[Info-vax] api for ncp

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2021-07-29 15:27:33 +0000, calliet gérard said:

> I'm wondering if we could play with ncp from program, using some api.

SPAWN it, of course. Ugly, but workable.

The DECnet Network Information and Control Exchange (NICE) Protocol 
stuff was documented (in the in the DECnet network architecture 
manuals).  I'll leave you to find the DECnet Phase IV architecture 
manuals, but they're around at Bitsavers, if not elsewhere. The network 
management layer (NML) network function block (NFB) $qio API was 
(mostly) not documented (in the then-VAX/VMS manuals). There were a few 
specific NML NFB functions documented for DECnet task-to-task object 
declarations and such. But the NML NFB API could do rather more than 
what was documented.

1980s-era C examples of some of what wasn't documented within DECnet, 
and what was underneath Network Control Program (NCP):
https://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v50/srh_examples/nfb.c
https://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v50/srh_examples/nice.c
https://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v50/srh_examples/nfb2.b32

There's a directory of undocumented stuff that somehow dropped off the 
Freeware (probably my error), but this old stuff can still be found on 
the 'net.
In this old DECUS_UNDOC_CLINIC stuff, there's a related logical name 
useful for debugging the above NML-related activities, as well as 
debugging DECnet File Access Listener (FAL) and RTPAD activities:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000816191216/http://www.openvms.compaq.com/freeware/srh_examples/DECUS_UNDOC_CLINIC/MISC_LOGICALS.TXT 


There's a fake debugger and a "nodebug" tool and some other old toy 
examples that were using undocumented or semi-documented features, too:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000816191149/http://www.openvms.compaq.com/freeware/srh_examples/DECUS_UNDOC_CLINIC/FAKE_DEBUG.C 

https://web.archive.org/web/20000816191220/http://www.openvms.compaq.com/freeware/srh_examples/DECUS_UNDOC_CLINIC/NDBG_NODEBUG.MAR 


Further entrenching your code in the past and into NCP and into DECnet 
generally is not the path forward, though.

And the use of semi- or undocumented DECnet features and OpenVMS arcana 
is most definitely not the path forward.



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