6 Nov
2021
6 Nov
'21
9:52 a.m.
@Thomas & @Paul
Paul helped me in the past with some Rsts Decnet-III stuff and we got that working with
Dmc/Dmr, so we got a functioning phase-III router from that and at a point I also
introduced the Tops20 V4.1 Decnet problems; I think he got that Simh image from me for
testing, so if one is interested I can provide a Tops20 V4.1 Decnet image.
Problem there was, that it only communicates with other Tops20 4.1 Decnet but notcontrary
to expectations with phase-III. This was not supposed to be a working setup as the KS10
was meant to connect with the Kmc/Dup line to a DN20/200 Pdp11 based network box to join
Decnet. These boxes ran Decnet-III on a Rsx11M V3.1 platform and the software load image
was generated and built on Tops20 (or Tops10 probably as well) but should be booted from a
KL10 based system. As this software was from link libraries, source code was missing.
Simh Pdp11 could be configured to run the network parallel ANF10 without problems, but
with some tricks activating the built Decnet image ? after all it is RSX11S bootable
within the Rsx11M 3.1 environment - on a suitable configured Simh Pdp11 sim, it stops
somewhere in the Decnet initialization phase. Too difficult to debug that at the time.
So Tops20 V4.1 Decnet is quite useless as it looks more than Phase-II with enhancements
that stops it working with proper phase-III.
It is still a problem to be solved sometime?
Best regards,
Reindert
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of
Thomas DeBellis
Sent: Saturday, 06 November, 2021 01:10
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] DECnet/Python
Boy, now that is a pal!
So where would somebody like me be able to get that? The 4.1 Galaxy has some very
interesting things in MOUNTR that were sadly removed that I would like to put in at some
point in order to be able to set super-domestic on a per-structure basis.
super-domestic can make your life easier because you have less directory and user numbers
overall to deal with. However, the other side of that coin is that you have less of them
total. If you have a large number of directories, users and structures, you run out of
number, maybe, maybe (it's an 18 bit field) There's also the case of a restored
structure with it's own numbers that might clash with super-domestic. That might
happen if you grab a lot of DECUS stuff (although there is brokeness there, too)
Still for, with automated number management, much of the headache (and hence reason) for
super-domestic goes away and I'd rather have the extra granularity.
It really depends on how you're going to use the system and how 'Unixy' you
want certain things to work. So I'd rather shut it off for my purposes, but I sure
wouldn't want it not to be available.
_____
On 11/4/21 7:30 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
A kind soul sent me a TOPS-20 V4.1 SIMH disk a while ago with basic information, and
that's what I use for my Phase II testing. It has in its <DECNET> directory
some sources: NETCON bits, NFT, DAP.
I also realized there's a DECnet-20 V2 (Phase II) user manual on Bitsavers, which
combines programming and management documentation. It mentions that Phase II NCP has a
NICE protocol just like the later versions, except that it doesn't seems to be
compatible. At least my NICE listener doesn't like what it hears. Something else to
play with at some point.
paul
On Nov 4, 2021, at 5:23 PM, Thomas DeBellis <tommytimesharing at gmail.com
<mailto:tommytimesharing at gmail.com> > wrote:
Where did you get that NETCON from? I don't have it.
Or is a Tops-10 NETCON? (which I wouldn't have, either)
_____
On 11/4/21 3:22 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
I found the code, it's in NETCON (specifically, NCP). So now all I have to do is
reverse engineer it. That's going to be interesting because I haven't looked at
Macro-10 in 45 years, and even back then I didn't really know it well at all.
paul
_____
On Oct 28, 2021, at 9:26 AM, Paul Koning <mailto:paulkoning at comcast.net>
<paulkoning at comcast.net> wrote:
I'm guessing it has to do with learning the shape of the Phase II network. That's
an entirely different problem than Phase III and later. The connect is by name, so object
0, object name TOPOL. And I don't have anything to answer that request so I have no
trace. I suppose I could build a dummy responder just to see what question is asked.
If indeed it's Phase II topology related, it would make sense for the host not to have
that server, and of course it would also go away in Phase III. The host requests, but
does not offer, "intercept" which is node name based routing in Phase II that
was implemented only in a few places. Somewhere I saw that it exists only to get past the
front end (on larger machines) which was handled as a separate node so it counts as a
network hop. Without intercept, Phase II only goes a single hop.
I found the code, it's in NETCON (specifically, NCP). So now all I have to do is
reverse engineer it. That's going to be interesting because I haven't looked at
Macro-10 in 45 years, and even back then I didn't really know it well at all.
paul
_____
On Oct 27, 2021, at 9:32 PM, Thomas DeBellis <mailto:tommytimesharing at gmail.com>
<tommytimesharing at gmail.com> wrote:
TOPOL? Hmm... No, I hadn't heard of that, either. It sounds almost familiar, but I
don't know why Tops-20 would be asking for it because it doesn't appear to be
serving it, viz:...