At my end it's a mix of real hardware and SIMH:
- RHESUS, CHIMPY and CHIMP are real hardware (Itanium/Alpha boxes)
- GORVAX is a SIMH VAX box
I'm also playing around with some 8-bit emulators, I've got MP/M running on the SIMH AltairZ80.
Sampsa
On 20 Aug 2009, at 19:06, Marc Chametzky wrote:
The recent downtime thread has sparked much discussion about a variety of DEC (and perhaps some Compaq) hardware, but who among us is living in HECnet lives in software?
I have two systems nominally connected to HECnet, both emulated. I have the SIMH VAX emulator running VMS (DUSTY) and I have Mark Crispin's Panda system running TOPS-20 (CALHAN). Both of these are running as part of virtual Unix systems (one Linux, one Solaris) on a single ESXi box.
I've also played with a couple Alpha emulators from Stromasys (CHARON-AXP on Windows and CHARON-AXP NCE on Linux), but I've not set up a more permanent virtual Alpha system.
I'd set up a virtual PDP-11 to play with as well, perhaps running RSTS/E, but it's been far too long since I've used a PDP-11 to remember how to set it up and maintain it. Same thing with VM/370 or z/VM on Hercules. It's sad how much I've forgotten over the years.
--Marc
The recent downtime thread has sparked much discussion about a variety of DEC (and perhaps some Compaq) hardware, but who among us is living in HECnet lives in software?
I have two systems nominally connected to HECnet, both emulated. I have the SIMH VAX emulator running VMS (DUSTY) and I have Mark Crispin's Panda system running TOPS-20 (CALHAN). Both of these are running as part of virtual Unix systems (one Linux, one Solaris) on a single ESXi box.
I've also played with a couple Alpha emulators from Stromasys (CHARON-AXP on Windows and CHARON-AXP NCE on Linux), but I've not set up a more permanent virtual Alpha system.
I'd set up a virtual PDP-11 to play with as well, perhaps running RSTS/E, but it's been far too long since I've used a PDP-11 to remember how to set it up and maintain it. Same thing with VM/370 or z/VM on Hercules. It's sad how much I've forgotten over the years.
--Marc
Chrissie Caulfield wrote:
Johnny Billquist wrote:
Zane H. Healy wrote:
On Thu, 20 Aug 2009, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Zane, got any RSTS/E system up now? Might be interesting to hear if
it could talk with RSX...
I *STILL* need to find the cables to get my systems up and running.
I have
a 20Mbit *Commercial* FIOS line basically going to waste, since until my
servers are up and running a residential line would work just fine
for me.
My RSTS/E system is actually in worse shape than PDXVAX and MONK. At
least
they're in the racks, though they aren't cabled up. The BA123
chassis for
CAMECA is sitting under the workbench in the garage, while I think
most of
the boards are over in the corner where it will live. Realistically
I don't
see me being online for at least another couple months, as I have a
lot of
work to do on the house before the weather gets to bad.
I really miss having my VMS systems online 24x7, or being able to flip a
switch and have a PDP-11 powered up.
Maybe it's just me who's crazy enough to keep several PDP-11 (and
PDP-8) systems up and running at home... :-)
But anyway. DECnet (well, phone, DAP and CTERM) between RSX and Linux
isn't really working, even though it should be pretty similar to
talking with VMS systems (from Linux point of view).
That's bizarre, because I regularly used to use dnlogin on Linux to
connect to MIM (and I also tried it back again) when I was setting up
the link.
I did also do a few file transfers, though they were very basic, so
probably didn't stretch anything very much :)
I just logged in to MIM and managed to TYPE a file that was on my Linux system. Can you be more specific about the problems you were seeing? are they incoming or outgoing? which commands were you using?
Chrissie
Excerpt of message (sent 20 August 2009) by Zane H. Healy:
On Thu, 20 Aug 2009, Paul Koning wrote:
Excerpt of message (sent 20 August 2009) by Zane H. Healy:
Ditto, though last I tried Linux DECnet was in the late 90's. It's
also worth mentioning that DECnet/E seems to have trouble coexisting
with just about anything, so DECnet/Linux isn't alone. :-)
Oh really? That wasn't our experience when we built it...
paul
I suspect it is one of those "version creep" sort of things. I've noticed
that VAX/VMS V5.5-2 is much happier talking with things such as RSTS/E, and
IIRC even RSX-11M+ than say OpenVMS V8.3. Of course my secondary OS is
OpenVMS (primary is Mac OS X), so my comments are coloured a little by it.
I could believe that. Once PDP-11 support was sold off, it would make
sense for interoperability with those operating systems to suffer.
Another area I've had problems with DECnet/E is with the network hardware
itself, and software installation. It is incredibly touchy about your
network switches. I had one switch that every other OS and network stack I
through at it would work, not so DECnet/E, in fact I had to put the PDP-11
on a hub to be able to even install it, as I couldn't do the install when
attached to the switch. The other installation problem was that the
distribution kit doesn't like living on a 4mm DAT. You can install RSTS/E
from 4mm DAT, but as near as I can tell, DECnet/E needs to live on a TK50
(or I assume 9-Track).
I can't understand that. RSTS just installs from plain old tape.
Some kits are backupsets (ANSI labeled), there may be some DOS labeled
tapes (meaning the drive you have must be able to handle 14 byte
blocks) and the RSTS bootable OS install table is a mixed format tape
(first DOS then ANSI).
As for touchy about network switches, in what way? RSTS -- probably
like most PDP-11 systems -- doesn't have much memory for network
buffers, so if your switch bunches the traffic together then that
might cause trouble. But apart from that it's just plain old
Ethernet. The only OS I ever heard of having Ethernet issues was
DECnet/DOS when used with a 3C901 NIC -- which has only a single
buffer so it would croak on back to back packets. (The solution to
that was "buy a real NIC".)
It has been several years since I've been able to play with it much, has
anyone managed to install DECnet/E on an emulated system? About 6 years ago
it refused to install on either E11, or SIMH for me (of course at that point
SIMH networking code was very primitive). IIRC, that is long enough ago I
was using a different switch than the one that gave me so many problems.
Apart from my stint in RSTS development, which by now is almost 25
years ago, I've mostly run RSTS and DECnet/E on E11. It's been a
while since I did that, but it certainly worked in the past; that's
how I did the interop testing with DECnet/Linux. I also at one time
got DECnet/E running on a Pro-380, DDCMP only unfortunately. Some day
I may write a DECNA driver... :-(
paul
On Thu, 20 Aug 2009, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Zane H. Healy wrote:
I really miss having my VMS systems online 24x7, or being able to flip a
switch and have a PDP-11 powered up.
Maybe it's just me who's crazy enough to keep several PDP-11 (and PDP-8) systems up and running at home... :-)
You're not the only one crazy enough. I simply haven't had the cooling, and
can't really afford the electricity. As for the VMS systems, it's simply a
matter of having the time to get them back online now that we are finally
moved into our new house.
Zane
Johnny Billquist wrote:
Zane H. Healy wrote:
On Thu, 20 Aug 2009, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Zane, got any RSTS/E system up now? Might be interesting to hear if
it could talk with RSX...
I *STILL* need to find the cables to get my systems up and running.
I have
a 20Mbit *Commercial* FIOS line basically going to waste, since until my
servers are up and running a residential line would work just fine
for me.
My RSTS/E system is actually in worse shape than PDXVAX and MONK. At
least
they're in the racks, though they aren't cabled up. The BA123
chassis for
CAMECA is sitting under the workbench in the garage, while I think
most of
the boards are over in the corner where it will live. Realistically
I don't
see me being online for at least another couple months, as I have a
lot of
work to do on the house before the weather gets to bad.
I really miss having my VMS systems online 24x7, or being able to flip a
switch and have a PDP-11 powered up.
Maybe it's just me who's crazy enough to keep several PDP-11 (and
PDP-8) systems up and running at home... :-)
But anyway. DECnet (well, phone, DAP and CTERM) between RSX and Linux
isn't really working, even though it should be pretty similar to
talking with VMS systems (from Linux point of view).
That's bizarre, because I regularly used to use dnlogin on Linux to
connect to MIM (and I also tried it back again) when I was setting up
the link.
I did also do a few file transfers, though they were very basic, so
probably didn't stretch anything very much :)
--
Chrissie
Paul Koning wrote:
Excerpt of message (sent 20 August 2009) by Johnny Billquist:
...
That said, I have also had problems with the Linux DECnet code.
Christine might remember me complaining in the past. :-)
It works fine with VMS, but horribly with RSX (which also is true of the
LAT code).
Although I've not tried doing much with Linux DECnet to RSX it's always seemed to work for me when I have tried it. I suspect that any problems here are much easier to fix. Even though the main protocol is in the kernel (unlike LAT) it's pretty solid code, so anything that needs fixing will most likely be in userspace. Most (though not all!) of that was written from proper specifications so should be easier to work with than LAT.
I think it's all userspace programs that I have had problems with.
Then again ... I've not had any bug reports from anyone about either and it's quite hard to fix bugs you don't know about :-P
Sorry, you're right. I think I've only talked with you on perhaps rather
vague terms about the problems I've had.
But as we now have HECnet, this is way easier to work on.
I suggest you log into MIM, and then just try to do a few different things:
1) Try phone to a Linux box. Initiated from both sides.
2) Try accessing files from both sides to the other side.
Neither of these things worked when I last tried.
And that's a start atleast. :-)
That's not too surprising.
Well, yes and no.
The lower layers of DECnet are all well documented, and if you
implement what the specs say it will work. The application layers
are not such a pretty picture.
DAP (file access) is reasonably well specified. Unfortunately, there
are lots of options or variations. What implementers tended to do is
code along the lines of "if I'm talking to VMS then features x, y, z
will be there". The right way to do this would be to negotiate
feature lists or capability flags, but either DAP doesn't have that or
people didn't bother using it. File system differences also play a
part, though at least between RSX and VMS that's no excuse, they are
basically the same. (RSTS is a different matter, of course -- though
it's closer to Unix which helps as far as DECnet/Linux interop goes.)
Exactly. RSX and VMS are really similar, so since Linux can talk with
VMS systems, it shouldn't be a big thing to talk with RSX as well, but
something just isn't working right at all.
And RSX can talk just fine with Ultrix, so that shouldn't be a big
hurdle either.
A bunch of other protocols have no specs, either there simply weren't
ever any that anyone could find, or if they existed they weren't
published. PHONE and MAIL are examples, as are the remote terminal
protocols prior to CTERM.
Yeah, I remember reverse-engineering MAIL a year or so ago, when I
started hacking away at an unsupported mail client/server for RSX from
DEC. The protocol isn't too bad, actually, but do look like it was just
grown out of hacks.
Phone I have no idea about, and terminal protocols looks like a joke on
DECnet.
For example, if you want to have a remote
terminal session with anything other than VMS (where CTERM is
available) you're into OS-specific undocumented protocols.
CTERM itself is horrendous. I'm not even sure I want to know exactly how
it is expected to work. Line editing is a fine example on how weird and
complex CTERM is.
If you set host from a VMS system to an RSX system, you will in fact get
line editing, since VMS will provide that for you, even though you are
actually connected to an RSX system that don't have it. However, line
editing will only work within the current line. No history.
Now, between VMS systems, line editing works with history.
This tells us that editing within a single line is done locally, without
sending traffic to the other side. Line recalling, however, is done
remotely. But the recalled line must then (appearantly) be sent back to
the local machine, so that you can play local line editing on that line.
Very sick indeed. No wonder people in general regarded CTERM as a part
of VMS, and not a part of DECnet. :-)
As for other interactive terminal protocols... I know. DEC actually sent
four (or was it five) different applications with RSX for use in
connecting with different host types.
There is one program for connecting with other RSX systems (apart from
CTERM), one for talking with RSTS/E systems, and one for talking with
TOPS-20 systems. Hmm, that actually make it four applications. :-)
DECnet/Linux has support for some of those because I added them,
though I don't think I ever got around to the RSX version.
CTERM is one of those modern protocols that is so complex that doing
what the spec seems to say is no guarantee of interoperability. But
in general the rule for DECnet protocols was "it's the responsibility
of the spec to be both correct and complete -- conformance WILL imply
interoperability". (Most more recent protocols have abandoned that
standard of quality, unfortunately...)
The problem was that interoperability was somewhat flaky with CTERM,
even though I suspect they did follow the spec. Other protocols appear
to have done better. I think DAP would be my choice for the protocol
that did it best, although NICE also seems to work pretty well over all
variants.
Clearly you should feel free to find (or reverse-engineer) the
protocol definitions and make improvements to the DECnet/Linux
implementation. That's what I did some years ago, which is why
DECnet/Linux can actually talk to a DECnet/E system reasonably well.
:-)
When I have lots of time. There are so many things that I want to do
relating to RSX...
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
Zane H. Healy wrote:
On Thu, 20 Aug 2009, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Zane, got any RSTS/E system up now? Might be interesting to hear if it could talk with RSX...
I *STILL* need to find the cables to get my systems up and running. I have
a 20Mbit *Commercial* FIOS line basically going to waste, since until my
servers are up and running a residential line would work just fine for me.
My RSTS/E system is actually in worse shape than PDXVAX and MONK. At least
they're in the racks, though they aren't cabled up. The BA123 chassis for
CAMECA is sitting under the workbench in the garage, while I think most of
the boards are over in the corner where it will live. Realistically I don't
see me being online for at least another couple months, as I have a lot of
work to do on the house before the weather gets to bad.
I really miss having my VMS systems online 24x7, or being able to flip a
switch and have a PDP-11 powered up.
Maybe it's just me who's crazy enough to keep several PDP-11 (and PDP-8) systems up and running at home... :-)
But anyway. DECnet (well, phone, DAP and CTERM) between RSX and Linux isn't really working, even though it should be pretty similar to talking with VMS systems (from Linux point of view).
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
On Thu, 20 Aug 2009, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Zane, got any RSTS/E system up now? Might be interesting to hear if it could talk with RSX...
I *STILL* need to find the cables to get my systems up and running. I have
a 20Mbit *Commercial* FIOS line basically going to waste, since until my
servers are up and running a residential line would work just fine for me.
My RSTS/E system is actually in worse shape than PDXVAX and MONK. At least
they're in the racks, though they aren't cabled up. The BA123 chassis for
CAMECA is sitting under the workbench in the garage, while I think most of
the boards are over in the corner where it will live. Realistically I don't
see me being online for at least another couple months, as I have a lot of
work to do on the house before the weather gets to bad.
I really miss having my VMS systems online 24x7, or being able to flip a
switch and have a PDP-11 powered up.
Zane
Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 11:26 AM +0200 8/20/09, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Christine Caulfield wrote:
Then again ... I've not had any bug reports from anyone about either and it's quite hard to fix bugs you don't know about :-P
Sorry, you're right. I think I've only talked with you on perhaps rather
vague terms about the problems I've had.
Ditto, though last I tried Linux DECnet was in the late 90's. It's also worth mentioning that DECnet/E seems to have trouble coexisting with just about anything, so DECnet/Linux isn't alone. :-)
Zane, got any RSTS/E system up now? Might be interesting to hear if it could talk with RSX...
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
