DECnet Isn't Dead

Ronald Dumsfeld writes "The odds of folks under the age of 25 on Slashdot having heard of DECnet are pretty slim. This article over at Datamation gives some insight into people who've not given up on it. Poke around and find the documentation for the OSI-compliant version, or download the Linux version of the older DECnet IV and bask in the Security Through Obscurity."

Comments

The implementation must be licensed.

[CyricZ]

The OpenVMS implementation of TCP/IP and DECnet must be licensed seperately from the operating system. That is what they mean. The OpenVMS TCP/IP implementation costs less than the OpenVMS DECnet implementation.

Re:TCP/IP license fees?

[UseTheSource]

The specification, yes... The implementation, no. Last I worked on VMS, there was no "built in" TCP/IP stack. This had to be added on after the fact, usually in the form of a closed-source, proprietary implementation. (i.e. MultiNet).

But OSI killed Decnet

[shoppa]

The coming of OSI and it's asinine 7-layer model stiltified DECnet in the 90's. I'm sure that being OSI-compliant was a big deal at the time, but nobody cares anymore. And other than crossing the t's and dotting the i's to meet some government spec at the time, nobody really wanted it.

Before OSI, DECnet was sleek, widespread, easy, and portable across many platforms.

After OSI compliance, it was sluggish, cantankerous, difficult, and verbose.

Ahhh, VMS and DrECknet

[YankeeInExile]

I remember having a heterogynous network with VMS w/ the CMU-TEK TCP/IP package and Sun 4 with DECNET. You could telnet to the Vax, or at the vax say

SET HOST SPARKY

.

Those who wished to mock VMS would say "VMS Only has two commands, SET and LOGOUT"

Sadly, SET was terribly overloaded ... SET DEFAULT was how you changed (among other things) your current working directory; logging into another host across the network was SET HOST; disabling traps in a .com file was SET NOON;

I loved VMS, not because it was a speedy lightweight OS (it was absolutely the opposite in every way) ; but it was the friendliest OS out there for the hard-core assembly language programmer, and the VAX has an architecture that makes programming in assembly a joy.