Michael,
I “upgraded” to phase IV DECnet on all my HECnet machines - to be consistent across each of the VAX/Alpha/x86 OpenVMS and PDP-11
operating systems (and I can use my 40-plus years of burnt-in NCP
command memory to manipulate the configurations).
contact regarding joining HECnet area 35 in Australia. He can allocate
node numbers and Johnny Billquist co-ordinates the node name
registrations.
I suggest you use pydecnet as your DECnet protocol router as it can
manage the IP tunnels into HECnet. I run it and a few SIMH instances
on a Raspberry Pi 3B, whilst my x86_64 OpenVMS runs under virtualbox
on my Mac mini.
Tony