There are additional limitations to phase III nodes in a phase IV
network.
Phase III nodes do not have any idea of areas, and all node numbers
must
be below 256. (In short, phase III nodes use a single byte for node
addresses.)
So, a phase III node can only talk with other nodes within the same
area, and only if those nodes have low node numbers.
Another key point: Phase III doesn't support Ethernet -- it only handles point to
point (DDCMP and equivalent) links. The network layer messages are different, too. For
one thing, the init message has the older routing layer version number in it. For
another, in the case of routers, the route vector is sent as a simple full vector rather
than as a list of segments with new data (omitting unchanged data) as is done for Phase
IV.
It's certainly possible in principle for a Phase V node to understand Phase III
routing layer messages; in practice, I doubt this was done and the rules certainly
didn't require it.
paul