1 Feb
2022
1 Feb
'22
12:05 a.m.
On 1/31/22 5:20 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
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."
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."
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."
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.
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.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA