, and what you see as the problems...? We're just batting some ideas around. One problem is that the current DECnet stack for Linux has fallen into dismaintenance, and if that can't be changed, it will eventually stop working on current-ish kernels. The idea is to write a userland (meaning outside the kernel, not running under a non-root UID) implementation of DECnet and have non-root users' apps (dncopy, etc) talk to it via a local socket. That made me think of something... it could be split. If root privs are needed to get Ethernet to do the DECnet MAC address thing (promiscuous or otherwise), one could have a daemon that runs as root that implements the Ethernet datalink layer. Have it communicate with a non-root daemon that does the rest of the protocol stack; that in turn communicates with the applications. Worth it? Perhaps not. If people aren't worried about having the whole stack in a program with root privs, then this isn't necessary. BTW, another thing that such an implementation should do is implement DDCMP. I looked at it once as a module that ties into the terminal driver ("line discipline", was that what it's called???). But in the user mode way of looking at it, a DDCMP layer implementation would simply be a bit of plain old application code that talks to a terminal port configured in raw mode. paul

13 years, 1 month

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lunchbox VAXen, was Re: [HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network

by gregg.drwho8＠gmail.com

On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 7:55 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: On 06/07/2012 07:42 PM, Bob Armstrong wrote: Lunchboxes! :-) And there are images for new boot ROMs available for those which will allow you to boot from the on-board SCSI host adapter, ... I've heard of this, but I haven't seen it. As I recall, the onboard SCSI adapter uses programmed I/O (no DMA!) so it's really slow. For a TK50 nobody would ever notice, but for the system disk it's a problem. Better to cluster boot one, diskless. That'd likely be faster! I'm thinking of the case where one would want a standalone machine, and the XT2190/RD54 is as capacious as MFM gets. Having never run a '2000 via its SCSI host adapter myself, only the MFM interface, I'd have to wonder whether the bottleneck would be that PIO-accessed NCR5380 or the 78032 itself! FWIW, an RD54 isn't necessary. The 2000 can easily be convinced to use _any_ MFM drive, DEC or not. You can get VMS V4 on a 30 meg drive, maybe even 20, if you're determined. Long ago I wrote up a little description of all the VS 2000 disk formatter parameters, what they meant, and how to fake them for non-DEC drives. Google ancient Usenet postings if you're interested. I've had a copy of that archived away for many, many years. :-) -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA Hello! I don't know why, but here goes, a while ago there were advertisements for a thing DEC called the "rtVAX", it was the processor element in a case about the size of a paperback and mounted on a VME board. They advertised it as an embedded processor for specialty applications. The user would, what else? build their code on a host such as what we are talking about and including the implied difficulties of debugging it of course, and then deploy it onto the unit's storage media. And then off it went wearing the code written and the rest of it on something else. Why I want one (or two or three or four) is any number of reasons, but it would be an interesting job getting one of the things working on our network. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

13 years, 1 month

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lunchbox VAXen, was Re: [HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On 06/07/2012 07:42 PM, Bob Armstrong wrote: Lunchboxes! :-) And there are images for new boot ROMs available for those which will allow you to boot from the on-board SCSI host adapter, ... I've heard of this, but I haven't seen it. As I recall, the onboard SCSI adapter uses programmed I/O (no DMA!) so it's really slow. For a TK50 nobody would ever notice, but for the system disk it's a problem. Better to cluster boot one, diskless. That'd likely be faster! I'm thinking of the case where one would want a standalone machine, and the XT2190/RD54 is as capacious as MFM gets. Having never run a '2000 via its SCSI host adapter myself, only the MFM interface, I'd have to wonder whether the bottleneck would be that PIO-accessed NCR5380 or the 78032 itself! FWIW, an RD54 isn't necessary. The 2000 can easily be convinced to use _any_ MFM drive, DEC or not. You can get VMS V4 on a 30 meg drive, maybe even 20, if you're determined. Long ago I wrote up a little description of all the VS 2000 disk formatter parameters, what they meant, and how to fake them for non-DEC drives. Google ancient Usenet postings if you're interested. I've had a copy of that archived away for many, many years. :-) -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

13 years, 1 month

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