[HECnet] Effects of Rogue Duplicate HECnet Node?

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?