1 Feb
2022
1 Feb
'22
12:25 a.m.
On 2022-02-01 00:05, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 1/31/22 5:20 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Well, you are very much oversimplifying things here...
There are so many things seemingly lost right now
it is depressing.
I do have RSX and DECnet (I even have properly signed documents
allowing me to have them), but unfortunately all the layered software
seems to have been lost in the Mentec Inc. disolvement.
Heck, if I could just locate the layered products, I'm even allowed to
have them. But they are currently lost. :-(
The current owner of it all is XX2247. However, I seem to have lost
contact with Dave Carroll, which is another problem. I'm not sure if
he's still alive or not, which might leave things even more in limbo
than before.
It's all a mess that just keeps going on.
Yes, it is particularly sad. A lot of people are looking at it very
short-sightedly; I've come across a number of people who are sitting on
this or that tape or disk pack, with attitudes that exacerbate the problem: 1. "Oh, nobody cares about this, despite the
fact that you just told
me they do."
That might happen. I'd say it's more likely it happened 20 years ago.
The few people who have hung on to things until now are likely not in
this category.
2. "This forty-year-old code is copyrighted,
screw historical
preservation, I'll err on the side of protecting my personal safety in
this near-zero-risk situation and just sit on it, or destroy it."
How near zero the risk is is a bit unknown, but it might be worse than
you know/think. So don't pass judgement so easily.
If someone destroys things, then it's really sad. But if someone hangs
on to things in the hope that the situation will eventually become
better, or they will at least find some solution that improves the
situation are actually good things.
3. "No, I won't turn loose of this disk or
that tape, because I don't
trust anyone else to handle it, but I don't have time to mess with it
myself, so I'll just sit on it so my wife can trash it after my estate
sale."
Hanging on to things are always the first step. Complaining about that
is the wrong thing. And noone knows what tomorrow brings. We can all
just hope that we are here tomorrow and can do something more.
If not, that's hardly something you can blame them for. It's not what
they hoped for.
The DECnet-RT distribution is in situation #3, and
the source code
for a third-party IP stack and other packages for VMS was lost just last
year because of #2. In the latter instance, LSSM got all of the
development machines, but the drives had been pulled and the guy refused
to give them to us, or even save them himself.
Sad when that happens.
So, people need to CARE, and people need to take
the occasional very
low RISK. Heh, on Earth in 2022...good luck with either.
I don't know what happened to Dave Carroll either, but I see no
obituary listings for his name in Colorado Springs. Perhaps he really
did buy it all just to sit on it. If so, that's really crappy.
I do happen to know a bit more about the situation than you, it seems.
Yes, Dave bought it all from the remains of Mentec Inc. The purpose was
to try and make it all available for hobbyists.
However, the contract between DEC and Mentec is poison, and that
contract is still active, with it today being HPE and XX2247. And Dave
was definitely worried about his house and everything with regards to
that contract, which is why it stayed locked down. I did have several
discussions with him about it, and he was having lots of concerns about
what to do, and how to handle the whole thing.
Four or five years ago, he almost transferred all of it over to me, but
I didn't jump fast enough, and it remained an open question. Right about
the same time, I started talking with people at VSI who could possibly
help working things out with HPE. But right then, Dave stopped
communicating, and I have not heard a single thing since. And XX2247
seems to have gone defunct, and I do wonder if Dave might have left us,
or something bad happened. But I don't really know. I've also tried
through friends to locate him without success.
But the purpose was to preserve and make the software available for
everyone. But as of now, it's still not possible because of the contract
between DEC and Mentec. And no, I have not seen that contract. So I
don't know the exact wording of it. And Dave preferred that it was kept
buried, because he felt it was pure poison, and actually better if HPE
was not even reminded of it.
And I have a contract with XX2247, giving me access to whatever. You
could say that I'm the last RSX developer. :-)
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