I'm scratching very stale memory bits here, but Ultrix for the Vax/750 circa 1982/83 might have had a MOP server that did not need a full DECnet install. We did not run DEC-Net at one of my jobs because we had TCP/IP which did everything DECNet could do and worked across vendors. But I thought had a couple of LAT devices to support some dial-up modems and a funky DEC printer that after it booted, spoke TCP fine, but used MOP to boot. I was not involved with configuration or maintaining any of it, so none of the details ever stuck and lend together in my mind. But I would think you look at Ultrix around that time you might find something.
I know we had a 3Com terminal server that was a piece of work, but we ran the UUCP link of the Vax for a long time and the modems I thought were on a LAT. I just don't remember.
My memories of LAT were that it was it's own protocol in the ethernet sense (i.e. had it's own packet type IIRC I want to say 6003) which was different from what DECnet used. It was a very low overhead protocol, very MIT Chaos-Net like, and much more efficient for terminals and other low speed devices than TCP.
Clem
On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 8:07 AM, Bob Armstrong <bob at jfcl.com> wrote:
> LAT is _NOT_ part of DECnet. LAT can be run without DECnet installed
> or running. IIRC, LAT was licensed with VMS.
Yeah, but most (actually, "all" I think) of the DECservers required MOP to
download them. How did you do that without DECnet?
Or was it just an unwritten catch-22 that you had to have a DECnet node
somewhere to boot up your terminal server, even if it wasn't the node you
actually wanted to connect to ?
Bob
On Apr 7, 2013, at 8:07 AM, Bob Armstrong wrote:
LAT is _NOT_ part of DECnet. LAT can be run without DECnet installed
or running. IIRC, LAT was licensed with VMS.
Yeah, but most (actually, "all" I think) of the DECservers required MOP to
download them. How did you do that without DECnet?
Or was it just an unwritten catch-22 that you had to have a DECnet node
somewhere to boot up your terminal server, even if it wasn't the node you
actually wanted to connect to ?
Bob
Correct.
paul
On Apr 6, 2013, at 7:40 PM, Brian Schenkenberger, VAXman- wrote:
"Cory Smelosky" <b4 at gewt.net> writes:
Hmmm. There is no LATCP.EXE, LAT$STARTUP.COM, or LTLOAD.COM it would
appear. Was it an add-on kit for VMS 3.5 or did I miss something rather
important? ;)
Though I lived it, recalling this history is not one of my strong points.
LAT showed up in VMS circa 1984/1985 time frame from my recollection. I
think you will need a newer version of VMS if you want LAT. Look around
for V4.7 (pre-SMP/V5.0) or later VMS. They should have LAT and DECnet IV.
I think LAT is older than that, but it certainly is part of the Ethernet era, so that would be early 1980s. Not 1979, which is the date on that V1.50 release. No Ethernet, so no LAT.
paul
On Fri, 5 Apr 2013, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote:
On Apr 4, 2013, at 6:44 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
...
But that's for terminals up to 9600 baud. For networking, you'd use a DMC-11 unless your OS supported the cheaper devices and money was that tight -- that one goes back to about 1976 and delivers up to 1 Mb/s depending on model (up to 56 kB/s long haul, given suitable modems).
Hmm - are the DMC and DMR that old? I remember fighting the firmware in the them to allow high speed serial networking. They had a dedicated microprocessor on them (8080A or 8085 IIRC - but it may have been something custom). They were expensive, which why Berk-NET used 9600 baud serial lines, until we got 3COM & Interlan Ethernet cards at Berkeley in 1983.
My 1976 Peripherals Handbook has a description of the DMC-11 in it. And I also remember it was used in Typeset-11, which had a custom network implementation specific to it that included Phase III style routing back in 1978. (No relationship to DECnet at all either in architecture or implementation.)
A DMC-11 is essentially a KMC-11 with programming fixed in ROM, rather than dowloadable in RAM, plus a line card. The KMC-11 processor is a custom engine, its instruction set looks somewhat like microcode. No connection to any Intel chips, that couldn't possibly have come within a mile of the performance requirements. Come to think of it, the first use of a 808x series chip in DEC products I can think of is the head servo control processor in the RA80. There may have been 8031s in some other spots, I no longer remember where I saw those.
...
But I do remember our college main timesharing system, in 1973, a PDP-11/20 with 28 kW of memory, RSTS V4A, and 16 terminals on 16 separate KL11 or DL11 interfaces. Oh yes, and a mean time between crashes of about 1 day.
Are you sure it was a 11/20, not an 11/40? I did not think RSTS could run without the MMU. With 16 DL/KL11's even with an 11/40 the interrupt rate had to been wretched.
Positive. It was RSTS V4A-12, which did not use an MMU and required only 28 kW of memory (24 kW for a minimal install). RSTS started requiring an MMU in version 5, the first version that was called RSTS/E (for "Extended" as in extended memory).
And yes, a box full of single line serial cards. Most of them ran at 110 Baud driving ASR33s; one or two were talking to TI Silent 700 terminals (300 baud printing on thermal paper), and one was feeding a Beehive editing terminal, don't remember what speed, almost certainly no higher than 1200 Baud because it was about 1000 feet from the computer. All this on 20 mA current loop connections, no RS232 as far as I remember. (The Beehive was for the London Stage project, an amazingly complex project to digitize and index a large body of historical reference books, back when OCR didn't really exist yet. There's a neat book about it, "Travels in Computerland" by the project director prof. Ben Schneider.)
Also an RK05 for system disk, an RF11 swap disk, and some DECtapes for additional file storage in case you wanted to save more stuff than could fit on the "large disk" (i.e., the RK05).
Because of the reliability issues, we had a long battle with DEC to get it fixed. The actual root cause may have been interference from the nearby campus FM broadcast transmitter (3 kW around 90 MHz). But whatever it was, we never got a real fix for that; eventually DEC threw in the towel and delivered a "replacement part" -- an 11/45 with a pile of new peripherals and a RSTS/E kit. :-) That did the job.
paul
Our 11/20 (also running RSTS V4A-12) ran for years with only 1 LA36 tied to it. There were 2 DL11's in the chassis (not hooked to anything) and 2 old ASR33's in the basement, but it was obvious these had not been hooked up in years. It was strange to inherit a machine that had a multitasking, multiuser operating system on it, with only 1 terminal (running 300 baud). The math professor that had been in charge of it was leaving and needed someone to take command of this fine old machine. We couldn't wait until he FINALLY gave us the system 1,2 account password which was: SECRET
Yes, it had never been changed, and he had never run a sysgen. And unlike
Paul's experience, I don't think this machine ever crashed. When we did finally appropriate the funds to purchase 2 VT55 terminals and hooked the DL11's to them, it was like watching paint dry, waiting for the screen to update at 300 baud. My Elmer found some information on installing larger capacitors and a different pot that would allow us to run 2400 baud. This was quite a chore as we were supposed to be able to dial it all in with an oscilloscope (that never did get it to work). Eventually, I wrote a small display loop that was directed at that DL11 and we manually turned the pot while it was running until the gibberish turned into something readable. The large caps on the DL11's held the cards in the BA11 at strange angles and we always thought they would short together, but somehow, it all ran.
Our original disk drives were the Diablo RK03's which were not very reliable (we couldn't wait to upgrade to 3 RK05's). That extra RK05 with an additional 2.5 meg made all the difference in the world. ;-)
Brett
"Bob Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com> writes:
LAT is _NOT_ part of DECnet. LAT can be run without DECnet installed
or running. IIRC, LAT was licensed with VMS.
Yeah, but most (actually, "all" I think) of the DECservers required MOP to
download them. How did you do that without DECnet?
Or was it just an unwritten catch-22 that you had to have a DECnet node
somewhere to boot up your terminal server, even if it wasn't the node you
actually wanted to connect to ?
Yeah, that does move a rather dark and rainy cloud over the parade.
--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG
Well I speak to machines with the voice of humanity.
LAT is _NOT_ part of DECnet. LAT can be run without DECnet installed
or running. IIRC, LAT was licensed with VMS.
Yeah, but most (actually, "all" I think) of the DECservers required MOP to
download them. How did you do that without DECnet?
Or was it just an unwritten catch-22 that you had to have a DECnet node
somewhere to boot up your terminal server, even if it wasn't the node you
actually wanted to connect to ?
Bob
hvlems at zonnet.nl writes:
Citeren "Brian Schenkenberger, VAXman-" <system at TMESIS.COM>:
"Cory Smelosky" <b4 at gewt.net> writes:
Is LAT supported on VMS 3.5 at all? If so, is it supported without the =
DECnet license? (I don't have a license kit for 3.x)
LAT is _NOT_ part of DECnet. LAT can be run without DECnet installed or
running. IIRC, LAT was licensed with VMS.
--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG
Well I speak to machines with the voice of humanity.
LAT is a systemen integrated product without it' s won licentie. It
became availa stond vms 3.4 or 3.5.
Hans
OK. Then Cory needs to look in his system for LTDRIVER and LTPAD .EXEs
to be certain if his version had LAT.
--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG
Well I speak to machines with the voice of humanity.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE]
On Behalf Of Mark Wickens
Sent: 07 April 2013 08:58
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Who was doing that HECnet mapping work?
On 07/04/2013 00:31, Rob Jarratt wrote:
What version of VMS are you running on the two machines you tried it
from?
Thanks
Rob
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE]
On Behalf Of Mark Wickens
Sent: 07 April 2013 00:13
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Who was doing that HECnet mapping work?
On 06/04/2013 23:54, Rob Jarratt wrote:
NCP TELL A5RTR SHOW KNOWN CIRCUITS
Had more success from SIMVAX:
$ MCR NCP TELL A5RTR SHOW KNOWN CIRCUITS
Known Circuit Volatile Summary as of 6-APR-2013 22:48:15
Circuit State Loopback Adjacent
Name Routing Node
eth2 on 5.8
psilo.update.uu.seon 1.13
psilo.update.uu.seon 1.15
psilo.update.uu.seon 62.637
psilo.update.uu.seon 59.11
psilo.update.uu.seon 42.1022
psilo.update.uu.seon 14.1
psilo.update.uu.seon 8.400
psilo.update.uu.seon 4.248
psilo.update.uu.seon 44.1023
psilo.update.uu.seon 19.41
psilo.update.uu.seon 28.41
psilo.update.uu.seon 47.556
psilo.update.uu.seon 11.2
psilo.update.uu.seon 2.1
Command completed.
Regards, Mark.
Hi Rob,
The VAX (SIMH, successful run) is running OpenVMS 7.3, the Alpha (first
run) is running OpenVMS 8.3
Regards, Mark.
Interesting. I think the other person who failed also runs OVMS 8.3, so it
looks like more modern OSs can't connect. I don't have 8.3, any chance you
could let me have a guest account on your 8.3 machine so I can test?
Thanks
Rob
On 07/04/2013 00:31, Rob Jarratt wrote:
What version of VMS are you running on the two machines you tried it from?
Thanks
Rob
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: 07 April 2013 00:13 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Who was doing that HECnet mapping work?
On 06/04/2013 23:54, Rob Jarratt wrote:
NCP TELL A5RTR SHOW KNOWN CIRCUITS
Had more success from SIMVAX: $ MCR NCP TELL A5RTR SHOW KNOWN CIRCUITS Known Circuit Volatile Summary as of 6-APR-2013 22:48:15 Circuit State Loopback Adjacent Name Routing Node eth2 on 5.8 psilo.update.uu.seon 1.13 psilo.update.uu.seon 1.15 psilo.update.uu.seon 62.637 psilo.update.uu.seon 59.11 psilo.update.uu.seon 42.1022 psilo.update.uu.seon 14.1 psilo.update.uu.seon 8.400 psilo.update.uu.seon 4.248 psilo.update.uu.seon 44.1023 psilo.update.uu.seon 19.41 psilo.update.uu.seon 28.41 psilo.update.uu.seon 47.556 psilo.update.uu.seon 11.2 psilo.update.uu.seon 2.1 Command completed. Regards, Mark.
Hi Rob,
The VAX (SIMH, successful run) is running OpenVMS 7.3, the Alpha (first run) is running OpenVMS 8.3
Regards, Mark.
Citeren "Brian Schenkenberger, VAXman-" <system at TMESIS.COM>:
"Cory Smelosky" <b4 at gewt.net> writes:
Is LAT supported on VMS 3.5 at all? If so, is it supported without the =
DECnet license? (I don't have a license kit for 3.x)
LAT is _NOT_ part of DECnet. LAT can be run without DECnet installed or
running. IIRC, LAT was licensed with VMS.
--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG
Well I speak to machines with the voice of humanity.
LAT is a systemen integrated product without it' s won licentie. It became availa stond vms 3.4 or 3.5.
Hans
