3 Mar
2020
3 Mar
'20
1:54 a.m.
Yes, this is /exactly/ what I was talking about below, "I sometimes get
the impression that it parses for more than it can actually do."? You
can put any kind of circuit id you want, but you get the exact same pick
list, even when the parameter makes no sense.? NMLT20 does the semantic
processing and decides whether the request passes muster.? So it looks
like I don't have it, but I'll have a look at the sources maybe later.
It's not a limitation of Tops-20 but rather that the OPR user mode
parser does not have the appropriate semantic knowledge.
You can get some really fancy parsing with COMND%.? I guess my favorite
was a program I wrote that built its parameter list on the fly based on
what you were able to set and what you had already set.? So, you could
type a "?" and be assured that what was listed was in fact settable.? As
you set each parameter, it got taken off the parse list, so you could
get real time feed back on what you had left to do.
Very nice and a bit overboard, but that's me, I guess.? I have never
seen COMND%'s equal anywhere on Unix or Windows or anywhere else except
for C-MM and C-KERMIT, both of which used Columbia C based COMND% package.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
?On 3/2/20 7:36 PM, Robert Armstrong wrote:
FWIW, you can?t/couldn?t do verification on an Ethernet circuit
anyway.? It only works on point to point links. ?Command completion
may be smart enough to only show you the options that are applicable
to your input so far, or maybe TOPS20 just doesn?t have it?
Bob
*From:*owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE]
*On Behalf Of *Thomas DeBellis
*Sent:* Monday, March 2, 2020 3:55 PM
*To:* hecnet at Update.UU.SE
*Subject:* Re: [HECnet] Intermittent Connection with PyDECnet?
I appear to have neither CIRCUIT VERIFICATIONnor NODE TRANSMIT
PASSWORD, viz:
NCP>set cirCUIT ni-0 ? ALL
? or one of the following:
?ACTIVE??? ???? BABBLE??? ? BLOCKING???? CHANNEL COST???
?COUNTER????? DEAD
?DTE??? ??? ? ? DYING??? ?? HELLO??? ??? INACTIVE LINE???
?LISTEN??? ?? MAXIMUM
?NUMBER??? ???? OWNER??? ?? POLLING????? RECALL ROUTER??
SERVICE????? STATE
?TRANSMIT?????? TRIBUTARY?? TYPE??? ???? USAGE
NCP>set noDE venti2:: ? ALL
? or one of the following:
?ADDRESS?? CIRCUIT
? or one of the following:
?AREA??? ??? ? BROADCAST??? ??? BUFFER??? ????? CONSOLE ?? COUNTER
?CPU??? ??? ?? DELAY??? ??? ??? DIAGNOSTIC??? ? DUMP ????? HARDWARE
?HOST??? ??? ? IDENTIFICATION?? INACTIVITY INCOMING??? ? LOAD
?MAXIMUM??? ?? OUTGOING??? ???? RETRANSMIT??? ? ROUTING ?? SECONDARY
?SEGMENT??? ?? SERVICE??? ????? SOFTWARE??????? STATE ????
SUBADDRESSES
?TERTIARY????? TYPE
I may be mis-remembering how our DN200 was configured.? I believe the
Top-20 NCP parser may have shared keyword tables with other DECnet
implementations via BLISS at one point. Anyway, I recall at least some
of it was BLISS.? I haven't look in that particular box lately, but
the parse tables appear to assembler now, with heavy uses of GLXMAC
macros.
The Tops-20 operator interface has two 'sub-modes', as it were: NCP
and LCP.? NCP parses DECnet related keywords.? LCP is used for LAT
configuration.? The operator subsystem is kind of neat; OPR parsers
send packets to Orion, a communications server and router.? It notes
an NCP subset and routes that to NMLT20 which contains just what you
think it would.
Early versions of NMLT20 (about 1980) appeared insufficiently
productized.? It could hang in a loop or (more frequently) crash for
no readily apparent reason.? We submitted a rather large number of
SPR's...? However, it's quite stable now; I don't believe I've had a
single crash.? I have yet to come to a fully informed conclusion about
the lexical interface; I sometimes get the impression that it parses
for more than it can actually do.
Elsewhere in Tops-20, DECnet implementation is a mixed bag; most of
the monitor code appears finished; I go months without reboots and
that is with active development.? The user mode code is another matter
entirely.? I had my hands full fixing a number of issues with DAP and
FAL.? It was /invaluable/ having heterogeneous HECnet nodes to test
against, RSX 11M+ and VMS.? SETNOD needs some finishing and perhaps
some additional functionality.? I have yet to look at FTS; I don't see
how it can get or generate any traffic at all. The monitor interface
(NFT:) does not appear to be operational.? Elsewhere (perhaps Galaxy)
appears to have no submission interface.? Johnny and I have some minor
tweaks to flush out with MAIL11 (in addition to the changes that I've
already put in).
On 3/2/20 3:25 PM, Robert Armstrong wrote:
I don't see where I would set an id and
password in 7-1-CONFIG or
in NCP.
Don?t know about TOPS-20, but in NCP/NICE/NML it?s
SET CIRCUIT ? VERIFICATION ENABLED
and
SET NODE ? TRANSMIT PASSWORD ?
The password the remote node sends has to match the one that?s
associated with that node in the local DECnet database.
Bob