[Info-vax] What would you miss if DECnet got the chop? Was: "bad select

[Dirk Munk]

David Froble wrote:
> Bob Koehler wrote:
>> In article <nrlmbk$if0$1 at dont-email.me>, David Froble
>> <davef at tsoft-inc.com> writes:
>>> In general I agree with what you've written.  I consider DECnet as a
>>> part of VMS, and if one really doesn't want VMS, then just go and use
>>> something else.
>>
>>    Having used DECnet on VMS, MVS, RSX, TOPS-20, MS-DOS, Ultrix, AIX, and
>>    Linux, I find your concept much too narrow for reality.
>>
>
> You're always so easy to get along with Bob ....
>
> :-)
>
> Yes, there have been implementations of the DECnet transport part on
> multiple OSs, both DEC and others.  But, as far as I know, there has not
> been the full range of DECnet tools available on those environments.  As
> an example,  does FAL exist on all those implementations?

Bob didn't mention MAC OS. MACs also had FAL, and it was a beautiful 
implementation. If you copied a file from MAC to MAC (using your VMS 
system for the command), the complete file would be transferred, 
resource fork + data fork. If you copied a file to your VMS system, only 
the data fork would be copied, the resource fork was useless for VMS.

Indexed files on RSX and VMS are different. If you copy an indexed file 
between RSX and VMS, you get a proper indexed file on the other side (if 
it was within the limits of that OS of course).

FAL knows the characteristics of the OS, and will 'translate' files if 
necessary.

No such functionality exists with IP.

>
> For me, it's the utilities, tools, and such that I feel make DECnet
> worth keeping around.  Much more so than the communications stuff.  Of
> course, those utilities, tools, and such do use the communications stuff.