Hello MTS community! After some moderate reading and light usage of
MTS, I would appreciate if you could answer some of my questions.
1.) Now that archive.michigan-terminal-system.org has been down for
almost a year - though well-archived on Archive.org, and with the
Google Drive links still existing - will this mailing list be the only
home of the MTS community, or will there eventually be another website?
2.) Obviously not everything can be released for legal/licensing
reasons, and sorting thru it all for D7.0 will take however long it
takes.
But I would like to know: are these files picked out yet but
just not publicly available pre-usable-system, or are most of these
files still being negotiated with rightsholders/programmers/etc? (As
far as I've read many/most of the post-D6.0 redistribution tapes are
still lost, so obviously those can't be sifted through yet.)
3.) Is it possible to connect a VT52/VT100/Tektronix to the current
D6.0A? Or would that require the networking support in D7.0? (Vol. 4
Appendix B reads to me like UMnet needs to be functioning first.)
4.) Browsed through CCM 448 [1] about VSS. However, I still have a few
questions:
a.) What version of MVS/370 did support stop at? Can it run
programs for the venerable 3.8j?
b.) Was there networking support?
[1]
5.) I read the previous message about the HIM merge. Is this fork
publicly available?
6.) There were several MTS systems on the BITNET network[1]. Looking
through the bitnet writeup (6.0T5 -1454), MTS BITNET supported
operation over multiple link protocols:
313 The full complement of RSCS link protocols will be
supported.
314 This requirement allows interworking with RSCS emulation
packages
315 which only implement a single protocol.
718 Link protocols (VMB, VMC, NJE, and X.25)
1166 At this writing, only the VMB DSP has been written at the
protocol
1167 layer and the SDA DSP at the physical device layer. In
addition,
1168 a subtasking monitor unit check routine for SDA device type
has
1169 been written.
1367 UBC and SFU have expressed a desire to implement their
Netnorth
1368 link using X.25 and Datapac, because bisync is not
available. It
1369 should be possible to substitute the UBCnet X.25 DSP for
either
1370 the SDA or CTCA DSPs to provide this function, in effect
1371 substituting a full duplex X.25 virtual circuit for a
permanent
1372 bisync line. The VMB or NJE protocols could then operate
over
1373 this link.
Hyperion uses a 2703-lookalike[2] to tunnel NJE over TCP/IP. MTS also
supported the 2703[3], although it was eventually replaced with the
PDP-8 Data Concentrator[4], which was itself replaced with the PDP-11...
-----> The point: did the PDP-11 HIM/NIM/PCP/SCP/whatever support
NJE over a bisync line? Or was it TCP/IP, X.25, and local terminals
only? Would the 2703 be the only way to get BITNET on MTS, or
would an NJE-supporting frontend be the better option, perhaps in
combination with NJE-Bridge[5]? <-----
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
7.) ASMH is not available due to licensing. More than half the
system is written in Plus[1]. Is it possible to recompile only the
Plus-based portions, plugging in the already-assembled (and/or
manually patched) ASMH portions after the fact? Or is ASMH still
required for the existing build process, absent some heavy
modifications to the build scripts? (Not that I'm capable of any
meaningful modifications, as my programming skills are nascent.)
[1]
Thank you for for taking time to respond to these questions.
