21 Feb
2026
21 Feb
'26
9:38 p.m.
On Sat, Feb 21, 2026 at 4:14 PM Paul Koning via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On the other hand, the even more obscure DECnet/8 was
found a couple of years ago. Its main limitation is that it is Phase I, which is not
compatible with any later DECnet. I have some support for it in DECnet/Python development
code.
Yes. Back in the mid-80s when I was using a PDP-8/a at home every day
(128Kw memory, RL8A/RL01... nice system), I had heard about DECnet/8
but it was hard to track down even then. It was widely
known/understood at the time it was only Phase I, but still, it was
*networking* for a PDP-8!
I did manage to get RTS-8 working on that machine, with OS/8 in a
process. I never ended up writing any from-scratch stuff for RTS-8
but I did go through the documentation examples and got it working.
-ethan