19 Sep
2018
19 Sep
'18
3:42 p.m.
I worked on DECnet Phase II (11-D and IAS) starting in February 1977. As I recall, the
protocol specs were complete by then, so design had probably started sometime in 1976. The
original goal was to complete the project in 9 months but it ended up taking 18+ months.
I used Phase I on a pair of 11/40?s running RSX-11D around the middle of 1976. The CHM has
a transcript of an interview from 1988 with Stu Wecker who did the original DECnet
architecture where he claims that Phase I development was done for 11-M, 11-D, PDP-8 and
PDP-10 (Tops-10) - not sure if they were all released.
John.
On Sep 18, 2018, at 6:44 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt
at softjar.se> wrote:
A couple of more comments:
The manual I have for DECNET-8 is dated February 1977.
The timeline for DECnet on Wikipedia claims that phase II was introduced in 1975.
According that same article, it would appear that only RSX ever had DECnet phase I.
But information on Wikipedia should as usual be taken with a grain of salt. Especially
when it a bit more obscure information, for which there are few sources, and the
information might be written by someone without direct experience.
A couple of quotes from the code, that might help:
From NSP.PA:
/NETWORK SERVICES PROTOCOL FOR DECNET/8
/ IMPLEMENTED AT SPEC LEVEL 2.2
/
/J. ROTH 23-NOV-75
/JR 17-DEC-76 ADDED VERSION 2.2 CHANGES
/
/ WARNING:
/
/ THERE EXISTS A BUG IN THE NETWORK DESIGN, SUCH THAT DROPPAGE
/ OF LEADING 0 BITS IN THE FIRST FRAME OF THE NSP DATA MESSAGE
/ IS NOT DETECTED BY CRC. TO CIRCUMVENT THIS BUG, THIS NSP CODE
/ ALWAYS SETS THE NSP 'BLOCKING' BIT WHEN SENDING, AND IGNORES IT
/ WHEN RECEIVING.
/
/
/ DECNET/8 RELEASE VERSION 1
/ DECNET/8 PATCH LEVEL A
/ APRIL 8,1977
/
VERSION=01
PATCH="C
/JR01 16-MAY-77 FIX CONNECT REJECT BY DISCONNECT BUG
/ NSP02 SCR 9/77 FIX INTERRUPT PACKET BUG [02]
/
So, despite the comments, it's version 1C, and not 1A. And the last fix was in
September 1977.
And "SPEC LEVEL 2.2" might be useful in figuring out what phase it might be,
and it might be a hint for phase 2.
Johnny
On 2018-09-19 00:30, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Hmm. Thinking some more, I remember that we had a
discussion about this about 2 years ago.
At that time, I tried to figure it out, and found DECnet-8 to look like it was somewhere
between phase I and phase II, so I guess my previous comment was too hasty, and it
don't seem to be a proper phase II implementation.
But, like I mentioned the previous time, I can go and dig more into the code, if someone
is interested.
Johnny
On 2018-09-18 22:56, Paul Koning wrote:
> Phase 2, or phase 1? I have seen (and read, cursorily) a manual for a PDP-8 based
DECnet phase 1. It made it quite clear that there is no plausible way to be compatible
with that, it's quite a different protocol than Phase 2 and later.
>
> paul
>
>
>> On Sep 18, 2018, at 4:50 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>>
>> There is a phase ii release for rts-8. How easy it would be to get it up and
running might be a different story, but the sources are on the internet.
>>
>> Johnny
>>
>>
>> Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> skrev: (18 september 2018 19:30:56
CEST)
>> Does anyone have the Phase II DECnet that goes with RSTS V7.0? I think it calls
itself DECnet/E V1.1, rather confusingly.
>>
>> For that matter, are there any Phase II DECnet releases around? I know of the
TOPS-20 one; any others? Ditto for Phase III.
>>
>> paul
>>
>>
>> --
>> Skickat fr?n min Android-enhet med K-9 Mail. Urs?kta min f?ordighet.
>
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol