On 10/23/2012 8:37 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Think I could make a VAX work with iSCSI? ;)
I've been wanting something like this forever. I've never found any SCSI-iSCSI bridges that weren't insanely priced though and of course so such thing exists for DSSI. :)
-brian
Cory,
I run the Eastern US Backbone connection for HECnet. This end supports
Dynamic-IP addressing via Multinet Tunnels. If you can get Multinet
running on a physical (or virtual) VAX (or Alpha) then you can connect
to this site (bridge.declab.org) (or bridge.hecnet.org).
-Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE
[mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Cory Smelosky
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 16:06
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: [HECnet] DECnet on 4.3BSD/TOPS-20 and other questions
Was anyone ever crazy enough to try to implement any DECnet
bits for 4.3BSD?
I doubt it was very highly demanded, thus the "crazy" bit.
I'd consider trying to implement it myself, but I don't know
C, BSD internals, or in-depth DECnet info and the craziest
I've done is gotten a crippled Perl 5 built on Quasijarus.
(while i'm on that topic, anyone ever manage to build
autoconf/automake on 4.3BSD?) My eventual end goal is to
build irssi on 4.3BSD and ignoring the fact it's pretty much
impossible.
I'm having trouble finding good documentation for latest
TOPS-10 and TOPS-20, anyone know of links off hand? I'd like
to get more familiar with them. Also, how would I go about
configuring DECnet on TOPS-20? (using pre-built panda, grab
me some good manuals and some product tape images and I can
roll my own if need be). I suck at google and I get a lot of
"top" lists every time I try to find TOPS-10/TOPS-20 stuff...
Yeah, I don't know everything about all of DEC's older stuff,
but I like learning my way around, I just need good
resources...and an explanation of the document naming conventions.
Also, it's probably better I mention connecting here so all
the crazy solutions get mentioned. Dynamic IP, located in
Ohio, US. I have several spare UNIX systems to run a bridge
on, and I would prefer to get several systems connected (what
area should I use? I'll get back with node names...once I
figure out how to change them in RSTS/E and TOPS-20) I'm not
very good with using emacs, maybe I should just stick with a
more basic editor. Or find a better terminal emulator...I don't
have any real DEC terminals or any real DEC hardware...yet.
Apologies if any of my questions are a bit annoying or anything.
Thanks!
-- Cory
On Oct 23, 2012, at 8:14 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 10/23/2012 06:55 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
On-topic, if you're hurting for VAXen, I can free up a 4000-series
machine.
Mmm, I think i'd do better here than finding a VAX on ebay,
There are more VAXen here than on eBay. ;)
which 4000-series model in particular?
I have...many. I'll have to check to be more specific. I also have
several desktop VAXen, like 3100 series machines. I have some 4000/60s
and 4000/90s, but I'll be hanging onto those.
Also do you happen to have drives
for one? All I have spare are some 16G 5.25" SCA SCSI drives +
adapters for fast SCSI. Also, if you happen to have any adapters for
MMJ as I don't have any real terminals, that'd be nice, too.
Well these would generally use DSSI drives, unless you can score a
Qbus SCSI host adapter. I might be able to free up one DSSI drive, but
that'd cost you...they're drying up fast, and I've got machines to keep
running.
I might be able to find a Qbus SCSI host adapter, but I those seem to run quite a bit on ebay, but I have other resources (that don't seem to have anything DEC )
I think it'd be cheaper for me to find some DSSI drives. (Or add a DSSI <-----> SCSI adapter in to the mix )
Think I could make a VAX work with iSCSI? ;)
I can spare you an MMJ adapter or two.
Off toppic, and off the top of my head, probably a dozen racks'
worth of comparatively recent Sun hardware. And Crays. These
would involve some serious swappage, though.
Have any pentium-era systems? I need something to run Slackware 4.0
on for openlook.
Maybe, but I've never been much into PC hardware...200+ machines here
and maybe six of them are PCs. We'll see what we can dig up, though.
Clean out your car and pick a weekend, man! (or a weekday..) My lady's
a chef; I'll sweet-talk her into whipping us up something tasty.
Would be easier on a weekend due to my eyesight making me unable to drive, so i'd need someone to drive me there. Although I have a few friends a little ways from Pittsburgh who might be able to help in some way. Me getting there directly is a bit challenging, both due to my eyesight and possibly being the youngest here ;).
(You have no idea how hard it is to get this working
in a VM ).
Oh yes I do. ;) I virtualized a gaggle of SCO OpenServer machines for
a customer about two years ago, using VMware. Oh man that was a
mess...VMware was the only virtualization platform that would work, and
even that took some doing. They're all still running, though, but now
on VERY different hardware. :-)
At least it's not Hyper-V I couldn't get anything to run in Hyper-V save for windows. And not even NT 4!
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On 10/23/2012 06:55 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
On-topic, if you're hurting for VAXen, I can free up a 4000-series
machine.
Mmm, I think i'd do better here than finding a VAX on ebay,
There are more VAXen here than on eBay. ;)
which 4000-series model in particular?
I have...many. I'll have to check to be more specific. I also have
several desktop VAXen, like 3100 series machines. I have some 4000/60s
and 4000/90s, but I'll be hanging onto those.
Also do you happen to have drives
for one? All I have spare are some 16G 5.25" SCA SCSI drives +
adapters for fast SCSI. Also, if you happen to have any adapters for
MMJ as I don't have any real terminals, that'd be nice, too.
Well these would generally use DSSI drives, unless you can score a
Qbus SCSI host adapter. I might be able to free up one DSSI drive, but
that'd cost you...they're drying up fast, and I've got machines to keep
running.
I can spare you an MMJ adapter or two.
Off toppic, and off the top of my head, probably a dozen racks'
worth of comparatively recent Sun hardware. And Crays. These
would involve some serious swappage, though.
Have any pentium-era systems? I need something to run Slackware 4.0
on for openlook.
Maybe, but I've never been much into PC hardware...200+ machines here
and maybe six of them are PCs. We'll see what we can dig up, though.
Clean out your car and pick a weekend, man! (or a weekday..) My lady's
a chef; I'll sweet-talk her into whipping us up something tasty.
(You have no idea how hard it is to get this working
in a VM ).
Oh yes I do. ;) I virtualized a gaggle of SCO OpenServer machines for
a customer about two years ago, using VMware. Oh man that was a
mess...VMware was the only virtualization platform that would work, and
even that took some doing. They're all still running, though, but now
on VERY different hardware. :-)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On 23 Oct 2012, at 18:23, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 10/23/2012 01:46 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Also, it's probably better I mention connecting here so all the crazy
solutions get mentioned. Dynamic IP, located in Ohio, US. I have
several spare UNIX systems to run a bridge on, and I would prefer to
get several systems connected (what area should I use? I'll get back
with node names once I figure out how to change them in RSTS/E and
TOPS-20) I'm not very good with using emacs, maybe I should just
stick with a more basic editor. Or find a better terminal emulator I
don't have any real DEC terminals or any real DEC hardware yet.
Where in Ohio? I'm in western PA, just a hair northeast of Pittsburgh.
Near Columbus.
Ahh ok, so 3-3.5hrs out. Not too bad.
I can hook you up with some hardware. I have, erm, a bit of a surplus
at the moment.
What do you have as surplus?
Good heavens, that's a loaded question. ;)
On-topic, if you're hurting for VAXen, I can free up a 4000-series machine.
Mmm, I think i'd do better here than finding a VAX on ebay, which 4000-series model in particular? Also do you happen to have drives for one? All I have spare are some 16G 5.25" SCA SCSI drives + adapters for fast SCSI. Also, if you happen to have any adapters for MMJ as I don't have any real terminals, that'd be nice, too.
Depending on which model, that'd be better than the VAXservers/VAXstations I've found.
Off toppic, and off the top of my head, probably a dozen racks' worth of comparatively recent Sun hardware. And Crays. These would involve some serious swappage, though.
Have any pentium-era systems? I need something to run Slackware 4.0 on for openlook. (You have no idea how hard it is to get this working in a VM ).
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On 10/23/2012 01:46 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Also, it's probably better I mention connecting here so all the crazy
solutions get mentioned. Dynamic IP, located in Ohio, US. I have
several spare UNIX systems to run a bridge on, and I would prefer to
get several systems connected (what area should I use? I'll get back
with node names once I figure out how to change them in RSTS/E and
TOPS-20) I'm not very good with using emacs, maybe I should just
stick with a more basic editor. Or find a better terminal emulator I
don't have any real DEC terminals or any real DEC hardware yet.
Where in Ohio? I'm in western PA, just a hair northeast of Pittsburgh.
Near Columbus.
Ahh ok, so 3-3.5hrs out. Not too bad.
I can hook you up with some hardware. I have, erm, a bit of a surplus
at the moment.
What do you have as surplus?
Good heavens, that's a loaded question. ;)
On-topic, if you're hurting for VAXen, I can free up a 4000-series machine.
Off toppic, and off the top of my head, probably a dozen racks' worth of comparatively recent Sun hardware. And Crays. These would involve some serious swappage, though.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Al 23/10/12 02:19, En/na Johnny Billquist ha escrit:
Nice idea. Or the libc from DECUS C?
Hmm yes. Will there be compiler compatibility issues there? (like
with anything done in assembler, asm/C interface etc?)
You could use the DECUS C libc, but you need to rewrite part of it. I bet the calling convention for gcc isn't the same as for DECUS C. Also, DECUS C does not expect to run on bare metal, so some basic I/O functionality needs to be written as well.
But this is all pretty simple if you know your assembler.
Well, gas (the GNU assembler) is not source-compatible with MACRO-11, so there would be some previous work before even trying to compile the stuff... For a starter, gas uses the '$' symbol to prefix immediate arguments, while MACRO-11 uses '#'. And this one is easy, since gas can work in a sort of "compatibility mode". The macro and symbol handling is also different, and some pseudoinstructions are different... Nothing that can't be worker around, but it would be a lot of work. The 2.11 BSD libc, on the other hand, is mostly written inC, and the parts in assembler are written for the BSD assembler, which is much more compatible with gas, and the calling standard is the same (R0 and R1 get clobbered, the return value comes in R0 for words and R0:R1 for longs, the called routine saves R3-R5, R5 is the frame pointer and the caller cleans the stack after the return). Oh, and the BSD license is liberal enough to not to worry about those pesky issues; (I have not checked the DECUS-C license though).
On 23 Oct 2012, at 11:29, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 10/22/2012 04:06 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Was anyone ever crazy enough to try to implement any DECnet bits for
4.3BSD?
Nope, not outside of Ultrix. I wonder if the sources ever escaped DEC.
Wait, I have the source code to Ultrix 4.2a. I wonder if it's in there.
Hmm, I wonder as well.
Also, it's probably better I mention connecting here so all the crazy
solutions get mentioned. Dynamic IP, located in Ohio, US. I have
several spare UNIX systems to run a bridge on, and I would prefer to
get several systems connected (what area should I use? I'll get back
with node names once I figure out how to change them in RSTS/E and
TOPS-20) I'm not very good with using emacs, maybe I should just
stick with a more basic editor. Or find a better terminal emulator I
don't have any real DEC terminals or any real DEC hardware yet.
Where in Ohio? I'm in western PA, just a hair northeast of Pittsburgh.
Near Columbus.
I can hook you up with some hardware. I have, erm, a bit of a surplus
at the moment.
What do you have as surplus?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On 10/22/2012 04:06 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Was anyone ever crazy enough to try to implement any DECnet bits for
4.3BSD?
Nope, not outside of Ultrix. I wonder if the sources ever escaped DEC.
Wait, I have the source code to Ultrix 4.2a. I wonder if it's in there.
Also, it's probably better I mention connecting here so all the crazy
solutions get mentioned. Dynamic IP, located in Ohio, US. I have
several spare UNIX systems to run a bridge on, and I would prefer to
get several systems connected (what area should I use? I'll get back
with node names once I figure out how to change them in RSTS/E and
TOPS-20) I'm not very good with using emacs, maybe I should just
stick with a more basic editor. Or find a better terminal emulator I
don't have any real DEC terminals or any real DEC hardware yet.
Where in Ohio? I'm in western PA, just a hair northeast of Pittsburgh.
I can hook you up with some hardware. I have, erm, a bit of a surplus
at the moment.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA