Re: [Linux-decnet-user] What DEC machines actually ran DECnet?

[Paul K. <pk...@eq...>]

>>>>> "Henry" == Henry W Miller <hen...@at...> writes:

 Henry> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Koning"
 Henry> <pk...@eq...> To: <dr...@wo...> Cc:
 Henry> <lin...@li...> Sent: Friday, June
 Henry> 21, 2002 11:12 Subject: Re: [Linux-decnet-user] What DEC
 Henry> machines actually ran DECnet?


 >> >>>>> "Gregg" == Gregg C Levine <dr...@wo...> writes:
 >> 
 Gregg> Hello from Gregg C Levine writing for Jedi Knight Computers I
 Gregg> suppose I should have asked this question before,
 Gregg> but..... What DEC machines actually ran DECnet?
 >>  1. The PDP11, under RSX-11M, RSX-11S, RSX11-M+, P/OS, RSTS/E,
 >> RT11, or IAS.  Not DOS, MUMPS, RSX-11D, Ultrix, or
 >> Micropower/Pascal as far as I know.

 Henry> Are you speaking about DEC's DOS as opposed to MS-DOS/PC-DOS?

I meant DOS-11, the first operating system for the PDP11.

 Henry> DEC did introduce a DECnet-DOS in the late 1980's, which ran
 Henry> on a pre Windows PC under DOS with certain Ethernet cards or
 Henry> with a packet driver shim routine.  All things considered, it
 Henry> ran pretty well.

Good point, I forgot about that one.

 >> 2. VAX, under VMS, Ultrix, Digital Unix, or ELN.  3. DECsystem/20
 >> (TOPS-20).  4. DECsystem/10 (TOPS-10)

 Henry> Both TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 utilized a PDP-11 front-end,
 Henry> connected to the KL-10 via a high speed connection called the
 Henry> DTE.  The interface was referred to as the DTE-11 for the
 Henry> PDP-11 portion, and the DTE-10 or DTE-20 for the connection to
 Henry> the KL-10, depending on whether it was a DECsystem-10 or
 Henry> DECSYSTEM-20.

 Henry> The PDP-11 was usually a PDP-11/34 or a PDP-11/40.  The KL
 Henry> could support up to three alternate front-ends; DTE0 being
 Henry> reserved for the connection to the main front-end, a PDP-11/40
 Henry> running a modified version of RSX, called RSX-11/F.

 Henry> Each of the other three front-ends could also contain a number
 Henry> of terminal lines (usually DZ-11's or DH-11's), line printers
 Henry> (LP-11), card reader and card punch, as well as, obviously,
 Henry> synch line interfaces to other such front-ends.

 Henry> In addition, the front-end's on the DECsystem-10 could also
 Henry> run ANF-10, (Advanced Networking Protocol) which was developed
 Henry> as a stopgap until DECnet-10 became available, and was a
 Henry> powerful networking protocol in it's own right.

 Henry> The backend code for DECnet was built inside the TOPS-10 and
 Henry> TOPS-20 operating systems, and allowed the network to be used
 Henry> as almost any other device on the system or network.

Not all 20s have the PDP11 front end; the 2020 (KS-20) does not as far
as I know.

I don't remember if DECnet on these machines used the PDP11 or not.
If yes, then only for some cases, because Ethernet was a native device
on the main system I/O bus, not connected via the PDP11.

 >> There are codepoints for PDP8 implementations but I don't think
 >> they actually existed.
 >> 

 Henry> IIRC, DECnet-8 did exist, but it did not leave very much room
 Henry> in the system to do much else!

It shouldn't be all that bad, after all the smallest RT11 and RSX-11S
systems with DECnet support were about the same size as large PDP8s...

	paul