Yes. Been there, too. At the end of the Internet. Here be lions. From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of Keith Halewood Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2021 4:13 PM To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: RE: [HECnet] DECnet/E programming manual / examples Somewhat chilling to read "no known copies online" for DECnet/E V4.0 Network Programming in BASIC-PLUS Keith From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Wilm Boerhout Sent: 16 December 2021 13:04 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE <mailto:hecnet at Update.UU.SE> Subject: [HECnet] DECnet/E programming manual / examples Hi folks, I need to port a simple DECnet task-to-task program to RSTS/E V10.1, DECnet/E V4.1 Do any of you PDP-11 buffs have a DECnet/E programming manual. I know bitsavers doesn't. A small example in Fortran, Basic, Basic-Plus will also do. The functionality, expressed in VMS DCL, is as follows: $ open /read /write NETCHN REMOTE::"150=" $ write NETCHN "''f$trnlnm(SYS$NODE)'" $ read NETCHN time $ close NETCHN Thanks, Wilm

This is excellent news! There is no great rush on my part, just one of the projects on my list. I'm looking forward to the scans! Thanks, Wilm -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of Dave McGuire Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2021 2:45 AM To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] DECnet/E programming manual / examples We have an original hardcopy of this manual at the museum. I should be able to get it scanned soon. Until then, I will take the manuals home (I'm at the museum now) and can look things up for people or photograph short sections as needed. -Dave On 12/16/21 10:13 AM, Keith Halewood wrote: -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

Thanks Paul! I let you know if and when it works. Wilm From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of Paul Koning Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2021 4:43 PM To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] DECnet/E programming manual / examples On Dec 16, 2021, at 8:03 AM, Wilm Boerhout <wboerhout at gmail.com <mailto:wboerhout at gmail.com> > wrote: Hi folks, I need to port a simple DECnet task-to-task program to RSTS/E V10.1, DECnet/E V4.1 Do any of you PDP-11 buffs have a DECnet/E programming manual. I know bitsavers doesn't. A small example in Fortran, Basic, Basic-Plus will also do. The functionality, expressed in VMS DCL, is as follows: $ open /read /write NETCHN REMOTE::?150=? $ write NETCHN ???f$trnlnm(SYS$NODE)?? $ read NETCHN time $ close NETCHN Thanks, Wilm The simplest way would be to use the "high level interface" library (DNEHLL), which is callable from BP2 and Fortran. There's also a simpler interface called the "concise Cobol interface" which I suspect is useable from other languages too. They are documented in the manual, but that brings us back to the previous question... :-( I looked through my sources for sample code that uses these, have not found any really short examples. The attached Fortran program uses the library, it offers access to each of the functions interactively. The thing to remember with RSTS is that, unlike most or all of the others, its DECnet data service is a segment service rather than a message service. In other words, the OS makes the application worry about breaking application messages into NSP segments, and the beginning-of-message and end-of-message flags are supplied by the application. It's possible to do bad things that won't bother other RSTS network programs but confused other operating systems, for example by sending messages without ever setting EOM. I've also seen some buggy programs that send the first segment without BOM, which probably won't break stuff but certainly is not correct. When dealing with short messages as in your example, you'd just set BOM and EOM both, and expect EOM in the incoming message. paul

Yes. Addressing by MAC-address. Doable, but not preferable. From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of Keith Halewood Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2021 4:52 PM To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: RE: [HECnet] DECnet/E programming manual / examples There is also some information in the RSTS/E programming manual (http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/rsts/V09/6_System_Programming/AA-EZ0…) about setting up message handling (generic local and also decnet/e) but as Paul has said, it is very low level and as far away from a transparent task= type setup as is possible to be. Keith From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Wilm Boerhout Sent: 16 December 2021 15:46 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE <mailto:hecnet at Update.UU.SE> Subject: RE: [HECnet] DECnet/E programming manual / examples Thanks Paul! I let you know if and when it works. Wilm From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> > On Behalf Of Paul Koning Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2021 4:43 PM To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE <mailto:hecnet at Update.UU.SE> Subject: Re: [HECnet] DECnet/E programming manual / examples On Dec 16, 2021, at 8:03 AM, Wilm Boerhout <wboerhout at gmail.com <mailto:wboerhout at gmail.com> > wrote: Hi folks, I need to port a simple DECnet task-to-task program to RSTS/E V10.1, DECnet/E V4.1 Do any of you PDP-11 buffs have a DECnet/E programming manual. I know bitsavers doesn't. A small example in Fortran, Basic, Basic-Plus will also do. The functionality, expressed in VMS DCL, is as follows: $ open /read /write NETCHN REMOTE::?150=? $ write NETCHN ???f$trnlnm(SYS$NODE)?? $ read NETCHN time $ close NETCHN Thanks, Wilm The simplest way would be to use the "high level interface" library (DNEHLL), which is callable from BP2 and Fortran. There's also a simpler interface called the "concise Cobol interface" which I suspect is useable from other languages too. They are documented in the manual, but that brings us back to the previous question... :-( I looked through my sources for sample code that uses these, have not found any really short examples. The attached Fortran program uses the library, it offers access to each of the functions interactively. The thing to remember with RSTS is that, unlike most or all of the others, its DECnet data service is a segment service rather than a message service. In other words, the OS makes the application worry about breaking application messages into NSP segments, and the beginning-of-message and end-of-message flags are supplied by the application. It's possible to do bad things that won't bother other RSTS network programs but confused other operating systems, for example by sending messages without ever setting EOM. I've also seen some buggy programs that send the first segment without BOM, which probably won't break stuff but certainly is not correct. When dealing with short messages as in your example, you'd just set BOM and EOM both, and expect EOM in the incoming message. paul

Macro! Here be lions, indeed! -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of Paul Koning Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2021 6:51 PM To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] DECnet/E programming manual / examples <Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org> wrote: (http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/rsts/V09/6_System_Programming/AA-EZ0 9A-TC_Prog_RSTS_E_V9.4_Programming_Manual_Jun87.pdf) about setting up message handling (generic local and also decnet/e) but as Paul has said, it is very low level and as far away from a transparent task= type setup as is possible to be. That's the standard Basic-PLUS API, but while that manual mentions in passing that other function codes of the send/receive system call are used with DECnet, it does not spell out what those function codes are or how to use them. There's nothing like the transparent task access that VMS has. The "high level" subroutine library is not anywhere near that high level... but it's about the most convenient interface you'll find. Many of the DEC supplied DECnet/E utilities use that library, but unfortunately all of them are fairly long. Hm... "mirror" is an assembly language program, it uses a set of macros that correspond 1:1 with the DNEHLL library functions. It's the receiving end of a connection rather than the sending end but it might still be somewhat useful, at least it's fairly short. paul