Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-10-09 17:57, John Forecast wrote:


On Oct 9, 2015, at 11:01 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:




On Oct 9, 2015, at 9:38 AM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:


...

Phase II use NSP v3.1 so that’s probably another indication that it’s a 
Phase I product.


John, maybe you can clear some things up for me.
Looking at the Wikipedia article about DECnet, it claims that phase I was 
simply between two nodes. No larger than that. And in addition was RSX-11 only. 
And it was 1974.


It wouldn't be at all surprising if the information about Phase I were 
inaccurate given its undocumented status.


I tend to agree with Paul here. I’m also pretty sure that it was 
RSX-11D only as well. The
systems I used were moved into a newly built machine room sometime 
around Aug-Sep
1976 and the was when we installed DECnet. As to the limit of two nodes 
I have no
direct knowledge but in mid-1977, Volvo were using a DV-11 in their 
Phase I network.
An 8-line multiplexor which took up 9 backplane slots would seem to be 
overkill for a
2 node network.


Yes, two nodes seems like a weird limitation, which don't really make sense.


Phase II says multiple implementations on different systems, and a max of 32 
nodes. Also supposedly added task-to-task programming interfaces. And 
supposedly 1975.



Phase I definitely had task-to-task interfaces along with TLK/LSN and 
file transfer (PLE
seems to ring a bell as the NFT equivalent). The timeframe here seems 
to be off. I moved
to the US in Jan 1977 to be the project leader for DECnet-11D/IAS. The 
original plan
called for a 9-month development cycle but it ended up more like 18+ 
months, so mid-1978
would be more accurate.


File transfer was not implemented in RTS-8. I would suspect not 
feasible, or else not useful or something. TLK/LSN and task to task 
communication is all the manual mentions. I'll try and find any other 
sources for any dates.


Johnny

___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-10-08 05:42, John Forecast wrote:


On Oct 7, 2015, at 7:17 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:


On 2015-10-07 21:50, John Forecast wrote:


On Oct 7, 2015, at 1:16 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:


I have DECNET-8. It's not for OS/8 but for RTS-8. But yes, it is phase II. I 
have never tried it, though. So I don't know how/if it actually works, and I 
don't have any phase II or phase III nodes to test against.


Yes, you’re right, it was RTS-8. Looking at the date on the DECNET-8 
SPD (May 1977) seems
to imply that it was a Phase I product. Around that time we were just 
putting together the
system-level architecture of DECnet-11M/11D/IAS and it would be another 
year before
they would ship (SPD says June 1978).


I have always just assumed it was phase II, but now I sat down and tried 
reading through the code. And I'm not sure anymore.

It's clearly called V1A (some modules are at V1C) of DECNET/8, but the problem 
is that I can't find any clear mention of which phase it is anywhere.
What I can find is that it claims to implement NSP SPEC LEVEL 2.2. Not sure 
what that is worth. The TLK program also mention adding PDP11 compatibility, so 
it would definitely appear that it worked, and could communicate with PDP-11 
systems.


Phase II use NSP v3.1 so that’s probably another indication that it’s a 
Phase I product.


John, maybe you can clear some things up for me.
Looking at the Wikipedia article about DECnet, it claims that phase I 
was simply between two nodes. No larger than that. And in addition was 
RSX-11 only. And it was 1974.


Phase II says multiple implementations on different systems, and a max 
of 32 nodes. Also supposedly added task-to-task programming interfaces. 
And supposedly 1975.



Now, looking at the DECNET/8 documentation, there is some discrepancy here.
DECNET/8 supports up to 127 nodes. It only have point-to-point links, 
but it clearly have some idea of dealing with several hops to reach the 
destination. It also obviously have task-to-task programming interfaces, 
which looks very similar to what I know from phase IV.


Now, I'm happy to believe that Wikipedia is just plain wrong, but it 
would be interesting to hear if you can provide any more details to what 
phase I and phase II differed on, and where DECNET/8 would fit based on 
that.


Johnny

___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Paul Koning]

> On Oct 9, 2015, at 9:38 AM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> 
>>> ...
>>  Phase II use NSP v3.1 so that’s probably another indication that it’s a 
>> Phase I product.
> 
> John, maybe you can clear some things up for me.
> Looking at the Wikipedia article about DECnet, it claims that phase I was 
> simply between two nodes. No larger than that. And in addition was RSX-11 
> only. And it was 1974.

It wouldn't be at all surprising if the information about Phase I were 
inaccurate given its undocumented status.

> Phase II says multiple implementations on different systems, and a max of 32 
> nodes. Also supposedly added task-to-task programming interfaces. And 
> supposedly 1975.
> 
> 
> Now, looking at the DECNET/8 documentation, there is some discrepancy here.
> DECNET/8 supports up to 127 nodes. It only have point-to-point links, but it 
> clearly have some idea of dealing with several hops to reach the destination. 
> It also obviously have task-to-task programming interfaces, which looks very 
> similar to what I know from phase IV.
> 
> Now, I'm happy to believe that Wikipedia is just plain wrong, but it would be 
> interesting to hear if you can provide any more details to what phase I and 
> phase II differed on, and where DECNET/8 would fit based on that.

I looked at the document you sent.  While it has some hints about the protocol 
in chapter 6, it doesn't come close to telling us what's necessary to build a 
compatible implementation.  DDCMP might be compatible; the bits of packet 
layout given on page 6-4 seem to match those of the later DDCMP specs.

NSP, on the other hand, clearly is not compatible.  Again, there are only hints 
of packet layouts -- only some of those are shown and their semantics not 
described.   It has an optional routing header just as Phase II does, but 
encoded differently.  And the message type field (MSGFLG, first byte of the NSP 
message header proper) looks somewhat like that of later versions of NSP but 
the encoding is substantially different.   The Connect message looks vaguely 
like a later Connect Initiate, but the details are quite different.  Based on 
what little I can see, the statement in the Phase II spec that Phase I was 
incompatible (implying "it's not feasible for a Phase II node to interoperate 
with a Phase I node") is indeed accurate.

The normal case of Phase II was that it allowed communication only between 
adjacent nodes.  A given node could have multiple interfaces, presumably 
connected to different neighbors, and it would use the destination address of a 
packet to choose the correct interface on which to communicate.  The same 
would, I assume, apply to Phase I.

Phase II had an optional routing header for something called "intercept" 
operation.  The DECnet/8 document describes the same sort of thing though the 
encoding is different.  I can't tell if DECnet/8 could actually supply routing 
headers; it does say clearly that it would not act on them.  Similarly, most 
Phase II implementations didn't handle routing headers either (would neither 
generate nor accept them).  The Phase II spec is not all that clear on how they 
are supposed to be generated or used, in fact.  I vaguely remember that TOPS-10 
(or -20?) used them, with the front end processor acting as the forwarding node 
and the main CPU as endpoint. So communication would be two hops: PDP-10 to 
front end to other node.  While theoretically there might be more hops, in 
practice that didn't happen.  For one thing, Phase II NSP doesn't appreciate 
lost packets.

In Phase III all that changed, with a real routing protocol, clearly documented 
routing operation, and an NSP that would do retransmission to handle lost 
datagrams.

paul

___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Paul Koning]

> On Oct 7, 2015, at 11:42 PM, John Forecast  wrote:
> 
> On Oct 7, 2015, at 7:17 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> 
>> ...
>> 
>   Phase II use NSP v3.1 so that’s probably another indication that it’s a 
> Phase I product.

That would be an interesting surprise.  The history I have seen says that Phase 
I was RSX only.

It also appears that Phase I is undocumented, and that it isn't compatible 
(can't be made to interoperate) with Phase II.

paul


___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[John Forecast]

On Oct 8, 2015, at 9:57 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:

> 
>> On Oct 7, 2015, at 11:42 PM, John Forecast  wrote:
>> 
>> On Oct 7, 2015, at 7:17 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
>> 
>>> ...
>>> 
>>  Phase II use NSP v3.1 so that’s probably another indication that it’s a 
>> Phase I product.
> 
> That would be an interesting surprise.  The history I have seen says that 
> Phase I was RSX only.
> 
> It also appears that Phase I is undocumented, and that it isn't compatible 
> (can't be made to interoperate) with Phase II.
> 
Before coming to the US, I worked at a customer site in Sweden which 
had 2 11/40s
running RSX-11D and DECnet Phase I ( I think hey had DU-11s 
interfaces). For a first
version it was actually pretty stable.The intention was to run a 
master/warm standby
system - I don’t know how well it worked since I left before the system 
went on-line.

The only documentation I saw was the end-user docs; installation guide, 
programming guide
etc. I suspect that there were only a small number of Phase I 
installations (I do know that
Volvo in Gothenburg was one) - I submitted an SPR (Software Problem 
Report) while in
Sweden and then proceeded to answer it once I got to the US!

John.

___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Paul Koning]

> On Oct 8, 2015, at 10:32 AM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> 
> On 2015-10-08 15:57, Paul Koning wrote:
>> 
>>> On Oct 7, 2015, at 11:42 PM, John Forecast  wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Oct 7, 2015, at 7:17 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
>>> 
 ...
 
>>> Phase II use NSP v3.1 so that’s probably another indication that it’s a 
>>> Phase I product.
>> 
>> That would be an interesting surprise.  The history I have seen says that 
>> Phase I was RSX only.
>> 
>> It also appears that Phase I is undocumented, and that it isn't compatible 
>> (can't be made to interoperate) with Phase II.
> 
> Well, I have some documentation about the DECNET/8 implementation, as well as 
> the sources. Want to implement it? :-)

Maybe.  At the very least it would be interesting to reverse-engineer a basic 
protocol spec.  While the Phase III and IV specs are quite complete, and many 
Phase V specs can also be found (with effort), the Phase II specs omit some 
details, and Phase I specs have never been published as far as anyone can tell.

(What's missing from the Phase II specs is clear documentation of how 
"intercept" mode works, which is the primitive routing machinery Phase II 
provides.  I believe it's there for the benefit of PDP-10 systems with 
front-end processors, but I'm not sure about that.

> It talks DDCMP, and don't seem to be very complex. I can also see some 
> similarities with never versions of DECnet, that I'm a bit more familiar 
> with. But I haven't taken any deeper dives into it.
> 
> Attaching the documentation anyway...

Thanks!

paul

___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-10-07 21:50, John Forecast wrote:


On Oct 7, 2015, at 1:16 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:


On 2015-10-07 18:43, John Forecast wrote:


On Oct 7, 2015, at 9:56 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:




...
DECNET is available under RSX-11M and RSTS/E on PDP-11s, Tops-10 and TOPS-20
on PDP-10s, and under VMS (and possibly Ultrix, I don't remember for certain)
on VAXen, and on VMS follow-on systems.  It is as far as possible agnostic
about what kind of system it was running on or connecting to.


DECnet/Ultrix, yes.  There is also a limited DECnet for RT-11, and for DOS.  
And VAXELAN.  And possibly IAS, I don't remember that one for sure.


Both IAS and RSX-11D (essentially the same code) were Phase II only. 
There was also a
Phase II implementation for OS/8 but I seem to remember it being 
cancelled fairly early
in the Phase II schedule.


I thought IAS and -11D made it to phase III, but I can't find any evidence 
either way now that I'm looking.


I worked on the 2.0 release and I know there was a 2.1 bug fix update 
but I don’t remember
any phase III implementation.


You might well be right. I tried searching for SPDs for DECnet/IAS and 
only found the 2.0 release that way. And the 2.0 release was for phase 
II. IAS itself got to at least V3.5 release in 1992. Surprised that 
DECnet was never updated, but like I said, can't find anything.



I have DECNET-8. It's not for OS/8 but for RTS-8. But yes, it is phase II. I 
have never tried it, though. So I don't know how/if it actually works, and I 
don't have any phase II or phase III nodes to test against.


Yes, you’re right, it was RTS-8. Looking at the date on the DECNET-8 
SPD (May 1977) seems
to imply that it was a Phase I product. Around that time we were just 
putting together the
system-level architecture of DECnet-11M/11D/IAS and it would be another 
year before
they would ship (SPD says June 1978).


I have always just assumed it was phase II, but now I sat down and tried 
reading through the code. And I'm not sure anymore.


It's clearly called V1A (some modules are at V1C) of DECNET/8, but the 
problem is that I can't find any clear mention of which phase it is 
anywhere.
What I can find is that it claims to implement NSP SPEC LEVEL 2.2. Not 
sure what that is worth. The TLK program also mention adding PDP11 
compatibility, so it would definitely appear that it worked, and could 
communicate with PDP-11 systems.


It's also clearly dated early 1977.

Johnny

--
Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Jacob Goense]

On 2015-10-07 17:22, Johnny Billquist wrote:

I believe there was also DECnet for SunOS, and I know there was DECnet
for Symbolics Lisp machines. And people have implemented DECnet for
Linux, and I'm sure there are other examples out there as well...


According to its HELP.TXT even Mills' fuzzballs once waded through
DECnet swamps. Unfortunately I have never been able to locate the
corresponding NSP.* files to actually build such a DECnet gateway.

The NSFnet Phase I backbone was actually TCP/IP running over DDCMP,
DEC was everywhere.

___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[John Forecast]

On Oct 7, 2015, at 7:17 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:

> On 2015-10-07 21:50, John Forecast wrote:
>> 
>> On Oct 7, 2015, at 1:16 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2015-10-07 18:43, John Forecast wrote:
 
 On Oct 7, 2015, at 9:56 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:
 
> 
>> ...
>> DECNET is available under RSX-11M and RSTS/E on PDP-11s, Tops-10 and 
>> TOPS-20
>> on PDP-10s, and under VMS (and possibly Ultrix, I don't remember for 
>> certain)
>> on VAXen, and on VMS follow-on systems.  It is as far as possible 
>> agnostic
>> about what kind of system it was running on or connecting to.
> 
> DECnet/Ultrix, yes.  There is also a limited DECnet for RT-11, and for 
> DOS.  And VAXELAN.  And possibly IAS, I don't remember that one for sure.
> 
Both IAS and RSX-11D (essentially the same code) were Phase II only. 
 There was also a
Phase II implementation for OS/8 but I seem to remember it being 
 cancelled fairly early
in the Phase II schedule.
>>> 
>>> I thought IAS and -11D made it to phase III, but I can't find any evidence 
>>> either way now that I'm looking.
>>> 
>>  I worked on the 2.0 release and I know there was a 2.1 bug fix update 
>> but I don’t remember
>>  any phase III implementation.
> 
> You might well be right. I tried searching for SPDs for DECnet/IAS and only 
> found the 2.0 release that way. And the 2.0 release was for phase II. IAS 
> itself got to at least V3.5 release in 1992. Surprised that DECnet was never 
> updated, but like I said, can't find anything.
> 
>>> I have DECNET-8. It's not for OS/8 but for RTS-8. But yes, it is phase II. 
>>> I have never tried it, though. So I don't know how/if it actually works, 
>>> and I don't have any phase II or phase III nodes to test against.
>>> 
>>  Yes, you’re right, it was RTS-8. Looking at the date on the DECNET-8 
>> SPD (May 1977) seems
>>  to imply that it was a Phase I product. Around that time we were just 
>> putting together the
>>  system-level architecture of DECnet-11M/11D/IAS and it would be another 
>> year before
>>  they would ship (SPD says June 1978).
> 
> I have always just assumed it was phase II, but now I sat down and tried 
> reading through the code. And I'm not sure anymore.
> 
> It's clearly called V1A (some modules are at V1C) of DECNET/8, but the 
> problem is that I can't find any clear mention of which phase it is anywhere.
> What I can find is that it claims to implement NSP SPEC LEVEL 2.2. Not sure 
> what that is worth. The TLK program also mention adding PDP11 compatibility, 
> so it would definitely appear that it worked, and could communicate with 
> PDP-11 systems.
> 
Phase II use NSP v3.1 so that’s probably another indication that it’s a 
Phase I product.

> It's also clearly dated early 1977.
> 
>   Johnny
> 
> -- 
> Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
>  ||  on a psychedelic trip
> email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
> pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
> ___
> Simh mailing list
> Simh@trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[John Forecast]

On Oct 7, 2015, at 1:16 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:

> On 2015-10-07 18:43, John Forecast wrote:
>> 
>> On Oct 7, 2015, at 9:56 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:
>> 
>>> 
 ...
 DECNET is available under RSX-11M and RSTS/E on PDP-11s, Tops-10 and 
 TOPS-20
 on PDP-10s, and under VMS (and possibly Ultrix, I don't remember for 
 certain)
 on VAXen, and on VMS follow-on systems.  It is as far as possible agnostic
 about what kind of system it was running on or connecting to.
>>> 
>>> DECnet/Ultrix, yes.  There is also a limited DECnet for RT-11, and for DOS. 
>>>  And VAXELAN.  And possibly IAS, I don't remember that one for sure.
>>> 
>>  Both IAS and RSX-11D (essentially the same code) were Phase II only. 
>> There was also a
>>  Phase II implementation for OS/8 but I seem to remember it being 
>> cancelled fairly early
>>  in the Phase II schedule.
> 
> I thought IAS and -11D made it to phase III, but I can't find any evidence 
> either way now that I'm looking.
> 
I worked on the 2.0 release and I know there was a 2.1 bug fix update 
but I don’t remember
any phase III implementation.

> I have DECNET-8. It's not for OS/8 but for RTS-8. But yes, it is phase II. I 
> have never tried it, though. So I don't know how/if it actually works, and I 
> don't have any phase II or phase III nodes to test against.
> 
Yes, you’re right, it was RTS-8. Looking at the date on the DECNET-8 
SPD (May 1977) seems
to imply that it was a Phase I product. Around that time we were just 
putting together the
system-level architecture of DECnet-11M/11D/IAS and it would be another 
year before
they would ship (SPD says June 1978).

John.

>   Johnny
> 
> ___
> Simh mailing list
> Simh@trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Jordi Guillaumes i Pons]

El 7 oct 2015, a les 15:56, Paul Koning  va escriure:
> 
>> On Oct 6, 2015, at 7:13 PM, Rich Alderson  
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> From: Zachary Kline 
>>> Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2015 09:42:36 -0700
>> 
>>> as far as DecNet goes, am I correct in assuming that it's mostly useful for
>>> connecting clusters? I'm learning VMS almost entirely on my own, never 
>>> having
>>> been exposed to it during its heyday.
>> 
>> DECNET predates VMS.
> 
> Indeed, by several generations.
> 
>> ...
>> DECNET is available under RSX-11M and RSTS/E on PDP-11s, Tops-10 and TOPS-20
>> on PDP-10s, and under VMS (and possibly Ultrix, I don't remember for certain)
>> on VAXen, and on VMS follow-on systems.  It is as far as possible agnostic
>> about what kind of system it was running on or connecting to.
> 
> DECnet/Ultrix, yes.  There is also a limited DECnet for RT-11, and for DOS.  
> And VAXELAN.  And possibly IAS, I don't remember that one for sure.

Also for Windows NT/2000 as part of Pathworks-32. 

> 
>paul
> 
> ___
> Simh mailing list
> Simh@trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Armistead, Jason BIS]

Rich Alderson wrote:

>DECNET is available under RSX-11M and RSTS/E on PDP-11s, Tops-10 and TOPS-20 
>on PDP-10s, and under VMS (and possibly Ultrix, I don't remember for certain)
>on VAXen, and on VMS follow-on systems.  It is as far as possible agnostic 
>about what kind of system it was running on or connecting to.

Don't forget that DECnet was also available on DOS and Windows PCs via the DEC 
Pathworks, and later, Pathworks 32 product lines.

It was also available on Ultrix for RISC (e.g. DECstations with MIPS CPU) and 
OSF/1 aka Digital Unix for Alpha

DEC at one stage produced a DECimage scanning platform that coupled an 80286 PC 
running DOS + DEC Ethernet card, together with a Fujitsu scanner and Xionics 
interface card (to handle the CCITT G42D compression).  The resultant output 
was either TIFF files or DDIF (Digital Document Interchange Format) files.  
Everything was triggered from the VMS system talking DECnet to the PC.



___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Gregg Levine]

Hello!
Remember the keyword in my presentation was "possibly".

And shortly after sending it, I realized it was for the other one,
RTS-8 not OS/8. (That was based on the discussions on that list you
and someone else run remember.) However the big problem for me here
was and still is, that of hardware.

I wonder if it was ever tested properly and even made to work with
everything else..
-
Gregg C Levine gregg.drw...@gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."


On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 1:16 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> On 2015-10-07 18:43, John Forecast wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Oct 7, 2015, at 9:56 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:
>>
>>>
 ...
 DECNET is available under RSX-11M and RSTS/E on PDP-11s, Tops-10 and
 TOPS-20
 on PDP-10s, and under VMS (and possibly Ultrix, I don't remember for
 certain)
 on VAXen, and on VMS follow-on systems.  It is as far as possible
 agnostic
 about what kind of system it was running on or connecting to.
>>>
>>>
>>> DECnet/Ultrix, yes.  There is also a limited DECnet for RT-11, and for
>>> DOS.  And VAXELAN.  And possibly IAS, I don't remember that one for sure.
>>>
>> Both IAS and RSX-11D (essentially the same code) were Phase II
>> only. There was also a
>> Phase II implementation for OS/8 but I seem to remember it being
>> cancelled fairly early
>> in the Phase II schedule.
>
>
> I thought IAS and -11D made it to phase III, but I can't find any evidence
> either way now that I'm looking.
>
> I have DECNET-8. It's not for OS/8 but for RTS-8. But yes, it is phase II. I
> have never tried it, though. So I don't know how/if it actually works, and I
> don't have any phase II or phase III nodes to test against.
>
> Johnny
>
>
> ___
> Simh mailing list
> Simh@trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-10-07 19:31, Gregg Levine wrote:

Hello!
Remember the keyword in my presentation was "possibly".


:-)


And shortly after sending it, I realized it was for the other one,
RTS-8 not OS/8. (That was based on the discussions on that list you
and someone else run remember.) However the big problem for me here
was and still is, that of hardware.


I wonder who that "someone else" is? :-)
Anyway, OS/8 is such a stupid OS that it would in essence be impossible 
to run something like DECnet on it. OS/8 is pretty much totally polled 
I/O based, and do not have any memory management, and most programs 
actually do some I/O without even going through the device drivers, as 
the device driver functionality is also rather limited.


RTS-8 is in some ways way more capable, but it is more of a dedicated 
system for a task, and not a general system for generic use.



I wonder if it was ever tested properly and even made to work with
everything else..


Looking at the code, it certainly looks proper enough. I would think it 
would work.


As for hardware, I personally have enough PDP-8 stuff around to run 
this. I have even run RTS-8 in the past. But I don't have anything to 
connect this to.


Johnny

___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[John Forecast]

On Oct 7, 2015, at 9:56 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:

> 
>> On Oct 6, 2015, at 7:13 PM, Rich Alderson  
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> From: Zachary Kline 
>>> Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2015 09:42:36 -0700
>> 
>>> as far as DecNet goes, am I correct in assuming that it's mostly useful for
>>> connecting clusters? I'm learning VMS almost entirely on my own, never 
>>> having
>>> been exposed to it during its heyday.
>> 
>> DECNET predates VMS.
> 
> Indeed, by several generations.
> 
>> ...
>> DECNET is available under RSX-11M and RSTS/E on PDP-11s, Tops-10 and TOPS-20
>> on PDP-10s, and under VMS (and possibly Ultrix, I don't remember for certain)
>> on VAXen, and on VMS follow-on systems.  It is as far as possible agnostic
>> about what kind of system it was running on or connecting to.
> 
> DECnet/Ultrix, yes.  There is also a limited DECnet for RT-11, and for DOS.  
> And VAXELAN.  And possibly IAS, I don't remember that one for sure.
> 
Both IAS and RSX-11D (essentially the same code) were Phase II only. 
There was also a
Phase II implementation for OS/8 but I seem to remember it being 
cancelled fairly early
in the Phase II schedule.

   John.

>   paul
> 
> ___
> Simh mailing list
> Simh@trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Gregg Levine]

Hello!
I seem to recall that on another list, the subject what did DECnet
support caused a similar flurry of things to be discussed. Even a
partial discussion of that protocol over serial lines for either the
PDP-11 using those protocols, or possibly OS/8 on the PDP-8 family was
suggested.

But I suspect, sir, that you're right.
-
Gregg C Levine gregg.drw...@gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."


On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 12:43 PM, John Forecast  wrote:
>
> On Oct 7, 2015, at 9:56 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:
>
>>
>>> On Oct 6, 2015, at 7:13 PM, Rich Alderson  
>>> wrote:
>>>
 From: Zachary Kline 
 Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2015 09:42:36 -0700
>>>
 as far as DecNet goes, am I correct in assuming that it's mostly useful for
 connecting clusters? I'm learning VMS almost entirely on my own, never 
 having
 been exposed to it during its heyday.
>>>
>>> DECNET predates VMS.
>>
>> Indeed, by several generations.
>>
>>> ...
>>> DECNET is available under RSX-11M and RSTS/E on PDP-11s, Tops-10 and TOPS-20
>>> on PDP-10s, and under VMS (and possibly Ultrix, I don't remember for 
>>> certain)
>>> on VAXen, and on VMS follow-on systems.  It is as far as possible agnostic
>>> about what kind of system it was running on or connecting to.
>>
>> DECnet/Ultrix, yes.  There is also a limited DECnet for RT-11, and for DOS.  
>> And VAXELAN.  And possibly IAS, I don't remember that one for sure.
>>
> Both IAS and RSX-11D (essentially the same code) were Phase II only. 
> There was also a
> Phase II implementation for OS/8 but I seem to remember it being 
> cancelled fairly early
> in the Phase II schedule.
>
>John.
>
>>   paul
>>
>> ___
>> Simh mailing list
>> Simh@trailing-edge.com
>> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
>
> ___
> Simh mailing list
> Simh@trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-10-07 18:43, John Forecast wrote:


On Oct 7, 2015, at 9:56 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:




...
DECNET is available under RSX-11M and RSTS/E on PDP-11s, Tops-10 and TOPS-20
on PDP-10s, and under VMS (and possibly Ultrix, I don't remember for certain)
on VAXen, and on VMS follow-on systems.  It is as far as possible agnostic
about what kind of system it was running on or connecting to.


DECnet/Ultrix, yes.  There is also a limited DECnet for RT-11, and for DOS.  
And VAXELAN.  And possibly IAS, I don't remember that one for sure.


Both IAS and RSX-11D (essentially the same code) were Phase II only. 
There was also a
Phase II implementation for OS/8 but I seem to remember it being 
cancelled fairly early
in the Phase II schedule.


I thought IAS and -11D made it to phase III, but I can't find any 
evidence either way now that I'm looking.


I have DECNET-8. It's not for OS/8 but for RTS-8. But yes, it is phase 
II. I have never tried it, though. So I don't know how/if it actually 
works, and I don't have any phase II or phase III nodes to test against.


Johnny

___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Jeremy Begg]

Hi,

>DECNET provides host connectivity (like telnet), file transfer (like ftp),
>electronic mail (like smtp+{pop,imap}), data sharing (like nfs), and loosely
>coupled clustering.  Digital actually believed that it should replace all of
>the IP-based protocols, since it was actively engineered instead of being a
>series of experiments (in Digital's view) that grew like Topsy; Digital tried
>very hard to make it a real implementation of the ISO X.400 pipe 
>dream^W^Wstandards.

I'd like to add a couple of comments, speaking a current VMS practitioner
(yes there are a few of us out there, although these days my Linux income
is more reliable!)

Up to and including DECnet-IV, DECnet used only its own proprietary network
transport protocols operating over Ethernet and a some forms of serial
interface.  (And note that VMScluster's own protocol is not DECnet, nor is
LAT.)

DECnet-V, aka DECnet-OSI, was DEC's attempt to do a complete implementation
of the various OSI X.nnn protocols.  At the time it was introduced, in the
early 1990s I think, it was too big a leap for most customers.  It was just
too unwieldy, and most people stuck with DECnet-IV.

By the end of the century DEC had learned that lesson and DECnet-OSI morphed
into DECnet-Plus which tames some of the OSI management hassles and, more
importantly, allows DECnet applications to run over a TCP/IP network.  In
fact out-of-the box DECnet will use TCP/IP as the transport layer rather
than the proprietary DECnet-NSP (the transport underlying DECnet-IV).

Some of you may be wondering why the ability to run DECnet applications over
IP is important.  Quite apart from some VMS applications being written to
use the DECnet API for node-to-node communication, the great thing about
DECnet is that the syntax for specifying a remote node is part of the
standard VMS filename syntax.  So if I want to (say) edit a file which
happens to be on a remote node, I don't have to log onto that node first:
all I do is specify the nodename or address as part of the filename when I
invoke the editor. This becomes even more powerful when used in conjunction
with VMS logical names, so that the application doesn't have to know or care
that a file it's accessing is not on the local system.

So once you've got SIMH running OpenVMS VAX V7.3 with DECnet-Plus *and*
TCP/IP, you can use your favourite DECnet commands and filesystem utilities
to access other VMS systems (provided they too are using DECnet-Plus with
TCP/IP -- and these days, most should be).

Regards,

Jeremy Begg

  +-+
  |VSM Software Services Pty. Ltd.  |
  | http://www.vsm.com.au/  |
  |-|
  | P.O.Box 402, Walkerville, |  E-Mail:  jer...@vsm.com.au |
  | South Australia 5081  |   Phone:  +61 8 8221 5188   |
  |---|  Mobile:  0414 422 947  |
  |  A.C.N. 068 409 156   | FAX:  +61 8 8221 7199   |
  +-+
___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Tom Morris]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 7:13 PM, Rich Alderson  wrote:

>
> DECNET provides host connectivity (like telnet), file transfer (like ftp),
> electronic mail (like smtp+{pop,imap}), data sharing (like nfs), and
> loosely
> coupled clustering.  Digital actually believed that it should replace all
> of
> the IP-based protocols, since it was actively engineered instead of being a
> series of experiments (in Digital's view) that grew like Topsy; Digital
> tried
> very hard to make it a real implementation of the ISO X.400 pipe
> dream^W^Wstandards.
>

You're mixing apples and turnips. X.400 is the family of ISO standards for
email and didn't have anything to do with DECnet.  The Mail-11 protocol
might loosely be considered a DECnet application level protocol for email.

Tom
___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm]

On Monday, October 5, 2015 at 9:22 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2015-10-05 18:08, Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm wrote:
> > On Monday, October 5, 2015 at 8:58 AM, Jordi wrote:
> 
>  Johnny, VDE works at layer 2 and has no idea about IP addressing or
> >> routing.
> >>>
> >>> Right. But the point was that the VDE should be between just the
> >>> simh and
> >> the MAC, and not bridged with the WiFi. Sounds like it is bridged to
> >> the WiFi in this case…
> >>>
> >> Oh, you mean using the mac as a router (ip forwarding enabled). Then
> >> you are right and the mac itself would have to provide DHCP services to
> the “tap”
> >> interface where the virtual switch is accesible. TBH I’ve never tried
> >> this myself, and I’d advise to use static IP configurarion in the VMS side.
> >
> > Actually getting the 'mac as a router' to work would be far more
> complicated since router on the LAN would then need to know about the
> additional network that the mac was routing for.  Getting this to work would,
> at least, be complicated for a single router and never for the general case.
> 
> Nothing prevents you from letting the MAC do NAT in addition to the
> routing. :-)

Well with the user mode NAT that slirpvde provides the mac OS needn't know 
anything about any routing that is going on.

- Mark
___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-10-05 06:43, Zachary Kline wrote:

Hi All,

I’m 98% of the way there with the bridged VDE setup mentioned in my earlier 
thread. I appreciate all the help from folks here, and wonder if anybody might 
have ideas for debugging some hiccups.
My VAX gets an IP address from the router, but can’t seem to ping it, nor any 
other addresses. DNS doesn’t work. Note that I’m not quite sure how to tell 
TCPIP services to get the name servers via DHCP.
I’m running the VDE switch as root, configured a bogus domain in TCPIP 
configuration, and the bridge seems to be working as designed.

Could this be a case of the wifi router dropping packets because of the wrong 
mac address? I can’t ping or connect to the VAX from the host, either, it just 
times out.

I’m not sure what might help debug this, but am happy to supply any info.


I don't understand what you have done, but you appear to *not* have set 
up a virtual network on your MAC. Like I said before, WiFi do not work 
like ethernet, so this will not work.


(The fact that your simh VAX is getting an address from a router, and 
you're talking about a bridge would suggest that you did not set up a 
virtual network.)


When you set up a virtual network, you will have to set the MAC to route 
packets, and the MAC will be a router. You will need a separate IP 
network for this virtual network of yours, and if you plan to use DHCP, 
your MAC will need to act as a DHCP server.


Johnny

--
Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Johnny Billquist]

Forgot to comment on one more thing...

On 2015-10-05 17:46, Jordi Guillaumes i Pons wrote:



I don't understand what you have done, but you appear to *not* have set up a 
virtual network on your MAC. Like I said before, WiFi do not work like 
ethernet, so this will not work.

(The fact that your simh VAX is getting an address from a router, and you're 
talking about a bridge would suggest that you did not set up a virtual network.)

When you set up a virtual network, you will have to set the MAC to route 
packets, and the MAC will be a router. You will need a separate IP network for 
this virtual network of yours, and if you plan to use DHCP, your MAC will need 
to act as a DHCP server.


Johnny, VDE works at layer 2 and has no idea about IP addressing or routing.

What it does is to provide a virtual ethernet switch. You can “plug” things 
into this “switch” either using an API (that is what SIMH does) or using some 
VDE-provided utilities (which allow things like dumping all the packets into 
sysout, which can be piped to another vde switch using, for instance, a ssh 
tunnel).

What Zachary is doing is to use one of those plugs to get a “tap” interface 
plugged into the virtual switch, and then bridge that tap interface together 
with a physical interface; he is bridging with a WiFi adapter, which does not 
work for DECNET but should work for TCP/IP.


That was my point. This will not work.
Not even for TCP/IP. The problem is that WiFi is not ethernet. You 
cannot just have several machines bridged on one WiFi interface. It does 
not work.
This would in fact be identical to just let simh directly tap into the 
WiFi interface, which you can also do (no need for VDE at all), but it 
does not work with WiFi. It do work just fine with ethernet, though.


The point of using VDE would be to create a virtual network inside the 
machine, and then have the MAC route packets to/from WiFi to that 
virtual network.


*That* is what you need to do.

Johnny




My VAX gets an IP address from the router, but can’t seem to ping it, nor any 
other addresses. DNS doesn’t work. Note that I’m not quite sure how to tell 
TCPIP services to get the name servers via DHCP.


Could you try to set up a static configuration in the VAX side and see if it 
works. Bridging to the wireless interface WILL NOT work with DECNET (even if 
you get adjacencies!), but should work with TCPIP.

I have not tried to use DHCP to configure IP on VMS. My virtual VAXen have 
static addresses and DNS servers and work without problem.

Anyway, if you post your SIMH, VMS and network configuration, I couls try to 
reproduce your setup and see if it works.

BTW, are you using Compaq’s TCPIP or Multinet?




___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh



___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-10-05 18:08, Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm wrote:

On Monday, October 5, 2015 at 8:58 AM, Jordi wrote:


Johnny, VDE works at layer 2 and has no idea about IP addressing or

routing.


Right. But the point was that the VDE should be between just the simh and

the MAC, and not bridged with the WiFi. Sounds like it is bridged to the WiFi
in this case…



Oh, you mean using the mac as a router (ip forwarding enabled). Then you
are right and the mac itself would have to provide DHCP services to the “tap”
interface where the virtual switch is accesible. TBH I’ve never tried this
myself, and I’d advise to use static IP configurarion in the VMS side.


Actually getting the 'mac as a router' to work would be far more complicated 
since router on the LAN would then need to know about the additional network 
that the mac was routing for.  Getting this to work would, at least, be 
complicated for a single router and never for the general case.


Nothing prevents you from letting the MAC do NAT in addition to the 
routing. :-)


Johnny



The NAT approach (which slirpvde can implement) allows the rest of the network 
(the WiFi router) not to know that any of this going on.

The goal here is to come up with a recipe that allows a user to just "attach" 
his LAN device via NAT and just have it work.  This would allow many simh users who may 
not be network engineers to actually get things working easily.  VirtualBox and the 
various other system emulators all have a simple NAT network setting which is usually the 
default and just works.  It just works for most cases since the common case is to get 
basic IP networking up and running.  The harder case is DECnet, but we already know how 
to do that (via a bridged model).

- Mark
___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh



___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

[Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Zachary Kline]

Hi All,

I’m 98% of the way there with the bridged VDE setup mentioned in my earlier 
thread. I appreciate all the help from folks here, and wonder if anybody might 
have ideas for debugging some hiccups.
My VAX gets an IP address from the router, but can’t seem to ping it, nor any 
other addresses. DNS doesn’t work. Note that I’m not quite sure how to tell 
TCPIP services to get the name servers via DHCP.
I’m running the VDE switch as root, configured a bogus domain in TCPIP 
configuration, and the bridge seems to be working as designed.

Could this be a case of the wifi router dropping packets because of the wrong 
mac address? I can’t ping or connect to the VAX from the host, either, it just 
times out.

I’m not sure what might help debug this, but am happy to supply any info.
Thanks,
Zack.
___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

Re: [Simh] VMS/VDE: Almost there

[Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm]

On Sunday, October 4, 2015 at 9:44 PM, Zachary Kline wrote:
> I’m 98% of the way there with the bridged VDE setup mentioned in my
> earlier thread. I appreciate all the help from folks here, and wonder if
> anybody might have ideas for debugging some hiccups.
> My VAX gets an IP address from the router, but can’t seem to ping it, nor any
> other addresses. DNS doesn’t work. Note that I’m not quite sure how to tell
> TCPIP services to get the name servers via DHCP.
> I’m running the VDE switch as root, configured a bogus domain in TCPIP
> configuration, and the bridge seems to be working as designed.
> 
> Could this be a case of the wifi router dropping packets because of the wrong
> mac address? I can’t ping or connect to the VAX from the host, either, it just
> times out.
> 
> I’m not sure what might help debug this, but am happy to supply any info.
> Thanks,
> Zack.

Well I'm not sure you're actually pursuing the best approach to get your vax 
simulator on your WiFi connected host OS X system to talk via IP.

I originally suggested you explore VDE networking since I vaguely remembered 
something about NAT being available.  Jordi's original VDE work didn't need NAT 
and he apparently hadn't explored beyond the very good write-up he did for 
bridged networking.  While exploring this problem and thinking about how to add 
NAT internally to the Ethernet layer I ran into "slirpvde".  This program is 
part of the vde2 package you've now got available on your host system.  

I've never actually used VDE beyond the basic testing that Jordi did for a 
bridged network configuration and I don't have an IP stack installed on my test 
VMS disk configurations.  Therefore, I don't really have the test config to try 
and work out the details myself.  If you or someone else can work out how to 
get NAT working with slirpvde, I'm pretty sure that I can take the resulting 
information and hide all of the details under the covers within the simulator 
and allow you to say: "attach xq NAT{:extra-optional-parameters}" and just have 
it work.

I asked Jordi to explore this as well, but if you come up with a minimal set of 
configuration steps I'll make the change to the simulator to simplify things.

- Mark

___
Simh mailing list
Simh@trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh