Good afternoon:
An associate of mine and I were talking OpenVMS about a week ago, and I mentioned this hobbyist DECNet I was on. He never heard of such a thing, and wondered if he would be able to get on with his DECNet Phase V set-up. From what I understand, his address is static. He frowned at me when I told him I was running MultiNet - I guess he likes TCP/IP Services ... ;) (to each his own of cours, I have no preference and installed what was needed to get on HECNet with my set-up).
Is it possible to join HECNet with a DECNet Phase V rig?
He's in the Columbus Ohio area.
Cheers,
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 Mon, 6 Oct 2008, Saku Set?l? wrote:
AX.25 is pretty dead also on the ham world, except for APRS.
There's a little bit of activity here in Ohio, USA, but nothing like it was when I first got my ticket. :( That's why I figured I'd try to set up a BBS and leave it on the local packet frequency and see what I attract.
Fred
Mark Abene wrote:
I've heard about the KOM conferencing system in the past. Isn't it
still in use at Lysator in some current incarnation complete with web
interface?
Yes. The people at Lysator also wanted a new KOM system, since the original ran on PDP-10 systems, which aren't exactly around any more (well, except for around this crowd).
So they did an implementation for which a specific protocol for clients, so that you can have multiple different clients.
That KOM-system is nice, but I prefer the original. Matter of taste, I think.
But in ways, this KOM system is even better. But that also is a matter of taste. :-)
Anyway, my emulated RSTS/E system is up 24/7 and I run V8 by choice.
So if you're looking to find a home for a vintage KOM BBS, I'm offering.
Hmm. That would definitely be interesting.
Let's talk offlist, and see if we can get it up and running.
Johnny
John Wilson wrote:
My projects come and go (except for E11 of course, which is always the main
one but it's *about* PDP-11s, not *on* PDP-11s -- current project is writing
FS drivers so the stand-alone version will be useful), but the one that's the
closest to being something is KSERVE, a server-only Kermit, originally for
RT-11 but I'm slowly working on a stand-alone version (for transferring raw
disk images). To make that build from the same sources, I've been isolating
the OS-dependent parts so hopefully I'll do RSTS and RSX versions some day.
Anyway it's a Kermit like any other, except that it supports sliding windows
and large packets, and it's a lot smaller (and way easier to build) than the
"official" Kermits, what with not having a command line interpreter (although
it still sort of does, for "REM K" commands). All in MACRO-11, naturally.
It would have been kind of cool 25 years ago when anyone might have cared.
Still sounds like a fun project. KERMIT is another thing that someone should look into for RSX. The RT-11 (and I believe RSTS/E) version got additional development done that wasn't done in a portable way, so that K11 actually isn't as up to date as it should be. But that is way down on any list I have... Anyone else feel like playing with it? :-)
I too had a project to write a BBS for RSTS a million years ago -- I guess
everyone did! Yes, with its own RTS since that's the only way to be 100%
^^C proof. This was on V7.0-07, mostly MACRO-11, a little bit of BASIC, but
the machine never had more than one modem (actual Bell 212A and later a Vadic
VA3451PA, I still have them somewhere) and I was using it half the time to
dial out to the RPI mainframe anyway so the whole idea was kind of pointless.
KOM wasn't using an RTS for the ^C trapping (even if that is a nice perk), but to actually squeeze as much out of the address space as possible. The people who wrote KOM even had to write their own linker to get things massaged down into a form that would make it run. It have loads of functionality in it, including a nice command parser a'la TOPS-20.
Johnny
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 1:18 PM, Angela Kahealani <angela at kahealani.com> wrote:
An Alpha running VMS as a TNC BBS? Dude! You'd be the envy of all
your ham buddies! Go for it!
AX.25 is pretty dead also on the ham world, except for APRS.
Aloha, Angela
Regards,
Saku
OH6PU
My projects come and go (except for E11 of course, which is always the main
one but it's *about* PDP-11s, not *on* PDP-11s -- current project is writing
FS drivers so the stand-alone version will be useful), but the one that's the
closest to being something is KSERVE, a server-only Kermit, originally for
RT-11 but I'm slowly working on a stand-alone version (for transferring raw
disk images). To make that build from the same sources, I've been isolating
the OS-dependent parts so hopefully I'll do RSTS and RSX versions some day.
Anyway it's a Kermit like any other, except that it supports sliding windows
and large packets, and it's a lot smaller (and way easier to build) than the
"official" Kermits, what with not having a command line interpreter (although
it still sort of does, for "REM K" commands). All in MACRO-11, naturally.
It would have been kind of cool 25 years ago when anyone might have cared.
I too had a project to write a BBS for RSTS a million years ago -- I guess
everyone did! Yes, with its own RTS since that's the only way to be 100%
^^C proof. This was on V7.0-07, mostly MACRO-11, a little bit of BASIC, but
the machine never had more than one modem (actual Bell 212A and later a Vadic
VA3451PA, I still have them somewhere) and I was using it half the time to
dial out to the RPI mainframe anyway so the whole idea was kind of pointless.
John Wilson
D Bit
I've heard about the KOM conferencing system in the past. Isn't it
still in use at Lysator in some current incarnation complete with web
interface?
Anyway, my emulated RSTS/E system is up 24/7 and I run V8 by choice.
So if you're looking to find a home for a vintage KOM BBS, I'm offering.
-Mark
Johnny Billquist wrote:
Brett Bump wrote:
On Mon, 6 Oct 2008, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Sampsa Laine skrev:
Then again, if we find nothing, it could be an amusing project of
course, writing a BBS package in PL/I or Cobol or something...
Or even Basic. About 20 years back I wrote a simple BBS
implementation in
Basic for RSTS/E. It used 2 run-time-systems that I wrote to make RSTS a
bit more appealing (to me) for the average MS-DOS/unix user. But
everyone
at that time seemed to be running Fidos and I couldn't really afford to
pay for multiple phone lines running modems to my PDP-11.
I don't know if Angela's comment that Wikis have superseded BBS programs
is correct or not (I just assumed the internet and http did that job).
I don't know if I'd say Wikis have superseded BBSes, but I think various
web-forums have.
But I have the most wonderful BBS-like system I think ever has been
written here. The main reason I don't run it is because it's written for
RSTS/E. :-)
I've occasionally been thinking of porting it to RSX, but time...
Anyway, if anyone knows about a system called KOM, developed in Sweden
in the 70s and 80s, this is an independent implementation done by a few
guys in Sweden in the 80s. I know them, and they did an astounding work.
If anyone have a RSTS/E system, and would be willing to play with this,
let me know and we could try to get it working together.
I don't know how it would behave today, as it was last being worked on
at RSTS/E V8. It uses its own RTS, and a lot of tricks to get the most
out of the system. We used to run this on an 11/60, and usually had
quite a lot of concurrent users in there.
Speaking of which.
Are people doing any fun projects nowadays?
Me, I'm currently playing aorund with three bigger things on RSX,
apart from all
the small stuff.
o Writing a TCP/IP implementation.
ARP, IP, ICMP and UDP are done. TCP is halfway, and I'm still
fooling around
with different tricks and ideas on how to do this best. I've also
written a
few clients and servers that talk UDP, just for the fun of it.
(This is actually my forth implementation, but you learn things at
every
iteration. :-) )
Here is a real play on words. Did Johnny write this in the language
Forth
or is this the version he wrote after writing it three times before? ;-)
Or maybe he wrote three versions before and this time he decided to write
it in Forth.
Gha! :-)
Fourth, of course. And all in MACRO-11.
The first two iterations never made it past IP, the third got as far as
this one have, but was written using ACPs. The current version are all
device drivers.
This is probably the biggest requested email that I receive about RSTS,
"Where can I get a copy of TCP/IP for RSTS?". Sorry, it doesn't exist
but maybe Johnny will write one. ;-)
Maybe one day, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Don't know enough RSTS/E
internals to have a chance, and I suspect things work so different in
RSX and RSTS/E that a port of my code would be less than straight
forward. (I do play some fun tricks with RSX.)
I know of one guy who atleast started on a TCP/IP for RSTS/E, but I
don't know what have come of that.
o Writing a CONQUEST lookalike
CONQUEST is a game under VMS that I remember fondly from the 80s.
I recently
hunted down the VMS implementation, and peeked under the hood, and
then
started implementing it from scratch for RSX. Original is written
in RATFOR,
but I'm doing one in C.
Universe works, planets and ships move around. Players can talk
with each
other and check out things. Screen handling and so on is done. I'm
currently
at the point where I should start implementing the shooting of
each other,
but it's in a hiatus because of lack of time. :-)
The first game I ever played was Adventure (Colossal Cave) on an Apple II
(That was before I found out there was a version that ran on the PDP-11).
The only game I play now is Tomb Raider (all of them), but I doubt I
could
ever write that for my PDP-11. lol
Hmm. I do have a VSV-21 for my 11/93. And of course I also have a
PRO-380 system. Not sure which gaphics system would be best though.
However, the much faster 11/93 compared to the PRO probably makes the
11/93 the preferred system.
But CONQUEST, even though it's character based, is really a rather
graphic game. If you haven't tried it you all should.
Multiplayer realtime space game in which you have several teams trying
to conquer the whole universe.
o Setting up a really good web resource for RSX.
I want to collect all the information and software that I have in
a nice,
organized manner for everyone to access. I have patches for the
kernel,
DECnet, and god knows how many tools. To fix bugs, give
enhancements and
new features. But much of this is probably totally unknown to others,
but would be very useful for people who still use RSX to have. I have
started on a prototype, using Drupal, but haven't gotten far yet.
Once more a problem with time.
This would be a really GOOD thing. I never really spent much time
running
any RSX versions, but I occasionally get an email asking if I know of any
good resources (web sites) for RSX. RSTS still has a sprinkling of users
out there but most of them live in solitude and those emails are few and
far between.
I know... I really should get this off the ground. I'm just such a
analfabet when it comes to web design. I just hate that kind of work.
Johnny
And then of course, I have lots of smaller software projects in RSX
that work,
but which I occasionally bugfix or improve when someone comes with
comments, or
I'm bored.
So what are other people doing around here? :-)
(And yes, I also have both VAXen and Alphas running VMS at home, but
almost all
my time, I sit by the PDP-11 anyway.)
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
Projects? Hmm... Well there is my 7foot tall empty rack that I've been
wanting to put my 5 Alpha's in (along with 2 PCs running RSTS/E via SimH)
but I think the heat will be too much for my spare bedroom to handle. If
(like Johnny and everyone else around here) I can find some spare time I
would like to get that running to put on hecnet and get my students to do
something more than click a mouse on a Windows box. My Micro-11 pretty
much just hibernates (off) in the closet and I'm betting my nephew tossed
out my home-brew 11/73 (that he took and wanted to learn how it worked).
I love my 11s, but I just don't have the room to run them right now.
2m repeater or IRLP?: A nice company in Texas leased us a 70-100 foot
tower for wind research (yes, SD is a good place for wind energy) which
still sits idle in a field (gas too expensive for them to come get). The
idea had crossed my mind about putting a 2meter repeater on it, OR an
IRLP
node that anyone could monitor the current audio via the school web site.
No, this really wouldn't involve any PDP-11s/VAXen or Alphas, but it
might
be nice for a HAM driving through the badlands when there is
absolutely NO
cell coverage.
Then there is always my project of wanting to do something more with the
RSTS.ORG web site. I should put up a runnable disk container file
with an
assortment of built in toys (Tim was wanting to help me with this one).
The hardest part is finding time when I'm not working on my real job,
teaching students in the upper division classes, or spending time with
the
family to do any "fun" projects (or think of new projects to do).
Brett
At 1:48 PM +0200 10/6/08, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Speaking of which.
Are people doing any fun projects nowadays?
I wish. My VMS systems are still down and PDXVAX is in storage, though MONK is sitting here next to me powered off (I needed data on it). I'd like to work on a new version of the CGI that shows what HECnet nodes are online (something with an SQL backend that tracks system availability).
We're still trying to find a new place to live, hopefully something with a garage or outbuilding that I can put a couple racks of equipment in and DSL capable (if the place we were supposed to move into had been livable I'd have had a business FIOS line). I'd gotten tired of the servers sitting in the dining room, and with our current living situation, I'm getting used to it being a lot quieter.
My only fun project is software I'm writing for work.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
Brett Bump wrote:
On Mon, 6 Oct 2008, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Sampsa Laine skrev:
Then again, if we find nothing, it could be an amusing project of
course, writing a BBS package in PL/I or Cobol or something...
Or even Basic. About 20 years back I wrote a simple BBS implementation in
Basic for RSTS/E. It used 2 run-time-systems that I wrote to make RSTS a
bit more appealing (to me) for the average MS-DOS/unix user. But everyone
at that time seemed to be running Fidos and I couldn't really afford to
pay for multiple phone lines running modems to my PDP-11.
I don't know if Angela's comment that Wikis have superseded BBS programs
is correct or not (I just assumed the internet and http did that job).
I don't know if I'd say Wikis have superseded BBSes, but I think various web-forums have.
But I have the most wonderful BBS-like system I think ever has been written here. The main reason I don't run it is because it's written for RSTS/E. :-)
I've occasionally been thinking of porting it to RSX, but time...
Anyway, if anyone knows about a system called KOM, developed in Sweden in the 70s and 80s, this is an independent implementation done by a few guys in Sweden in the 80s. I know them, and they did an astounding work. If anyone have a RSTS/E system, and would be willing to play with this, let me know and we could try to get it working together.
I don't know how it would behave today, as it was last being worked on at RSTS/E V8. It uses its own RTS, and a lot of tricks to get the most out of the system. We used to run this on an 11/60, and usually had quite a lot of concurrent users in there.
Speaking of which.
Are people doing any fun projects nowadays?
Me, I'm currently playing aorund with three bigger things on RSX, apart from all
the small stuff.
o Writing a TCP/IP implementation.
ARP, IP, ICMP and UDP are done. TCP is halfway, and I'm still fooling around
with different tricks and ideas on how to do this best. I've also written a
few clients and servers that talk UDP, just for the fun of it.
(This is actually my forth implementation, but you learn things at every
iteration. :-) )
Here is a real play on words. Did Johnny write this in the language Forth
or is this the version he wrote after writing it three times before? ;-)
Or maybe he wrote three versions before and this time he decided to write
it in Forth.
Gha! :-)
Fourth, of course. And all in MACRO-11.
The first two iterations never made it past IP, the third got as far as this one have, but was written using ACPs. The current version are all device drivers.
This is probably the biggest requested email that I receive about RSTS,
"Where can I get a copy of TCP/IP for RSTS?". Sorry, it doesn't exist
but maybe Johnny will write one. ;-)
Maybe one day, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Don't know enough RSTS/E internals to have a chance, and I suspect things work so different in RSX and RSTS/E that a port of my code would be less than straight forward. (I do play some fun tricks with RSX.)
I know of one guy who atleast started on a TCP/IP for RSTS/E, but I don't know what have come of that.
o Writing a CONQUEST lookalike
CONQUEST is a game under VMS that I remember fondly from the 80s. I recently
hunted down the VMS implementation, and peeked under the hood, and then
started implementing it from scratch for RSX. Original is written in RATFOR,
but I'm doing one in C.
Universe works, planets and ships move around. Players can talk with each
other and check out things. Screen handling and so on is done. I'm currently
at the point where I should start implementing the shooting of each other,
but it's in a hiatus because of lack of time. :-)
The first game I ever played was Adventure (Colossal Cave) on an Apple II
(That was before I found out there was a version that ran on the PDP-11).
The only game I play now is Tomb Raider (all of them), but I doubt I could
ever write that for my PDP-11. lol
Hmm. I do have a VSV-21 for my 11/93. And of course I also have a PRO-380 system. Not sure which gaphics system would be best though.
However, the much faster 11/93 compared to the PRO probably makes the 11/93 the preferred system.
But CONQUEST, even though it's character based, is really a rather graphic game. If you haven't tried it you all should.
Multiplayer realtime space game in which you have several teams trying to conquer the whole universe.
o Setting up a really good web resource for RSX.
I want to collect all the information and software that I have in a nice,
organized manner for everyone to access. I have patches for the kernel,
DECnet, and god knows how many tools. To fix bugs, give enhancements and
new features. But much of this is probably totally unknown to others,
but would be very useful for people who still use RSX to have. I have
started on a prototype, using Drupal, but haven't gotten far yet.
Once more a problem with time.
This would be a really GOOD thing. I never really spent much time running
any RSX versions, but I occasionally get an email asking if I know of any
good resources (web sites) for RSX. RSTS still has a sprinkling of users
out there but most of them live in solitude and those emails are few and
far between.
I know... I really should get this off the ground. I'm just such a analfabet when it comes to web design. I just hate that kind of work.
Johnny
And then of course, I have lots of smaller software projects in RSX that work,
but which I occasionally bugfix or improve when someone comes with comments, or
I'm bored.
So what are other people doing around here? :-)
(And yes, I also have both VAXen and Alphas running VMS at home, but almost all
my time, I sit by the PDP-11 anyway.)
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
Projects? Hmm... Well there is my 7foot tall empty rack that I've been
wanting to put my 5 Alpha's in (along with 2 PCs running RSTS/E via SimH)
but I think the heat will be too much for my spare bedroom to handle. If
(like Johnny and everyone else around here) I can find some spare time I
would like to get that running to put on hecnet and get my students to do
something more than click a mouse on a Windows box. My Micro-11 pretty
much just hibernates (off) in the closet and I'm betting my nephew tossed
out my home-brew 11/73 (that he took and wanted to learn how it worked).
I love my 11s, but I just don't have the room to run them right now.
2m repeater or IRLP?: A nice company in Texas leased us a 70-100 foot
tower for wind research (yes, SD is a good place for wind energy) which
still sits idle in a field (gas too expensive for them to come get). The
idea had crossed my mind about putting a 2meter repeater on it, OR an IRLP
node that anyone could monitor the current audio via the school web site.
No, this really wouldn't involve any PDP-11s/VAXen or Alphas, but it might
be nice for a HAM driving through the badlands when there is absolutely NO
cell coverage.
Then there is always my project of wanting to do something more with the
RSTS.ORG web site. I should put up a runnable disk container file with an
assortment of built in toys (Tim was wanting to help me with this one).
The hardest part is finding time when I'm not working on my real job,
teaching students in the upper division classes, or spending time with the
family to do any "fun" projects (or think of new projects to do).
Brett
Well for those who miss old school BBSing feel free to check out mine on b4bbs.sampsa.com (telnet and SSH both work).
The backgammon game door is actually really rather good.
There's also an account on CHIMPY called B4BBS which acts as a gateway to this. Unfortunately CHIMPY will be down until later this evening when I manage to install a new gigabit switch for it as the old one mysteriously died.
Sampsa
On 6 Oct 2008, at 14:25, Fred wrote:
On Mon, 6 Oct 2008, Brett Bump wrote:
I don't know if Angela's comment that Wikis have superseded BBS programs
is correct or not (I just assumed the internet and http did that job).
I have enough folks that are "old school" that would enjoy something like this, even more so on the amateur radio/packet side. I'm not going as far as implementing AX.25->HECNet, but I'll integrate the Alpha somehow ...
Heck, I still use (al)pine as my primary e-mail client. People know not to send me all-HTML e-mail or they know it will get instantly deleted .. :)
As far as proejcts go, I wrote a program in Basic (called it HECWATCH) that watches my current IP address reported by MultiNet, and if it changes, mails the result to predefined addresses. I have it running on MISER, and the only part I'm still trying to figure out is the mail routine I ripped from OpenVMS Ask The Wizard - it doesn't seem to like and address with a foreign transport, i.e. SMTP%"foo at bar.org". As soon as I nail that bug, it's good to go.
One of my winter projects (when I'm indoors more) is to set up a bar tab system. I built a rec room of sorts in my basement, and just because I can wanted to write a little system of who owes me what for the kegs me and my friends split the cost on. Plus, it would be an excuse to dive in and learn about the record-based files that OpenVMS provides. I'm probably going to also try to implement some routines from the SMG libraries to make it more terminal friendly.
... and I probably need to rearrange the home office too. I'm having problems walking in there with all the equipment scattered about. :)
Cheers,
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.
