13 Mar
2023
13 Mar
'23
3:55 p.m.
On 2023-03-13 14:44, Paul Koning wrote:
As far as I know, Thomas is right. The XKL machines cannot speak DECnet.
However, I don't know if it is just the MAC address that is the issue,
or if there was something else/more. I think I talked about this with
both Peter Lothberg and Rich Alderson in the past. One of them should
know the details... If I got things right, there are some more
differences between the XKL and the SC machines as well, when it comes
to memory addressing. But again, I don't remember the details. And SC
machines do speak DECnet.
The problem with Phase IV Prime is that it will not be compatible with
any other Phase IV node, so it would be of very limited value.
On Mar 11, 2023, at 9:33 PM, Thomas DeBellis
<tommytimesharing(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It would be interesting to confirm that. If it's true, then there is a potential
answer: implement Phase IV Prime. That's a thingly documented extension of Phase IV
originally done to support IEEE 802.5 token ring (with its inaccurately named
"functional addresses"). Among other things it supports using the
"hardware address" rather than the Bernie Lacroute "hiord" address.
On 3/8/23 5:13 PM, Keith Halewood wrote:
HECnet is a wonderful achievement. I'm not the only one who tried, but it would have
been great to get LCM+L's DEC systems connected, Rosie in particular. I have also
cajoled the 'twenex' people and also those in (UK) National Museum of Computing
without success.
...
Apparently not all 36 bit hardware will do DECnet. I can't remember exactly, but I
believe the network interfaces on some Toad's can not have their MAC addresses
programmatically changed (anybody know this?) I'm planning to implement that at some point in
PyDECnet to allow it to talk to DECnet nodes on WiFi, where changing the address
doesn't normally work. But if there is any other hardware with that limitation it
would work there as well. The changes are pretty modest, especially for end nodes.
True. But you will only be able to talk to other Phase IV prime nodes.
And I don't think I've ever seen any, so that would boil down to just be
able to talk DECnet to other PyDECnet nodes. Not sure how much value
that would have...
Johnny
--
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|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)softjar.se || Reading murder books
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