I'm a recent joiner to HECnet, and wondered if anyone else has played around with Phase V software at all ? 

Obviously HECnet itself is a Phase IV network, but you can connect Phase V VAX endnodes using the Phase IV compatibility mode.

All my systems are simulated with simh, and getting an Ethernet connection to work was very straightforward, there's just a bit more local configuration required than with Phase IV.

However, I spent quite a few years at DEC working on VAX synchronous device drivers, so I was interested to see whether I could get a WAN connection going.  The biggest issue was device support. DECnet-VAX Phase V doesn't support any of the older microcoded interfaces (DMC11, DMV11, KMX11 etc), and the later devices (DSV11, DSB32, DST32, etc) aren't supported by simh. The only intersection is actually the DUP/DPV11, where there was a new VMS driver (SEDRIVER) for Phase V, that replaces the individual protocol-specific drivers that were previously used with these devices.

I've spent quite a long time this week dredging stuff out of memory from 30 years ago, and still failing to get a DPV11 link to come up, until I eventually realised that a) there are some significant differences between the DUP and DPV, and b) simh does not support the DPV properly  (how is one supposed to know this?) !   So after changing my simulated microVAX into an 8600, and the DPV into a DUP, I've managed to get a DDCMP link to come up between this and a PyDecnet router.

There still seem to be some rough edges, as it won't always come up until PyDecnet is bounced, and it's also a bit slow for interactive use, as if there's something that's only working on a retransmission, or timer expiry. Anyway, it's been a fun nostalgia exercise to get this far, I'll probably mess about with it some more. Let me know if you have any questions...


TOGATH$ mcr ncl sho routing circuit ddcmp-0 adj * all

Node 0 Routing Circuit DDCMP-0 Adjacency RTG$0001
at 2022-03-11-15:28:50.820+00:00Iinf

Identifiers

    Name                              = RTG$0001

Status

    Type                              = Autoconfigured
    State                             = Up
    Neighbor Node Type                = Phase IV Router
    Router NETs                       =
       {
          49::00-1D:AA-00-04-00-D5-75:00 (LOCAL:.TWPD)
       }

TOGATH$ mcr ncl sho modem connect line ddcmp-0 all

Node 0 Modem Connect Line DDCMP-0
at 2022-03-11-15:29:33.660+00:00Iinf

Identifiers

    Name                              = DDCMP-0

Status

    UID                               = 5AFC9FC0-A14A-11EC-8002-AA000400C475
    State                             = On
    Interface State                   = Full Enabled
    Actual Speed                      = 0
    Loopback Mode                     = Null
    Interface Type                    = Unknown
    Modem Type                        = ""
    Device Availability               = Device Present
    Request to Send                   = Asserted
    Clear to Send                     = Asserted
    Data Set Ready                    = Asserted
    Data Terminal Ready               = Asserted
    Carrier Detect                    = Asserted
    Signalling Rate Selector          = Unknown
    Signalling Rate Indicator         = Unknown
    Ring Indicator                    = Not Asserted
    Remote Loopback                   = Not Asserted
    Local Loopback                    = Not Asserted
    Test Mode                         = Unknown

Characteristics

    Communications Port               = DPV-0-0
    Connection Type                   = NonSwitched
    Communications Mode               = Synchronous
    Duplex                            = Full
    Profile                           = ""
    Modem Control                     = Full
    Modem Options                     =
       {
       }
    Encoding                          = Normal
    Clock                             = External
    Speed                             = 0
    Alternate Speed                   = 0
    Rate Select                       = High
    Maximum Enable Transmit Timer     = 2000
    Suppress Test Indicator           = True
    Transmit Holdoff Timer            = 0
    Carrier Loss Timer                = 15000
    Minimum DTR Deassertion Timer     = 2000
    Maximum Disable Transmit Timer    = 500
    Call Accept Timer                 = 0
    Successful Call Indication Timer  = 30
    Maximum DSR Deassertion Timer     = 5000

Counters

    Creation Time                     = 2022-03-11-14:48:46.780+00:00Iinf
    Losses of Clock                   = 0
    Cable Faults                      = 0
    Times DCE Not Ready               = 0
    Transmit Enable Timeouts          = 4
    Losses Of Carrier                 = 0
    Rate Fallbacks                    = 0
    Test Indications                  = 0
    Framing Errors                    = 0
    Times Cable Detected              = 0
    Device Errors                     = 0
    Times Reset                       = 4

c
CTF V1.0-00                                                       Page 1
Trace started on 11-MAR-2022 15:45:28.40  Analyzed on 11-MAR-2022 15:45:56.95
Trace File DUA1:[TREVOR]CTF$TRACE.DAT;3 Output File DUA1:[TREVOR]XX.TXT;4
-----------+----+-----+<--------DDCMP Frame-------->+--------------------------`
    Time   |Evnt|Data | Typ QS Res Num Ctl Adr Count|Data                      `
hh mm ss cc|    |Size |                             |                          `
-----------+----+-----+<--------------------------->+--------------------------`
15:45:28.40|  Tx|   85| DAT  S  77  86       1    77| 0A C5 75 C4 75 01 21 35 E`
                                                    | 01 04 C3 02 EE 81 C6 01 2`
                                                    | 2E 30 85 02 03 E8 C4 01 0`
15:45:28.41|Rx  |   22| DAT     85  78       1    14| 05 D5 75 0A AA AA AA AA A`
15:45:28.56|Rx  |    6| ACK     86           1      |
15:45:28.57|  Tx|    6| ACK  S  78           1      |
15:45:32.80|  Tx|   85| DAT  S  78  87       1    77| 0A C5 75 C4 75 01 21 35 E`
                                                    | 01 04 C3 02 EE 81 C6 01 2`
                                                    | 2E 30 85 02 03 E8 C4 01 0`
15:45:32.81|Rx  |   62| DAT     86  79       1    54| 02 C4 75 C5 75 02 21 2E D`
                                                    | 01 04 C6 01 23 01 11 30 3`
                                                    | 03 E8
15:45:32.81|  Tx|   25| DAT  S  79  88       1    17| 02 C5 75 C4 75 01 21 09 6`
15:45:32.82|Rx  |    6| ACK     87           1      |
15:45:32.94|Rx  |    6| ACK     88           1      |
15:45:32.95|Rx  |   62| DAT     88  80       1    54| 02 C4 75 C5 75 02 21 2E D`
                                                    | 01 04 C6 01 23 01 11 30 3`
                                                    | 03 E8
15:45:33.07|  Tx|    6| ACK  S  80           1      |
15:45:38.48|Rx  |   31| DAT     88  81       1    23| 02 C4 75 C5 75 02 21 07 F`
15:45:38.48|  Tx|   40| DAT  S  81  89       1    32| 02 C5 75 C4 75 01 21 07 F`
                                                    | 00 00 00 00 00 00
15:45:38.49|Rx  |   31| DAT     88  82       1    23| 02 C4 75 C5 75 02 21 07 F`
15:45:38.49|  Tx|   25| DAT  S  82  90       1    17| 02 C5 75 C4 75 01 21 09 6`
15:45:38.50|Rx  |    6| ACK     89           1      |
15:45:38.60|Rx  |    6| ACK     90           1      |
15:45:39.72|Rx  |   58| DAT     90  83       1    50| 02 C4 75 C5 75 02 21 07 F`
                                                    | 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 02 1`
15:45:39.72|  Tx|   25| DAT  S  83  91       1    17| 02 C5 75 C4 75 01 21 09 6`
15:45:39.73|  Tx|   25| DAT  S  83  92       1    17| 02 C5 75 C4 75 01 21 09 6`
15:45:39.73|  Tx|   80| DAT  S  83  93       1    72| 02 C5 75 C4 75 01 21 07 F`
                                                    | 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 02 F`
                                                    | A0 13 00 30 02 30 60 F9 0`
15:45:39.73|  Tx|   38| DAT  S  83  94       1    30| 02 C5 75 C4 75 01 21 07 F`
                                                    | 00 00 00 00
15:45:39.73|  Tx|   49| DAT  S  83  95       1    41| 02 C5 75 C4 75 01 21 07 F`
                                                    | 00 18 00 42 70 50 00 A0 1`
 Buffer: XX.TXT                                      | Write | Insert | Forward