Bob Armstrong skrev:
All this HECnet discussion has inspired me to try and install DECnet on a
RSX-11M+ system. Man! This RSX NETGEN is only for the determined and
persistent, isn't it?
In any case, I managed to extract the PREGEN.CMD file from the tape to
[137,10] and execute it. This is what happens -
>@PREGEN
> .... lots of stuff deleted ....
>* 02.00 Are you running on a small dual-disk system? [Y/N]: N
>* 04.00 Where is the Network distribution kit loaded [S]: MS0:
>* 04.01 Is the tape already loaded in MS0:? [Y/N]: Y
>* 04.02 Is the tape 1600 BPI? [Y/N]: Y
> ...
FLX -- File not found
MS0:[137,10]NETMOV.DAT
FLX -- File not found
MS0:[137,10]NETMOV.DAT
>;
>; Error - The file MS0:[137,10]NETMOV.DAT could not be copied.
>;
Hmmm... No file named NETMOV.DAT on the tape ...
Doing a directory of my DECNET-11M-PLUS tape, I see these files -
>FLX TT:=MS0:/DI
Directory MS0:[137,10]
23-Aug-80
PREGEN.CMD 94. 13-Jun-89 <233>
DECMOV.DAT 15. 13-Jun-89 <233>
DECCFG.CMD 5. 13-Jun-89 <233>
DECPRM.CMD 7. 13-Jun-89 <233>
DECGEN.CLB 699. 13-Jun-89 <233>
DECGEN.KIT 1. 13-Jun-89 <233>
Total of 821. blocks in 6. files
Odd - there's a file DECMOV but not NETMOV. After much head scratching and
reading of the cryptic PREGEN.CMD indirect command processor file, I've come
to the conclusion that there are really three tapes in the RSX "DECnet"
distribution - a "generic" network tape (that's the one with NETMOV.DAT
(which unfortunately I don't have), a DECnet specific tape (which seems to
be the one tape I do have) and a PSI network tape (which I think is
optional).
Can any RSX wizard confirm this?
Hmm. You're running an "old" version of RSX are you? :-)
Yeah, it used to be two parts, and both had to be copied in, if I remember correctly. It's been a while since I used one of those...
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
All this HECnet discussion has inspired me to try and install DECnet on a
RSX-11M+ system. Man! This RSX NETGEN is only for the determined and
persistent, isn't it?
In any case, I managed to extract the PREGEN.CMD file from the tape to
[137,10] and execute it. This is what happens -
>@PREGEN
> .... lots of stuff deleted ....
>* 02.00 Are you running on a small dual-disk system? [Y/N]: N
>* 04.00 Where is the Network distribution kit loaded [S]: MS0:
>* 04.01 Is the tape already loaded in MS0:? [Y/N]: Y
>* 04.02 Is the tape 1600 BPI? [Y/N]: Y
> ...
FLX -- File not found
MS0:[137,10]NETMOV.DAT
FLX -- File not found
MS0:[137,10]NETMOV.DAT
>;
>; Error - The file MS0:[137,10]NETMOV.DAT could not be copied.
>;
Hmmm... No file named NETMOV.DAT on the tape ...
Doing a directory of my DECNET-11M-PLUS tape, I see these files -
>FLX TT:=MS0:/DI
Directory MS0:[137,10]
23-Aug-80
PREGEN.CMD 94. 13-Jun-89 <233>
DECMOV.DAT 15. 13-Jun-89 <233>
DECCFG.CMD 5. 13-Jun-89 <233>
DECPRM.CMD 7. 13-Jun-89 <233>
DECGEN.CLB 699. 13-Jun-89 <233>
DECGEN.KIT 1. 13-Jun-89 <233>
Total of 821. blocks in 6. files
Odd - there's a file DECMOV but not NETMOV. After much head scratching and
reading of the cryptic PREGEN.CMD indirect command processor file, I've come
to the conclusion that there are really three tapes in the RSX "DECnet"
distribution - a "generic" network tape (that's the one with NETMOV.DAT
(which unfortunately I don't have), a DECnet specific tape (which seems to
be the one tape I do have) and a PSI network tape (which I think is
optional).
Can any RSX wizard confirm this?
Thanks,
Bob
On 23 Aug 2008, at 14:42, Bob Armstrong wrote:
So this means that if you had DECnet machines on your local network at
home and you wanted to bridge them into HECnet, you could do it with Linux
DECnet and a VMS host is not needed? Excellent!
That's exactly what it means. It might even be possible to connect two Linux multinet boxes to each other but I haven't tried it!
One thing that doesn't seem to work is routing on big-endian Linux boxes (eg my sparc!). But it's fine on a 'normal' system
Chrissie
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf
Of Christine Caulfield
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 6:30 AM
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: [HECnet] Multinet on Linux
I've got multinet working on Linux, for those that are interested.
Sourceforge appears to be sulking at the moment so I've uploaded the
latest dnprogs sources to
http://chrissie.fedorapeople.org/dnprogs-2.44.tar.gz
and to Debian.
Instructions for setting it up are here:
http://linux-decnet.wiki.sourceforge.net/multinet
Have fun, and let me know how you get on.
Chrissie
So this means that if you had DECnet machines on your local network at
home and you wanted to bridge them into HECnet, you could do it with Linux
DECnet and a VMS host is not needed? Excellent!
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf
Of Christine Caulfield
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 6:30 AM
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: [HECnet] Multinet on Linux
I've got multinet working on Linux, for those that are interested.
Sourceforge appears to be sulking at the moment so I've uploaded the
latest dnprogs sources to
http://chrissie.fedorapeople.org/dnprogs-2.44.tar.gz
and to Debian.
Instructions for setting it up are here:
http://linux-decnet.wiki.sourceforge.net/multinet
Have fun, and let me know how you get on.
Chrissie
Paul Koning wrote:
"Johnny" == Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
Johnny> Paul Koning wrote:
>> There is an "assign" syscall (which normally in RSTS means
>> "reserve this device for me even when it's not open") which binds
>> a ddcmp driver pseudo-device unit to a tty device unit number, via
>> a syscall parameter. So you could have, say, up to 8 ddcmp ports,
>> and those could be bound at runtime to any of your terminal ports.
Johnny> Way nice. In RSX, you need to reserve the whole controller at
Johnny> netgen, and no ports can be used by anything else than DECnet
Johnny> if you set it up. DECnet/RSX has its own device driver for
Johnny> the serial port cards.
For RSTS it's a connection from the regular terminal driver to the
DDCMP driver, which acts as a sort of coprocessor.
Linux has the same notion; it's called "line discipline" if I remember
right, and is nicely modular. That's where DDCMP would go if one were
to do it for Linux.
They could have done it like that in RSX as well, but I guess they didn't want the performance penalty.
Atleast in RSX, the terminal driver is rather complex. And while a lot of that complexity can be bypassed, it's still a lot of overhead. Also, it's kindof tricky to call a device driver from kernel mode. Easiest is to pass a request to a task, which then do the I/O, but that implies a lot of extra overhead as well.
So DECnet in RSX have it's own device drivers for all interfaces that it uses, and so every interface have to be dedicated to just DECnet if DECnet would use it.
Johnny
"Johnny" == Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
Johnny> Paul Koning wrote:
There is an "assign" syscall (which normally in RSTS means
"reserve this device for me even when it's not open") which binds
a ddcmp driver pseudo-device unit to a tty device unit number, via
a syscall parameter. So you could have, say, up to 8 ddcmp ports,
and those could be bound at runtime to any of your terminal ports.
Johnny> Way nice. In RSX, you need to reserve the whole controller at
Johnny> netgen, and no ports can be used by anything else than DECnet
Johnny> if you set it up. DECnet/RSX has its own device driver for
Johnny> the serial port cards.
For RSTS it's a connection from the regular terminal driver to the
DDCMP driver, which acts as a sort of coprocessor.
Linux has the same notion; it's called "line discipline" if I remember
right, and is nicely modular. That's where DDCMP would go if one were
to do it for Linux.
paul
Paul Koning wrote:
"Johnny" == Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
Johnny> I wonder why you can't set it from NCP though? Weird if they
Johnny> have the functionality, but no "normal" way of enabling it.
>> Probably history. I created the async DDCMP driver when I was
>> doing the (unreleased) PRO port for RSTS (9.6 originally). I
>> handed it to RSTS development, and they integrated it into the
>> release. But I personally never did the NCP work. Probably
>> because it wasn't familiar code and it would have been a lot of
>> work. Instead, I just wrote a little 10 line utility to issue the
>> line on/off syscalls to the kernel.
Johnny> Way fun, and impressive. Thanks for that piece of information
Johnny> and history. I guess they didn't see much need of DDCMP
Johnny> support in RSTS/E at that point. How did you select which
Johnny> serial port it would use, by the way? Or was this only done
Johnny> for the PRO? Hmm, I guess it could have been passed in in
Johnny> the syscall...
There is an "assign" syscall (which normally in RSTS means "reserve
this device for me even when it's not open") which binds a ddcmp
driver pseudo-device unit to a tty device unit number, via a syscall
parameter. So you could have, say, up to 8 ddcmp ports, and those
could be bound at runtime to any of your terminal ports.
Way nice. In RSX, you need to reserve the whole controller at netgen, and no ports can be used by anything else than DECnet if you set it up. DECnet/RSX has its own device driver for the serial port cards.
Johnny
"Johnny" == Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
Johnny> I wonder why you can't set it from NCP though? Weird if they
Johnny> have the functionality, but no "normal" way of enabling it.
Probably history. I created the async DDCMP driver when I was
doing the (unreleased) PRO port for RSTS (9.6 originally). I
handed it to RSTS development, and they integrated it into the
release. But I personally never did the NCP work. Probably
because it wasn't familiar code and it would have been a lot of
work. Instead, I just wrote a little 10 line utility to issue the
line on/off syscalls to the kernel.
Johnny> Way fun, and impressive. Thanks for that piece of information
Johnny> and history. I guess they didn't see much need of DDCMP
Johnny> support in RSTS/E at that point. How did you select which
Johnny> serial port it would use, by the way? Or was this only done
Johnny> for the PRO? Hmm, I guess it could have been passed in in
Johnny> the syscall...
There is an "assign" syscall (which normally in RSTS means "reserve
this device for me even when it's not open") which binds a ddcmp
driver pseudo-device unit to a tty device unit number, via a syscall
parameter. So you could have, say, up to 8 ddcmp ports, and those
could be bound at runtime to any of your terminal ports.
paul
Paul Koning wrote:
"Johnny" == Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
Johnny> Paul Koning wrote:
>> RSTS does too (for sufficiently recent versions, like V10 or so)
>> -- though the NCP bits don't seem to be there. But there's a
>> driver and it can be told to turn on if you issue the DECnet
>> control syscalls directly.
Johnny> Aha. I think I looked at RSTS/E DECnet SPD only, and didn't
Johnny> find any mention of it, back when I was playing with that.
That would make sense given that the support isn't complete.
Aha. Yes, that would explain it. :-)
Johnny> I wonder why you can't set it from NCP though? Weird if they
Johnny> have the functionality, but no "normal" way of enabling it.
Probably history. I created the async DDCMP driver when I was doing
the (unreleased) PRO port for RSTS (9.6 originally). I handed it to
RSTS development, and they integrated it into the release. But I
personally never did the NCP work. Probably because it wasn't
familiar code and it would have been a lot of work. Instead, I just
wrote a little 10 line utility to issue the line on/off syscalls to
the kernel.
Way fun, and impressive. Thanks for that piece of information and history.
I guess they didn't see much need of DDCMP support in RSTS/E at that point. How did you select which serial port it would use, by the way? Or was this only done for the PRO?
Hmm, I guess it could have been passed in in the syscall...
>> On a Pro it even works in synchronous mode (because there the
>> "UART" is actually a USART).
Johnny> I don't think you can set it to synch mode in DECnet, though,
Johnny> so that is more of a theoretical thing. But yes, RSX
Johnny> supports both synch and asynch mode.
What I meant is that I did synch mode, including for DECnet, in RSTS.
Ok. I misunderstood you. While you can use the serial port for DDCMP DECnet under P/OS, I don't think you can set it to synch mode there.
Even though the hardware supports it.
But for code that you wrote, obviously you could take advantage of all the possibilities. :-)
Johnny
