Thomas - MIM already has a guest account ... I have had fun sending Johnny smtp emails to that account. I can give you an account on MARIAH (a real VAX) if you wish, shoot me a note offline if you decide to follow up ... Regards Supratim On 4/22/20 10:49 PM, Thomas DeBellis wrote: -- Supratim Sanyal, W1XMT 39.19151 N, 77.23432 W QCOCAL::SANYAL via HECnet

Well, the more the better, so get that VMS account. If you want to, I can create an account for you on MIM as well. (But it will be tomorrow, I need to go to bed...) ? Johnny On 2020-04-23 05:12, Thomas DeBellis wrote:

Hey, I'm 5hrs from DC, where are you based Tom? -Dave On 4/22/20 11:25 PM, Thomas DeBellis wrote:

Hello! And we are neighbors. I am in Astoria Queens. Dave has an amazing collection of machines, everything imaginable. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 11:43 PM Thomas DeBellis <tommytimesharing at gmail.com> wrote: And this spot belongs to the Rebel Alliance to Restore the Republic Again

Hello! And we are neighbors. I am in Astoria Queens. Dave has an amazing collection of machines, everything imaginable.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ On 4/23/20 7:52 AM, Fred wrote: I say this every time this comes up, but when I visited, every other word out of my mouth was simply "Wow.".? I've had accounts (been a user) on many of the machines in the collection throughout my life, but never actually was *up close* to one where I could touch it without getting my hand smacked.? ;) Fred > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > On Wed, 22 Apr 2020, Gregg Levine wrote: > > And we are neighbors. I am in Astoria Queens. Dave has an amazing > collection of machines, everything imaginable.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ On 4/24/20 12:17 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: Those days are long past for me. ;) Years ago, I moved entirely into embedded systems development, where I can reasonably (and indeed, am expected to) spend a whole day optimizing out a few cycles or a few bytes. I still do my own systems and network engineering, and occasionally for others, but I don't like to make a living at it anymore. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > On 4/23/20 10:14 PM, Thomas DeBellis wrote: > > For me, not only is the miracle that Dave can resurrect these monsters > decades after they were in service, but that somehow he appears to enjoy > doing it.? Maybe it's due in part that he doesn't have a couple hundred > livid angry users making the phone glow red.

I say this every time this comes up, but when I visited, every other word out of my mouth was simply "Wow.".? I've had accounts (been a user) on many of the machines in the collection throughout my life, but never actually was *up close* to one where I could touch it without getting my hand smacked.? ;)

Hello! And we are neighbors. I am in Astoria Queens. Dave has an amazing collection of machines, everything imaginable. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 11:43 PM Thomas DeBellis <tommytimesharing at gmail.com> wrote: And this spot belongs to the Rebel Alliance to Restore the Republic Again

Tom, I can set you up with an account on SGC:: if you wish. SGC:: has many tool sets and languages if you need them. -Steve Davidson SF:iP1 > On Apr 22, 2020, at 23:43, Thomas DeBellis <tommytimesharing at gmail.com> wrote: > > ?Oh, I'm in Looooong Island, South Shore. > > I actually have relatives not far from you in PA, but I hadn't gotten around to noodging you yet for the distinct lack of 20's in your collection. I mean, you have a 4341 yet no 20? Tisk, tisk... > > Well, I'm pulling your leg a bit; a 20 is a seriously heavy lift. A KL has three purposes in life: 1) Generate Heat, 2) Suck Power, 3) Run winning code. A 2020 uses far less power, but doesn't have extended addressing, so it is stuck at Tops-20 4.1, which leaves out a lot of DECnet (and ARPAnet) stuff. Apparently, you can squeeze 5.0 in; MRC did this, but that was MRC. Tops-20 is at version 7.0 now. > > And both of them are seriously cranky beasts that needed care and feeding from trained service personnel; wire wrap and all that (yech). Remember, it's not a mainframe unless you can't fit it in your house and have to take out a second mortgage to pay for the electricity and tons (60 for a 20) of air conditioning. > > So Paul Allen had a KL based 20, which is now in the the Living Computer museum. But that cost was apparently less than a rounding error compared to what he was worth. A mere monetary blip, as it were. > >> On 4/22/20 11:28 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: >> >> Hey, I'm 5hrs from DC, where are you based Tom? >> >> -Dave >> >>> On 4/22/20 11:25 PM, Thomas DeBellis wrote: >>> For VMS, for the moment I've gone with one of Bob's machines as that is >>> on the 'local' DECnet area. Perhaps I'll get better performance >>> although Supratim is closer, milage-wise. D.C. is about a 5 hour drive >>> from here, while Bob's neck of the woods is a serious hike (Atlantic to >>> Pacific). >>> >>> On 4/22/20 11:14 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: >>>> Well, the more the better, so get that VMS account. If you want to, I >>>> can create an account for you on MIM as well. (But it will be >>>> tomorrow, I need to go to bed...) >>>> >>>> Johnny >>>> >>>> On 2020-04-23 05:12, Thomas DeBellis wrote: >>>>> Yes, but the MIM guest account is shared; I'm going to need to store >>>>> a few files (captures, control files, Etc.) >>>>> >>>>> Wow, you've kept a real VAX running from 1993? Good for you! I'll >>>>> contact you off-list. >>>>> >>>>> On 4/22/20 11:07 PM, Supratim Sanyal wrote: >>>>>> Thomas - MIM already has a guest account ... I have had fun sending >>>>>> Johnny smtp emails to that account. >>>>>> >>>>>> I can give you an account on MARIAH (a real VAX) if you wish, shoot >>>>>> me a note offline if you decide to follow up ... >>>>>> >>>>>> Regards >>>>>> >>>>>> Supratim >>>>>> >>>>>> On 4/22/20 10:49 PM, Thomas DeBellis wrote: >>>>>>> I've had my fill of FAL and DAP for the moment and have turned to >>>>>>> some other things as sort of a 'break'. The Tops-10 NFT client >>>>>>> breaks on certain file names that the 20 sends it, so there is >>>>>>> going to be some debugging to track that down. Fortunately, a very >>>>>>> patient person gave me PPN on one of their 10's. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Right now, I'm working on bringing the Tops-20 mail system a bit >>>>>>> more up to date with respect to DECnet communications. These were >>>>>>> largely put aside when full Internet connectivity happened. Still, >>>>>>> the PANDA distribution has some bit rot because I know that certain >>>>>>> Columbia changes for DECnet (to support CCnet) are not there. I >>>>>>> can't imagine that we didn't send them to MRC; that would have been >>>>>>> unthinkable. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Fortunately, I was able to remember enough to put some of them back >>>>>>> so that I got SMTP over DECnet working well, again. It had been >>>>>>> suffering from about two minute timing delays and now it's >>>>>>> instantaneous between 20's, like I remember. Oddly enough, I >>>>>>> don't remember what else ran SMTP over DECnet; I'm certain that RSX >>>>>>> and VMS could have done it. I think some VMS site might have. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> However, most non-SMTP DECnet hosts on CCnet were running Mail-11, >>>>>>> which the 20 also groks. In fact, it can convert Mail-11 addresses >>>>>>> to SMTP and route over other transports such as PUP, Chaos and >>>>>>> TCP/IP as well as DECnet. We did a lot of mail routing for CCnet >>>>>>> to the Internet on CU20B, back in the day. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Unfortunately, there is some bit rot in some of the Tops-20 Mail-11 >>>>>>> code, so I've got some tinkering to do. Does anyone have a VMS or >>>>>>> RSX system that they'd care to give me a guest account on? It >>>>>>> doesn't need any special capabilities; I'm just going to be sending >>>>>>> mail and looking a few raw headers over. >>>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> Supratim Sanyal, W1XMT >>>>>> 39.19151 N, 77.23432 W >>>>>> QCOCAL::SANYAL via HECnet

------------------------------------------------------------------------ On 4/23/20 12:20 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: Ahhh, New Yawwwk. You should head out this way at some point. You sir are misinformed. There are three KS10s here. Indeed. We're no strangers to cranky around here. ;) Yep. -Dave

------------------------------------------------------------------------ On 4/23/20 6:37 PM, Peter Lothberg wrote: MIT-MC is a KL10A, with a home-built 1822 interface, named the KL-UGE. And ITS had IP/NCP beforeIP/TCP. The DEC20 on Arpanet in Marlboro was a 2060/2065 with an AN20. -P

Oh how quickly people forget. :-) The correct quote is: If your computer don't have 36 bits, you are not playing with a full DEC. The "mil-spec" VT100 was probably the RT100: https://vt100.net/docs/tp83/chapter8.html (oh how I hate the "everything should be using https"...) ? Johnny On 2020-04-24 00:15, Thomas DeBellis wrote:

One of the strangest crypto / security papers I ever read was from famous cryptologists in England, who designed a font that dramatically cuts emissions from a video monitor. You could pretty much get TEMPEST compliance simply by downloading that font and using it for your text instead of the stock font. The magic, as I recall, was soft edges, so the square waveforms typical of a text video signal were smoothed. paul

Found it yesterday. https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/nato-tempest.pdf paul

Actually the fun mil-spec VT100 was the Tempest VT100.? Metal case to avoid radiating information into the air and a metal cased VT100 keyboard. Dropped that in my lap only ONCE at the FBI facility I was Field Service for. Ugh. bill On 4/23/20 7:21 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > Oh how quickly people forget. :-) > > The correct quote is: > If your computer don't have 36 bits, you are not playing with a full > DEC. > > The "mil-spec" VT100 was probably the RT100: > https://vt100.net/docs/tp83/chapter8.html (oh how I hate the > "everything should be using https"...) > > ? Johnny > > On 2020-04-24 00:15, Thomas DeBellis wrote: >> Sir, I stand *corrected* and do humbly admit my errors.? I didn't >> see anything Orange on the mac.io website, so I just assumed...? I >> didn't go to the Facebook site because I won't have a thing to do >> with their policies, stated or covert. >> >> A memory surfaced and I realized that I was also completely wrong >> about the 2020's networking capabilities, too.? In 1979, DEC's >> Federal Systems group had a 2020 on the ARPAnet and I used it to >> send email to some of my pals at MIT LCS when I working 2nd and 3rd >> shift.? So the hardware existed to communicate with an IMP and MIT >> used it implement TCP/IP on ITS.? This is simulated by the KLH10 >> 2020 implementation and that's how ITS communicates today. >> >> Federal Systems was a real hike from manufacturing in Marlboro where >> I used to hang out; three buildings away.? It was also notable for >> having mil-spec VT100's.? Instead of plastic, they were made out of >> very thick metal, I think maybe machined aluminum.? The cables where >> sheathed in metal and the connectors were substantially enlarged and >> strengthened.? The display glass also had a dense metal screen in >> front of it. They really looked like they could withstand a hand >> grenade and weighed a ton... Well that's what I thought at the time, >> another alternative that didn't occur to me until decades later was >> that all this just could have been RF shielding. >> >> I had left DEC and was at Columbia before the Internet role out, so >> I don't know whether Tops-20 4.1, the last official release for the >> 2020, supported TCP/IP.? I just can't remember, darn it...? I know >> that Tops-20 5.0 supported TCP/IP AND that MRC was able to port 5.0 >> to the 2020.? LingLing was on the Internet from time to time.? That >> must have been some hack; by late version 3, it was seen that the >> monitor was running out of address space and when the hardware folks >> suggested eliminating the symbol table, the monitor folks flipped as >> debugging would have been effectively hatcheted. >> >> The solution for 4.1 was one of the finest hacks I have ever heard >> of; while the 2020 doesn't support extended addressing, it does >> support multiple address spaces, so what they did was move all the >> symbols into a separate address space.? This was called 'hiding' >> symbols and I thought it was great because it made them harder to >> smash.? However, all of that went out the window with 5.0, which >> fully supported extended addressing. >> >> DEC completely walked away from the 2020 and symbol hiding for the >> Tops-20 5.0 monitor.? In fact, I remember an SPR response scolding >> an acquaintance of mine for trying to turn symbol hiding back on in >> 5.0.? Basically, it was a corporate, 'Fuggetaboutit'.? Pity; for >> user programs, Tenex and Tops-20 had something called IDDT >> (Invisible DDT) which kept the symbols in a completely different >> process space, effectively making them impossible to smash, no >> matter how sick your program got. Symbol hiding was cool.? Not that >> I'm going to try figure out how to turn it back on... >> >> You know, I have been out to Pittsburgh a few times.? In the 1980's, >> Columbia flew me out there so that I could learn about CMU's >> modifications to LPTSPL to support the nearly entirely awesome Xerox >> 9700.? I was out there again about a year ago for a conference.? >> Still, that's a real hike...? My relatives live in near >> Elizabethtown, not quite spitting distance from three mile island >> (!!), so that's another four hours to New Kensington after they're >> done with me.? Ouch...? Oh well, never say 'never'... >> >> That's some pretty good swag you have by the way; minor suggestion, >> in addition to the anti-VAXer T-shirt, you might want to have >> another one that says the somewhat subtle, "If it doesn't have 36 >> Bits, it isn't a Digital computer".? I did know some people who were >> so anti-VAX that they positively would froth at the mouth.? I could >> understand the frothing, given what happened, but still, one prefers >> not wear one's froth on their sleeve.? It would have been a lot >> better for everybody had there been more and better communication >> and less NIH. >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> >>> On 4/23/20 12:20 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> >>>> On 4/22/20 11:42 PM, Thomas DeBellis wrote: >>>> >>>> Oh, I'm in Looooong Island, South Shore. >>> ?? Ahhh, New Yawwwk.? You should head out this way at some point. >>> >>>> I actually have relatives not far from you in PA, but I hadn't gotten >>>> around to noodging you yet for the distinct lack of 20's in your >>>> collection.? I mean, you have a 4341 yet no 20?? Tisk, tisk... >>> ?? You sir are misinformed.? There are three KS10s here. >>> >>>> Well, I'm pulling your leg a bit; a 20 is a seriously heavy lift.? >>>> A KL >>>> has three purposes in life: 1) Generate Heat, 2) Suck Power, 3) Run >>>> winning code.? A 2020 uses far less power, but doesn't have extended >>>> addressing, so it is stuck at Tops-20 4.1, which leaves out a lot of >>>> DECnet (and ARPAnet) stuff.? Apparently, you can squeeze 5.0 in; >>>> MRC did >>>> this, but that was MRC.? Tops-20 is at version 7.0 now. >>> ?? Indeed. >>> >>>> And both of them are seriously cranky beasts that needed care and >>>> feeding from trained service personnel; wire wrap and all that >>>> (yech). >>>> Remember, it's not a mainframe unless you can't fit it in your >>>> house and >>>> have to take out a second mortgage to pay for the electricity and >>>> tons >>>> (60 for a 20) of air conditioning. >>> ?? We're no strangers to cranky around here. ;) >>> >>>> So Paul Allen had a KL based 20, which is now in the the Living >>>> Computer >>>> museum.? But that cost was apparently less than a rounding error >>>> compared to what he was worth.? A mere monetary blip, as it were. >>> ?? Yep. >>> >>> ?????????? -Dave >>> > >

Sir, I stand *corrected* and do humbly admit my errors.? I didn't see anything Orange on the mac.io website, so I just assumed...? I didn't go to the Facebook site because I won't have a thing to do with their policies, stated or covert.

A memory surfaced and I realized that I was also completely wrong about the 2020's networking capabilities, too.? In 1979, DEC's Federal Systems group had a 2020 on the ARPAnet and I used it to send email to some of my pals at MIT LCS when I working 2nd and 3rd shift.? So the hardware existed to communicate with an IMP and MIT used it implement TCP/IP on ITS.? This is simulated by the KLH10 2020 implementation and that's how ITS communicates today.

Federal Systems was a real hike from manufacturing in Marlboro where I used to hang out; three buildings away.? It was also notable for having mil-spec VT100's.? Instead of plastic, they were made out of very thick metal, I think maybe machined aluminum.? The cables where sheathed in metal and the connectors were substantially enlarged and strengthened.? The display glass also had a dense metal screen in front of it.? They really looked like they could withstand a hand grenade and weighed a ton...? Well that's what I thought at the time, another alternative that didn't occur to me until decades later was that all this just could have been RF shielding.

The solution for 4.1 was one of the finest hacks I have ever heard of; while the 2020 doesn't support extended addressing, it does support multiple address spaces, so what they did was move all the symbols into a separate address space.? This was called 'hiding' symbols and I thought it was great because it made them harder to smash.? However, all of that went out the window with 5.0, which fully supported extended addressing.

You know, I have been out to Pittsburgh a few times.? In the 1980's, Columbia flew me out there so that I could learn about CMU's modifications to LPTSPL to support the nearly entirely awesome Xerox 9700.? I was out there again about a year ago for a conference.? Still, that's a real hike...? My relatives live in near Elizabethtown, not quite spitting distance from three mile island (!!), so that's another four hours to New Kensington after they're done with me.? Ouch...? Oh well, never say 'never'...

That's some pretty good swag you have by the way; minor suggestion, in addition to the anti-VAXer T-shirt, you might want to have another one that says the somewhat subtle, "If it doesn't have 36 Bits, it isn't a Digital computer".? I did know some people who were so anti-VAX that they positively would froth at the mouth.? I could understand the frothing, given what happened, but still, one prefers not wear one's froth on their sleeve.? It would have been a lot better for everybody had there been more and better communication and less NIH.

You know, I have been racking my brains from time to time and I can't remember a thing about the ADP modifications to the 2020. So, the 2020 came with a maximum of 512K words, 2**9.? An addition bit would have brought it up to a full megaword, 2**10, which is quite reasonable for the target audience (some kind of installation that didn't hold stock in the local power utility). I guess there may have been modifications to the 2020 build of the monitor to allow for the extra bit.? I don't know if the Unibus devices could do DMA into the full address space. Did you pick up any software with these little jewels?? The monitor changes might be interesting. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > On 4/24/20 12:12 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: > Nice! > > One of our 2020s is in the brown color scheme. You know what that > means: ADP, and one more address bit. >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> On 4/23/20 6:15 PM, Thomas DeBellis wrote: >> >> The solution for 4.1 was one of the finest hacks I have ever heard of; >> while the 2020 doesn't support extended addressing, it does support >> multiple address spaces, so what they did was move all the symbols into >> a separate address space.? This was called 'hiding' symbols and I >> thought it was great because it made them harder to smash.? However, all >> of that went out the window with 5.0, which fully supported extended >> addressing.

You know, I have been racking my brains from time to time and I can't remember a thing about the ADP modifications to the 2020.

Did you pick up any software with these little jewels?? The monitor changes might be interesting.

On 2020-04-23 04:49, Thomas DeBellis wrote: Just log in to Mim.Update.UU.SE (MIM::). There is a guest account, with password guest. That should do it, I think. With that said, RSX definitely do not speak SMTP over DECnet. And we should also actually go into some detail about how to speak MAIL-11. Even VMS cheats... ? Johnny