4 Mar
2020
4 Mar
'20
5:05 a.m.
Huh, now that is interesting.? I guess that's something that never made
it into Tops-20, although it doesn't sound immediately difficult for
some functionality to be implemented in NFT.? The 1982 DECnet-20 User
Guide that I have is very specific that _only_ names (SIXBIT subset)?
can be given to GTJFN%. But it may be out of date or may have never been
updated.
The GTJFN% file parsing code is formidable; not a few hours to look
through, so I won't be looking at that tonight.? It seems to me that a
very simple experiment will suffice: undefine a node (assuming the -1
undocumented feature works) and then see what breaks.? The most
important area would be the NICE handler, NMLT20.? If that can't do a
TELL to an undefined node, then that is pretty definitive.
NFT will not parse for an area.number, although it could be made to
(with sufficient coaxing).? It's using COMND% and GTJFN% to parse for
the node name, so alternate parse tables would need to be done.?
However, that still leaves you with the fact that you would need to pump
those numbers through the .NDRNN function of the NODE% JSYS if you were
going to get anywhere.
Regretfully, I do not appear to have sources for NMLT20, so I can't tell
what it does.? The parse tables for it (NCPTAB) accept an area.number,
but I don't see that anything in the Tops-20 operator interface resolves
it as above (Tops-10 does).
I'll tinker with it some more.? Wish I could find another Galaxy nerd,
but we were very rare.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 3/3/20 8:34 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
The area.node notation, and the Phase 3 numeric address notation, were intended to be
standard, not just limited to NCP. And indeed DECnet/E (in RSTS) does both:
$ dir 1.13::[decnet]nodenames.dat;0
Node: 1.13
User: guest
Password:
System Password:
Directory 1.13::DU1:[DECNET]
Name .Typ Size Prot Access Date Time UIC
NODENAMES.DAT;254 30/30 < 40> 28-Feb-20 28-Feb-20 01:08 [7,14]
Total of 30/30 blocks in 1 file.
$ dir 1037::[decnet]nodenames.dat;0
Node: 1037
User: guest
Password:
System Password:
Directory 1037::DU1:[DECNET]
Name .Typ Size Prot Access Date Time UIC
NODENAMES.DAT;254 30/30 < 40> 28-Feb-20 28-Feb-20 01:08 [7,14]
Total of 30/30 blocks in 1 file.
These are DECnet kernel features. The connect call takes a 6-character ASCII node
argument, and if that's numeric string (possibly with a . in it) it's interpreted
as a node number in the way shown. Of course, 63.1023 doesn't fit in 6 characters so
for that one you'd be forced to write it as 65535.
paul
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> On Mar 3, 2020, at 6:57 PM, Thomas DeBellis <tommytimesharing at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> You've put your finger on something that's puzzled me for quite some time
about Tops-20's lexical implementation.
>
> There is no standardized syntax in the generalized parsing interface (COMND% and
GTJFN%) for using numeric node names. If you ask COMND% to parse a node name and do not
shut off standard syntax, then you must specify a maximum six character word which
conforms to the SIXBIT character set followed a double colon, which looks like what you
would think it would, viz: VENTI2::
>
> However, the integration into the monitor isn't as seamless as it appears to be
under VMS. In order to make a connection, you must build a special string for GTJFN% to
swallow. Let's suppose I wanted to grab the latest node list from MIM:: (which I do
on a weekly basis); you would type MIM::FIX.T20;0 as the source to NFT. That's not
what GTJFN% wants and you must transmogrify the string into DCN:MIM-FAL. Once that
connection is open, you negotiate DAP and then ask MIM:: to send the file.
>
> There is no standardized "[a.b.c.d]" syntax such as what you might use to
get to an IP4 host which is neither in the DNS nor host tables. You can use COMND% to
parse for a number optionally followed by a dot and another number and the operator NICE
interface (NCP) does in fact do this. Indeed, it is the only interface besides SETNOD
which does this (in order to define nodes). So I can give an area.address to NCP as an
argument to a TELL verb in order to get remote information.
> ...
>
> Curiouser and curiouser. Do the above two functionalities exist in other operating
systems?
>