18 Jun
2021
18 Jun
'21
11:17 p.m.
On Jun 18, 2021, at 5:03 PM, Thomas DeBellis
<tommytimesharing at gmail.com> wrote:
...
I know that a DECnet node can be a maximum of six characters long with only the numerals
0 (zero) to 9 (nine) and the letters A to Z. However, I noticed some code in COMND% that
checks to see that a node name has at least one alphabetic character in it. I had never
thought about that and was wondering what the actual standard says (or where that standard
is).
I forgot to answer that last question. The answer is: the Network Management spec. For
example, the Phase IV spec (netman40.txt) says:
node-name A node name consists of one to six upper case
alphanumeric characters with at least one
alpha character. A node name must be unique
within a node and should be unique within the
network.
Interestingly enough, the Phase II spec (NSP) is less precise; it only says that nodenames
are alphanumeric without explicitly requiring at least one letter.
paul