1 Jun
2023
1 Jun
'23
9:18 p.m.
On 2023-06-01 20:55, Paul Koning wrote:
Those fields should be considered "for entertainment only". One serious error
made by certain implementations -- VMS was a notorious offender -- is to look at OS or
similar implementation info fields and make decisions like "if I'm talking to
RSTS it means it doesn't support X, so do Y instead". In the case of DAP this is
really blatantly wrong given the massive number of feature bits that spell out, in great
detail, what the other end is able to do.
VMS is so sadly broken in many corners. Some of it purely because they
just assumed everything else is also VMS. Which is super annoying.
You can really see how parts of DEC was slipping into sloppiness by just
not having any other systems around anymore (well, OK, PDP-11 stuff was
around, but not given any consideration it appears).
I was dealing with mail a while ago, and in the connect or accept
message, there are a bunch of information provided, telling what OS,
mail version, capabilities and so on exist.
However, when VMS mail accepts a connection, many of the values are just
reflected back untouched (since it's all VMS anyway), so fields like
what OS it is, what version of mail, and so on, are just reflected back.
So much fun when I, as an RSX system, connects to VMS, and gets back
that it is an RSX system, which it is not. ARGH! :-(
Had to do some special hacks to handle that one.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol