[HECnet] Public Services over DECnet

Mark, There is a concept in DECnet like anonymous FTP, if one sets it up. In RSX the DECnet utility NFT (Network File Transfer) was the client side and FAL (File Access Listener) was the server side. The functionality of these were built into DIR and VMS on VAX. If account info was not sent then FAL could be pointed to a directory like [DECNET] where public ally accessed files could be transferred. Both RSX and VMS also incorporated account matching and access control via ?PROXY? utilities. In RSX this was a separate utility, in VMS it was done with NCP. On HECnet, there is a loose convention that one puts a INFO.TXT in [DECNET] that has info to describe the node. As far as multiuser games, the two that I can think of is TREK and multiuser Star Trek game, but I don?t think it was ever expanded to use DECnet. It utilized a memory common which probably could be synchronized between two nodes to provide multi-user, multi-node play. The other was a VMS Xwindows flight simulator. If I remember correctly it could be played in a multi-computer mode. In DECnet, batch jobs could be launched on remote nodes which could check the coffee pot etc. Also, Datatrieve had a remote server which was quite useful for remote database access. Also, a utility called PHONE was really neat for multi-user multi-node conversations. I remember back in 1981, before the internet was widely available having a conversation between a company colleague when I was in Iowa and another colleague was in Illinois. The AT&T leased data lines were incredibly expensive but point to point DECnet worked incredibly well on those data lines which were typically 9600 baud (or slower). The great thing was a simple DL serial port was all that you needed to be a simple end-node. Of course if you needed a better interface there were a variety of cards with coprocessors to off load the main CPU. Since almost all the networks were private and isolated, there wasn?t much in the way of BBS or Archie type functionality until people started connecting to the internet. VMS may have something similar, but although RSX used ethernet for DECnet, it did not have the ability to connect to the internet until Johnny made it possible a couple years ago. Best, Mark