VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[John Forecast]

> On Jul 17, 2016, at 11:13 AM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jul 17, 2016, at 11:06 AM, John Forecast <john at forecast.name> wrote:
>> 
>>> ...
>>> I suppose so.  Rumor had it that Phase I only existed on RSX, but it appears that there was a PDP-8 implementation as well.  Phase II was implemented on lots of DEC systems, from TOPS-10 to RT-11 to RSTS/E.  My initial involvement with DECnet was as the DECnet/E kernel guy, upgrading DECnet/E from Phase II to Phase III.
>>> 
>> 	I worked at a customer site in Sweden which consisted of a pair of 11/40’s running
>> 	RSX-11D and DECnet Phase I. I’m pretty sure that Phase I only ran on 11D in the RSX
>> 	family.
> 
> I'd always heard that.  But recently I found Phase I documents, which include protocol specifications of a sort, sufficient to tell that it wouldn't be compatible with Phase II and couldn't readily be made to be.  (In particular, NSP works rather differently.)  And that document was for a PDP-8 OS.
> 
	I meant that RSX-11D was the only supported PDP-11 OS. The RTS/8 DECNET/8
	SPD is up on bitsavers with a date of May 1977 so it was already a late addition to
	the Phase I development - I had joined the networking group in the Mill in Feb 1977
	to work on Phase II. The SPDs for those Phase II products were dated Jun 1978
	which seems about right.

> Possibly it was built but not shipped, or designed but not built.  The document has the look of r a finished product manual, though.
> 
> 	paul
> 
>