12 Mar
2023
12 Mar
'23
4:39 p.m.
On 2023-03-12 15:53, Robert Armstrong wrote:
If you want it to do
anything you have to write an RTS application to do that.
Right.
Johnny
Billquist <bqt(a)softjar.se> wrote:
The sources for DECNET-8 can be found. And you need to run RTS-8 for it.
And it can only talk DDCMP, so you need a serial line connection.
The manuals for the whole thing can also be found online. But there is
very little beyond the basic framework. You were expected to write your
own tasks that the communicated over DECnet under RTS-8.
Exactly - there are no applications for DECnet-8, not even the "standard"
ones. There's no FAL, no NML, no CTERM/RTERM, nothing. Also it's not clear to me that DECnet-8 was
ever actually "finished". I don't think DEC ever got around to actually
selling it,
and I've never heard an example of anyone getting it working.
I'd say it looks very finished, have an SPD
(http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/spd/06.01.01_7705_DECNET8.pdf), manuals,
and the software. (And I've been over the software multiple times. I've
also run RTS-8 in the past, out of curiosity...)
But I do not know of anyone using it. But I must also admit that most
PDP-8 stuff was gone by the time I was at DEC.
If you want to put a PDP-8 on HECnet I think a more
practical plan would be hook up the console serial line to a VAX or PDP-11,
and
then create a pass thru where you can log into the host machine (with user name PDP8?) and
it just connects you to that serial lin
e.
I'd say it's definitely more practical, as you could then use some OS
that actually allows you to do something more interactive.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol