On the history of networks, there was also a network called BITNET which was mainly used by educational institutions using mainframes. Started around 1981, it was originally based on the bisync protocol and was a store-and-forward system. At it peak it had about 500 organizations and about 3000 nodes. Toward the end, it morphed into BITNET II using TCP.
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 3:31 PM, Clem Cole <[email protected]> wrote: > Bill, > > You probably need to date things a little and get a some perspective of > where a few of us are coming. Just to set a few lines in the sand. While > 3Mb/s "xerox" ethernet has been around for about 5 years, the > DEC/Intel/Xerox Ethernet 10Mb/s spec was published Sep 30, 1980. Per RFC > 801, Arpanet was not officially schedule to switch from the old NCP to IP > until Jan 1, 1983 (although a number of folks like me had been working with > what would become IP/TCP for 3-4 years before that). But "networking" as > we think of it today, had been around for over 10-15 years before that - > i.e. long before the rise of the PC. > > Most large (mini/mainframe) manufacturer have their own networking. > Consider DEC's VMS, the original IP/TCP implementation was written by me > and my co-workers at Tektronix at the time (1979-80). DEC wants us to use > DECnet. We also have CDC, UNIX boxes and even a IBM mainframe. We > needed something that could span the OSses. It was easier for us to write > our own implementation because what we wanted was a network that spanned > our companies use, not one manufacturer. > > Moreover "Metcalfe's Law" is also very important (the value of a network > is proportional to the exponent of the number of the things connected to > it). So ... each manufacturer had their own scheme - both HW and SW. The > widest "general" system was the Arpanet "IMP" system that DoD paid to have > interfaced to a number of different systems; although as has been discussed > PDP-10's, 11s and eventually Vaxen were a large number of the systems on > that network. So in fact, that was the most valuable network because it > had the most systems connected to it that had cool things that could > used/shared. > > Actually, the largest reaching network at the time was the Unix UUCP > network, which allowed email and file transfer (al biet a tad slowly). > There were thousands of sites on it. In fact the UUCP site "ccc" pre-dates > ccc.com being registered to me because in those days people could not > register a domain name. But "usenet" could not do things like telnet and > was a good bit less formal that the ARPAnet or the Internet. > > Roll forward and think of PC's. Please remember with the PC's > pre-ethernet too were often "networked" most often with ARC-net HW (75 ohm > coax - very cheap), running either Netware or LAN-Manager. Like, DECNet > and the systems from the mini's and mainframes, it allowed PC to send files > around, share printers, send email etc. But like all other proprietary > systems, it was closed so it's not talk to your Vaxen or UNIX systems etc. > The size of these networks tended to be the size of your office during > Word/Excel et al. Which was fine for a lot of people... but.... it's a > little like having a local walkie-talkie that is not connected to the > larger network and you can talk to a few people. When you finally realize > you need to talk to someone outside your firm, you note how limited it it. > > So... between the US Gov paying for the SW to be written to support a # of > OS's they cared about, the rise of UNIX, and MetCalfe's Law, IP became the > protocol and ethernet became the HW that "stuck" - i.e. the rise of the > Internet. > > Now consider that by the time the PC and BBS system that PC's used come on > the scene you have a quite a different view. Also, BBS's were really not a > network in the same way the mini's and mainframes worked. A person that > knew a phone number and had an account to call a remote system. But this > is quite different from how the DECNet, SNA, Arpanet, etc (or for that > matter UUCP) worked. > > > > > Back to your question... if we want a simulation system to support > networking in the way most of us think of it, we need two things. First > the HW needs to emulate some know HW that was developed and released by the > manufacturer. Second, you need the OS support for same. > > Frankly, it is probably not worth investing a lot of effort into writing > the HW emulation unless we have the SW to drive it. And frankly, you need > to think how you will use it. Modulo Johnny and the cool folks running > HECnet (a large world wide network running DECnet over the Internet), you > probably will want to have Internet functionality to be able to access the > systems. > > The good news is that a number of folks developed implementations for > almost most of the major OS implementations and many of the manufacturers > eventually picked them up (DEC would eventually take the Tek/CMU IP > implementation in house). > > The bad news is I fear except for a few cases where the manufacturer > picked it up and made a product, some of those stacks (like the HP-1000 and > HP-3000 stacks from BBN) have been lost. If someone has those it would be > cool, but I have not seen those bits since the early 1980s. > > Clem > > > > > > On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 2:36 PM, Bill Cunningham <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> What I meant was that I remember on early PCs using an rs232-c line for >> using the old BBSes and compuserve before it was an ISP. 10 cents a minute. >> I had several modems 300, 1200 and 2400 baud modems. >> >> These even older machines may have had hookups within a company. Even >> one building connecting 5 or so machines. Serial would've worked fine. And >> was what was used. I was thinking with maybe 4-5 PDP8s a company would use >> some kind of networking. Perhaps not back then. I was only aware of pdp11 >> and vax being "network possible". I guess I was wrong. >> >> Bill >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> *From:* Clem Cole <[email protected]> >> *To:* Anders Magnusson <[email protected]> >> *Cc:* SIMH <[email protected]> ; Bob Supnik <[email protected]> >> *Sent:* Saturday, March 12, 2016 2:24 PM >> *Subject:* Re: [Simh] [SimH] Networking support >> >> >> On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:25 PM, Anders Magnusson <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> DG-UX or MV/UX? >>> >> Which was the rewrite of System V ?? i.e. System V cmd system, but >> internally developed System V SMP kernel -- I want to say DG-UX maybe; but >> I'd been a long time and many beers ago - I've forgotten the name. I >> remember it was a very clean UNIX implementation. Nice locking structure, >> easy to debug, etc... >> >> Locus was working on different projects with Ultrix, Tru64, VMS, AIX, >> SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX, Apollo, DG's UX, some work for Pr1me, ISC's 386/ix, >> Intel's 386 port, SVR4 for the AT&T/UI guys, and Intel's Paragon at the >> same time. At one point, I had the OS release schedules for HP, DEC and >> Sun all pasted on the wall behind my desk. I used to say LCC got to see >> everyone's dirty laundry in those days. As I said, I do remember the DG >> Unix re-implementation was very easy to work on (I will not say which one >> we cursed the most). >> >> >> >> >>> The DG ethernet card has a 82586 on board. >>> >> As I said, many beers ago. I'm undoubtedly mixed up a couple of the >> systems, since we had so many we worked with in those days. I remember the >> AMD chip was a lot easier to program than the Intel device. That said, I >> suspect that I have the docs on the Intel chips somewhere, but it sounds >> like others have the DG docs which are going to be better for simh purposes. >> >> Clem >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Simh mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Simh mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Simh mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh >
_______________________________________________ Simh mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
