-----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Johnny Billquist Sent: Friday, December 04, 2009 6:45 AM To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Others DECnets Hi. Ian McLaughlin wrote: Here's where I read about hidden areas: http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/271 Hmm. Interesting article, although slightly wrong or imprecise perhaps. What they refer to as "named objects" are actually numbered objects. Named objects are the ones which aren't predefined in any way, and are for random program communications. For instance, MAIL is never refered to by a name, but instead by it's number, which is 27. All "well known services" have specific numbers assigned to them. Yes and no. It's certainly true that well known services have object numbers assigned to them (DEC ones are in the range 1-127, and 128-255 are reserved for customer use). However, the object identifier in the connect message can be either a number or a name. So while normal practice would be to connect to mail by connecting to object 27, it's also valid to connect to object "MAIL". paul