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15562 discussions

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.

13 years

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

13 years

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

13 years

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."

13 years

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

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

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

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

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

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

by bob＠jfcl.com

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. 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. Bob

13 years

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