Chalk this up to "pointless hack" but I know many COFF readers (and
presumably some multicians) are also ham radio enthusiasts, so perhaps some
folks will find this interesting. I have succeeded in what I suspect may be
a first: providing a direct interface from AX.25 amateur packet radio
connections to a Multics installation (and TOPS-20).
I've been interested in packet radio for a while and have run an AX.25
station at home for some time, and I have configured things so that
incoming radio connections to a particular SSID proxy into telnet to a Unix
machine on my AMPRNet subnet. I don't run the traditional AX.25 "node"
software, but can log directly into a timesharing machine in my basement,
which is pretty cool.
Some recent upgrades provided an opportunity for a project interfacing
"retro" computer instances with packet radio. AX.25 is a slow medium: 1200
BAUD (this is on 2m) packed switched over a high-loss, high-latency RF
path. While my Unix machine does all right, it occurs to me that systems
designed in the teletype era might actually be better suited to that kind
of communications channel.
So I set up a DPS8/M emulator and configured the packet node to forward an
SSID to Multics. After some tweaking to clean up a bizarre number of ASCII
NUL characters coming from the emulator (I suspect a bug there; I'm going
to email those folks about that), things are working pretty well: I can
connect into the system interactively and even use qedx to write PL/1
programs. To my knowledge, no one has done this with Multics before. A
small session transcript follows at the end of this message (sorry, no
PL/1). It's not fast, so one definitely comes to appreciate the brevity of
expression in the interface.
While I was at it, I also installed TOPS-20 on an emulated DECSYSTEM-20 and
got it talking over AX.25 as well. Now, I'd like to set up an interface
reminiscent of a PAD or TIP allowing access to all of these machines,
muxing a single SSID. Sadly I have no idea what the user interface for
those things looked like: if anyone has pointers I can use to craft some
software, I'd be happy to hear about it!
Pointless perhaps, but fun!
- Dan C.
PS: I'm happy to set folks up with accounts, if they'd like. Shoot me an
email with your call sign. If you're in the greater Boston area, try KZ2X-1
and KX2X-3 on 145.090 MHz.
###CONNECTED TO NODE BROCK(W1MV-7) CHANNEL A
Welcome to BROCK (W1MV-7) in Brockton, Mass
ENTER COMMAND: B,C,J,N, or Help ? C KZ2X-3
###LINK MADE
Trying 44.44.107.8...
Connected to sim.kz2x.ampr.org.
Escape character is 'off'.
HSLA Port
(d.h001,d.h002,d.h003,d.h004,d.h005,d.h006,d.h007,d.h008,d.h009,d.h010,d.h011,d.h012,d.h013,d.h014,d.h015,d.h016,d.h017,d.h018,d.h019,d.h020
,d.h021,d.h022,d.h023,d.h024,d.h025,d.h026,d.h027,d.h028,d.h029,d.h030,d.h031)?
Attached to line d.h001
Multics MR12.7: KZ2X Multics (Channel d.h001)
Load = 6.0 out of 90.0 units: users = 6, 12/21/21 1718.0 est Tue
login KZ2X
Password:
You are protected from preemption until 17:18.
KZ2X.Ham logged in 12/21/21 1718.6 est Tue from ASCII terminal "none".
Last login 12/21/21 1717.0 est Tue from ASCII terminal "none".
No mail.
r 17:18 0.376 54
ls
Segments = 5, Lengths = 4.
r w 1 KZ2X.profile
r w 1 start_up.ec
r w 1 hello.pl1
0 KZ2X.mbx
r w 1 KZ2X.value
r 17:19 0.022 0
who -a -lg
Multics MR12.7; KZ2X Multics
Load = 7.0 out of 90.0 units; users = 7, 2 interactive, 5 daemons.
Absentee users = 0 background; Max background absentee users = 3
System up since 12/21/21 0922.8 est Tue
Last shutdown was at 12/21/21 0917.8 est Tue
Login at TTY Load User ID
12/21/21 09:22 cord 1.0 IO.SysDaemon
09:22 bk 1.0 Backup.SysDaemon
09:22 prta 1.0 IO.SysDaemon
09:22 ut 1.0 Utility.SysDaemon
09:22 vinc 1.0 Volume_Dumper.Daemon
16:41 none 1.0 Cross.SysEng
17:18 none 1.0 KZ2X.Ham
r 17:19 0.036 0
logout
KZ2X.Ham logged out 12/21/21 1722.9 est Tue
CPU usage 0 sec, memory usage 0.2 units, cost $0.12.
###DISCONNECTED BY KZ2X-3 AT NODE BROCK
OK, this is my last _civil_ request to stop email-bombing both lists with
trafic. In the future, I will say publicly _exactly_ what I think - and if
screens still had phosphor, it would probably peel it off.
I can see that there are cases when one might validly want to post to both
lists - e.g. when starting a new discusson. However, one of the two should
_always_ be BCC'd, so that simple use of reply won't generate a copy to
both. I would suggest that one might say something like 'this discussion is
probably best continued on the <foo> list' - which could be seeded by BCCing
the _other_.
Thank you.
Noel
Probably time to move this to COFF, but
along the line of Fission for Program Comprehension....
I wonder how many of you don't know about Don Lancaster.
Pioneer in home computing back when that meant something, inventor of a
very low cost 1970s video terminal (the TV Typewriter), tremendously
skilled hacker, brilliant guy.
Also still alive, lives a couple hours away from me in Safford, AZ, and has
been doing fantastic research on Native American hanging canals for the
last couple decades.
Anyway: he wrote a magnificent piece on how to understand a (6502) program
from its disassembly, which reminded me of Gibbons's work:
https://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/tearing_rework.pdf
I don't think Don ever had a lot of crossover with the more academic world
of Unix people, but he's one of my heroes and I have learned a hell of a
lot from his works.
Adam
The ARPAnet reached four nodes on this day in 1969; at least one "history"
site reckoned the third node was connected in 1977 (and I'm still waiting
for a reply to my correction). Well, I can believe that perhaps there
were only three left by then...
According to my notes, the nodes were UCSB, UCLA, SRI, and Utah.
-- Dave
In keeping with the list charters, I'm moving this to COFF.
On Thursday, 2 December 2021 at 11:30:35 -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 2, 2021 at 12:45 AM Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The Byte article (the scan of which I am very grateful for; not having to
>> go trawling through the stacks at the Oberlin College library is always a
>> plus) claims that the tools have been implemented on:
>>
>> Tandem
>
> That would be me; at least I registered it with Addison-Wesley,
> although someone else may have implemented it independently.
I recall something about this, but I didn't find very much in my
collection of old email messages. The most promising was:
Date: 87-11-06 09:47
From: LEHEY_GREG
To: ANDERSON_KEN @CTS
Subject: ?? Is there a "make"-like utility for Tandem ??
In Reply to: 87-11-05 18:59 FROM ANDERSON_KEN @CTS
3:?? Is there a "make"-like utility for Tandem ??
No, but I'd LOVE to have one. Ask Dick Thomas - in his spare time, he
converts software tools to Tandem.
Did you have contact with Dick?
Greg
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