16 Nov
2021
16 Nov
'21
5:34 p.m.
Supratim and I (with some help and encouragement from Peter) have set up
an ANF10 network between the TOPS10 nodes VENTI and TWONKY. If you haven't
heard of it, ANF10 (short for "A Networking Feature" - yes, really!)
predates DECnet (I'm pretty sure, although I'm sure there will be debate
about that) and provides mostly the same functions - remote terminals, file
transfer, etc. ANF10 also has remote RJEs with card readers, line printers
and terminal concentrators.
.net/anf
[ANF10 network: connected to VENTI(20), located at VENTI(20), 2 nodes]
Node VENTI (20) SIMH KS10 VENTI 7.04 NET 14-Nov-21
Node TWONKY (37) SIMH KS10 TWONKY 7.04NET 15-Nov-21
It's possible to run ANF10 and DECnet both, and that's what we're doing so
TWONKY and VENTI are also available on HECnet. If anybody else has a TOPS10
system and would like to connect it would be nice to add a few more nodes,
but there is a problem. TOPS10 supports a maximum of two KDP/DUP lines on
the KS10, and you need one for DECnet and the other for ANF10. That means
each system can talk to at most one other ANF10 system, which limits the
network size to two nodes. Bummer.
There are a few options available -
. DEC made some DNxx PDP-11 boxes that supported multiple ANF10
connections. We could set up one of these as a router.
. Somebody could hack TOPS10 to allow more than two DUP lines.
. Somebody could write a pyDECnet type gizmo that speaks ANF10.
And there might be others that I haven't thought of yet. Any ideas?
Bob
16 Nov
16 Nov
5:45 p.m.
Peter probably remembers this much better than I do. But back in the
80s, I was using ANF10 in Stockholm, and it was a network with more than
10 nodes. But I understood it as not everyone had a direct connection to
everyone. But maybe I misunderstood something? Otherwise I would try to
figure out how that was working. There were definitely KS machines on
there, along with some KLs, and I think one KI. :-)
Johnny
On 2021-11-16 17:34, Robert Armstrong wrote:
? Supratim and I (with some help and encouragement
from Peter) have set
up an ANF10 network between the TOPS10 nodes VENTI and TWONKY.? If you
haven?t heard of it, ANF10 (short for ?A Networking Feature? ? yes,
really!) predates DECnet (I?m pretty sure, although I?m sure there will
be debate about that) and provides mostly the same functions ? remote
terminals, file transfer, etc.? ANF10 also has remote RJEs with card
readers, line printers and terminal concentrators.
.net/anf
[ANF10 network: connected to VENTI(20), located at VENTI(20), 2 nodes]
Node??? VENTI?? (20)??? SIMH KS10 VENTI 7.04 NET??????? 14-Nov-21
Node??? TWONKY? (37)??? SIMH KS10 TWONKY 7.04NET??????? 15-Nov-21
? It?s possible to run ANF10 and DECnet both, and that?s what we?re
doing so TWONKY and VENTI are also available on HECnet.? If anybody else
has a TOPS10 system and would like to connect it would be nice to add a
few more nodes, but there is a problem.? TOPS10 supports a maximum of
two KDP/DUP lines on the KS10, and you need one for DECnet and the other
for ANF10.? That means each system can talk to at most one other ANF10
system, which limits the network size to two nodes.?? Bummer?
? There are a few options available ?
?DEC made some DNxx PDP-11 boxes that supported multiple ANF10
connections.? We could set up one of these as a router.
?Somebody could hack TOPS10 to allow more than two DUP lines.
?Somebody could write a pyDECnet type gizmo that speaks ANF10.
And there might be others that I haven?t thought of yet.? Any ideas?
Bob
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
5:56 p.m.
So does ANF10 do routing?
DECnet had real routing with Phase III (1982). It had sort-of-routing in limited cases
with Phase II "intercept", but realistically that was a one-hop network, with an
extra sort-of-hop to get across the 10/20 system's front end.
Meanwhile, Typeset-11 had routing (Phase III style) in 1978, that was an entirely
unrelated design not using any DECnet bits at all.
paul
On Nov 16, 2021, at 11:45 AM, Johnny Billquist <bqt
at softjar.se> wrote:
Peter probably remembers this much better than I do. But back in the 80s, I was using
ANF10 in Stockholm, and it was a network with more than 10 nodes. But I understood it as
not everyone had a direct connection to everyone. But maybe I misunderstood something?
Otherwise I would try to figure out how that was working. There were definitely KS
machines on there, along with some KLs, and I think one KI. :-)
Johnny
On 2021-11-16 17:34, Robert Armstrong wrote:
Supratim and I (with some help and
encouragement from Peter) have set up an ANF10 network between the TOPS10 nodes VENTI and
TWONKY. If you haven?t heard of it, ANF10 (short for ?A Networking Feature? ? yes,
really!) predates DECnet (I?m pretty sure, although I?m sure there will be debate about
that) and provides mostly the same functions ? remote terminals, file transfer, etc.
ANF10 also has remote RJEs with card readers, line printers and terminal concentrators.
.net/anf
[ANF10 network: connected to VENTI(20), located at VENTI(20), 2 nodes]
Node VENTI (20) SIMH KS10 VENTI 7.04 NET 14-Nov-21
Node TWONKY (37) SIMH KS10 TWONKY 7.04NET 15-Nov-21
It?s possible to run ANF10 and DECnet both, and that?s what we?re doing so TWONKY and
VENTI are also available on HECnet. If anybody else has a TOPS10 system and would like to
connect it would be nice to add a few more nodes, but there is a problem. TOPS10 supports
a maximum of two KDP/DUP lines on the KS10, and you need one for DECnet and the other for
ANF10. That means each system can talk to at most one other ANF10 system, which limits
the network size to two nodes. Bummer?
There are a few options available ?
?DEC made some DNxx PDP-11 boxes that supported multiple ANF10 connections. We could set
up one of these as a router.
?Somebody could hack TOPS10 to allow more than two DUP lines.
?Somebody could write a pyDECnet type gizmo that speaks ANF10.
And there might be others that I haven?t thought of yet. Any ideas?
Bob
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
6:01 p.m.
So does ANF10 do routing?
Yes. It doesn't have area numbers and is limited to 64 nodes - addresses are in
octal and are 0..77 - but nodes do not have to be directly connected to each other in
order to communicate. It also uses the same DDCMP as DECnet on the serial links, but what
happens above that is obviously different.
Bob
6:08 p.m.
Short, but useful -
http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/BB-BT99V-BB_1990/03/10,7/anf10/anf10c.mem.h…
This is interesting, but I don't think it was actually implementd...
http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/BB-BT99V-BB_1990/03/10,7/anf10/anf10a.mem.h…
And the manual
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp10/TOPS10_softwareNotebooks/vol14/AA-W557A-…
Bob
6:12 p.m.
There's a GUEST/GUEST account on TWONKY if anyone wants to play with it.
*$ SET HOST TWONKY
SIMH KS10 TWONKY 7.04NET 17:10:13 TTY10 system 4937
Connected to Node IMPVAX Line # 0
Please LOGIN
.LOGIN GUEST GUEST
Job 3? SIMH KS10 TWONKY 7.04NET? TTY10
?LGNIET Invalid entry
#GUEST
Password:
17:10?? 16-Nov-121?? Tuesday
.NET
[ANF10 network: connected to TWONKY(37), located at TWONKY(37), 2 nodes]
Node??? VENTI??? (20)??? SIMH KS10 VENTI 7.04 NET??? 14-Nov-21
Node??? TWONKY??? (37)??? SIMH KS10 TWONKY 7.04NET 15-Nov-21
[DECnet??? network: local node TWONKY, 51 reachable nodes in area 31]
(31.153)??? AHIMSA??? CAIR??? CGOING??? CLOUDY??? CSHORE FEDACH???
FOMFOR??? IBM390
IMPRTR
IMPVAX??? JUICHI??? KARMA??? KETURA??? LV??? MACOS7 MACOS9??? MOKSHA???
MOSHML??? NANAJU
NJEVX1??? NJEVX2??? NOFAR??? OSTARA??? PIPY??? PYDNET PYRTR??? QCOCAL???
RAPTOR??? RST101
SEACOW??? SEAHAG??? SEAPIG??? SHAKTI??? TOWEL??? TRAINS TRU64???
TSTVAX??? TSVMSA??? TSVMST
TSVMSZ??? TWENEX??? TWONKY??? VAXSTN??? W2000S??? WEXPEE WFW311???
WXPEE2??? XL??? XLIV
XLVII
.KJOB
Job 3? User GUEST? [14,14]
Logged-off TTY10? at 17:11:04? on 16-Nov-121
Runtime: 0:00:00, KCS:0, Connect time: 0:00:43
Disk Reads:2, Writes:8, Blocks saved:0
.
%REM-S-END, control returned to node IMPVAX::
$
*
On 11/16/21 12:08 PM, Robert Armstrong wrote:
Short, but useful -
http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/BB-BT99V-BB_1990/03/10,7/anf10/anf10c.mem.h…
This is interesting, but I don't think it was actually implementd...
http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/BB-BT99V-BB_1990/03/10,7/anf10/anf10a.mem.h…
And the manual
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp10/TOPS10_softwareNotebooks/vol14/AA-W557A-…
Bob
--
6:52 p.m.
Peter probably remembers this much better than I do.
But back in the
80s, I was using ANF10 in Stockholm, and it was a network with more than
10 nodes. But I understood it as not everyone had a direct connection to
everyone. But maybe I misunderstood something? Otherwise I would try to
figure out how that was working. There were definitely KS machines on
there, along with some KLs, and I think one KI. :-)
It was not full mesh. ANF10 has routing with metrics like DECnet and RDH even
wrote a driver to talk over Ethernet between KL's.
ODEN at QZ 1099 KL10D external memory, SMP 3 DN87S hugin, munin, balder that had terminal
lines
Nadja at KTH 2020
Aurora at SU 2020
Filip at FOA3 1091 one dn87s filippa
Kicki at me 1077 3*KI10 2 dn87 on DL10 Jenjen Trasel
Katia at KTH 1050 1*KA10 1 dn87 on DL10 (dont-remember name)
Janus at QZ DN200 acting as X.25/X.29 GW (could speak ANF10 over X25 to remote sites...)
I don't remember the exact config but the front end worked if the host on DL10 or
DTE20 went down,
and somehow it was layed out so that hugin-munin-balder could talk over sync lines when
Oden was
down and they where kind of in the "center".
So if we could boot a simulted DNxxx node with simulated sync interfaces on it and the
DTE/DL10
is down, we might have a ANF10 router. DN200's booted over the sync line.
Kicki talked to Nadja and Munin on 19.2
Nadja talked to Hygin on 19.2
Minin talked to Filippa
Aurora talked to Balder
Janus talked to Balder and Minin
One of the cool things is that you can do "set host" without logging in, so
it looked like a "cloud" with terminal lines and a bunch of hosts you could
chose from.
The front end/dn87 was configured to what "host" to connect each line to when
the line became active, and if that host was down it picked one that could talk to you
and sent you there. ANF10 routing messages has a capabilities field, it tells what
it can do.
-p
9:19 p.m.
One of the cool things is that you can do "set
host" without logging in, so
it looked like a "cloud" with terminal lines and a bunch of hosts you could
chose from.
I noticed that, and if you do a SET HOST when you are logged in your original job
becomes detached. The remote terminal thing is being done inside the monitor without
running any program.
You're also supposed to be able to use remote devices (printers, card readers, tape
drives) as if they are local. Not sure what it takes to make that work.
Bob
9:36 p.m.
It was not full mesh. ANF10 has routing with metrics
like DECnet and RDH even
wrote a driver to talk over Ethernet between KL's.
If anyone is curious, here below is a link to the ANF-to-Ethernet code by RDH.
It contains some nice explanation too :)
http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/bb-jr93k-bb/01/10,7/mon/d8eint.mac.html
G.
10:03 p.m.
On 11/16/21 3:36 PM, G. wrote:
If anyone is curious, here below is a link to the
ANF-to-Ethernet code
by RDH.
It contains some nice explanation too :)
http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/bb-jr93k-bb/01/10,7/mon/d8eint.mac.html
And here is Johnny Eriksson's anftunnel - I believe he was doing
something similar. He is smiling today wherever he is.
http://sanyal.duckdns.org:70/SIMHPDP/Johnny-Eriksson-Stuff/anftunnel.tar
G.
--
17 Nov
17 Nov
11:53 p.m.
Three (!!) ANF10 nodes online now...
.net
[ANF10 network: connected to VENTI(20), located at VENTI(20), 3 nodes]
Node NADJA (7) Nadja Tops10 7.04 12-Nov-21
Node VENTI (20) SIMH KS10 VENTI 7.04 NET 17-Nov-21
Node TWONKY (37) SIMH KS10 TWONKY 7.04NET 15-Nov-21
Bob
16 Nov
16 Nov
6:16 p.m.
I'm pretty sure that ANF10 predates DECnet.? The 1973 third addition of
the Assembly Language Handbook (the orange book) shows the LOCATE UUO
(CALLI 62,) to change a job's logical station and the WHERE UUO (CALLI
63,)? which returns a device's physical location.
My understanding is that this was by using ANF10 or one of its ancestors.
I never heard of DECnet that long ago; not on any 36 bit or 12 bit
system I had access to (didn't have access to a PDP-11)
I /think/ ANF10 will run over Ethernet, which is how you would get
multiple nodes, maybe.
This is so cool; I have wanted to lift the ANF10 code out of Tops-10 and
put it into Tops-20 for eons.
Kudo's to you both.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 11/16/21 11:34 AM, Robert Armstrong wrote:
? Supratim and I (with some help and encouragement from Peter) have
set up an ANF10 network between the TOPS10 nodes VENTI and TWONKY.? If
you haven?t heard of it, ANF10 (short for ?A Networking Feature? ?
yes, really!) predates DECnet (I?m pretty sure, although I?m sure
there will be debate about that) and provides mostly the same
functions ? remote terminals, file transfer, etc.? ANF10 also has
remote RJEs with card readers, line printers and terminal concentrators.
.net/anf
[ANF10 network: connected to VENTI(20), located at VENTI(20), 2 nodes]
Node??? VENTI (20)??? SIMH KS10 VENTI 7.04 NET??????? 14-Nov-21
Node??? TWONKY (37)??? SIMH KS10 TWONKY 7.04NET??????? 15-Nov-21
? It?s possible to run ANF10 and DECnet both, and that?s what we?re
doing so TWONKY and VENTI are also available on HECnet.? If anybody
else has a TOPS10 system and would like to connect it would be nice to
add a few more nodes, but there is a problem.? TOPS10 supports a
maximum of two KDP/DUP lines on the KS10, and you need one for DECnet
and the other for ANF10.? That means each system can talk to at most
one other ANF10 system, which limits the network size to two nodes.??
Bummer?
? There are a few options available ?
?DEC made some DNxx PDP-11 boxes that supported multiple ANF10
connections.? We could set up one of these as a router.
?Somebody could hack TOPS10 to allow more than two DUP lines.
?Somebody could write a pyDECnet type gizmo that speaks ANF10.
And there might be others that I haven?t thought of yet.? Any ideas?
Bob
905
days inactive
906
days old
11 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
bob＠jfcl.com -
bqt＠softjar.se -
gerry77＠mail.com -
paulkoning＠comcast.net -
roll＠stupi.com -
supratim＠riseup.net -
tommytimesharing＠gmail.com