19 Oct
2015
19 Oct
'15
9:17 a.m.
On 2015-10-19 16:32, Paul Koning wrote:
Yeah, that should be PLUTO.
It's based on RSX, and talks LAT. I never knew that they considered
using CTERM (a horrible protocol).
The interface in PLUTO, once it has booted, is pretty much like other
DECservers, as far as I understand. But they were larger, more flexible,
and so on, than later DECserver models, since they were built on PDP-11s
in a Qbus chassis.
Johnny
On Oct 19, 2015, at 3:42 AM, Pontus Pihlgren
<pontus at Update.UU.SE> wrote:
Interesting. I thought Tthe DECserver 550 was merely the big brother in
the terminal server line. But it looks like it is essentially a
PDP-11/53 with 1.5MW of ram, you need new boot roms though. Pretty nice.
It's been a while, but I think it may be a member of the "pluto" family.
The original plan for terminal servers was that they would run CTERM. But the initial
Pluto terminal server was incredibly slow, not surprising given how complex that protocol
is. So an AD project was started which created LAT, originally also in a PDP-11 processor
(perhaps even the same one, I forgot). And that turned out to be so superior in practice
that it ended up being the main product instead of the original plan. But we still have
CTERM as a leftover from all this.