Network Working Group A. Stokes
Request for Comments: 588 UKICS
NIC: 20217 October 1973
LONDON NODE IS NOW UP
The London node of the ARPANET has been on the Net (Address 42) since
early September. It consists of a TIP (Address 170) and, at present,
a local HOST (0), a PDP-9, which front-ends the Rutherford High
Energy Laboratory 360/195 located 60 miles from London and connect to
it by a 2.4 Kbps line. The specific details of the 360 will soon
appear in the Resource Notebook, but, in brief, it has 2 megabytes of
fast store (750ns), a fixed head disk and a large number of other
peripherals. It operates under OS/MVT release 21.7 and HASP II
version 3.1, with a locally written message switching system MAST and
an interactive editor ELECTRIC. In addition to the local hardware,
it supports about 20 remote workstations, which are, in many cases
GEC 2050s simulating IBM 1130s. Eventually, other Hosts will be
attached to the Very Distant Host Interface (Address 234).
The PDP-9 at the Institute of Computer Science also simulates a 1130
with 2 card readers, 2 card punches, two line printers, three MAST
consoles, and a system console. It has a 16K (18 bit) words store, a
256K word drum and a number of devices usually attached by modem
interfaces. The 1130 simulator software has been interfaced to an
ARPA system, which, at present, has IMP-HOST, HOST-HOST, ICP, and
TELNET protocols. The TELNET link is initially to the PDP-9 from
whence the user may login to the 360 provided one of the two MAST
ports is available (the third being for local use). The access is to
ELECTRIC, and the user may enter and edit files, submit them to the
batch stream, and inspect the output interactively from a terminal.
The facilities will be extended soon to allow the printing of jobs at
TIPS and later the RJE and FTP protocols will be implemented.
The 360 is available for limited experimental use, and a free login
facility has been provided (GUEST). This account has a very limited
allowance (currently, 1min CPU time/week), and is designed only for
demonstration purposes.
All jobs under this account must be Class X, which has a maximum run
time of 10secs. Proper accounts, for which there will be no charge,
can be arranged for appropriate users by contacting KIRSTEIN@ISI. It
is not planned, at present, to make the 360/195 a normal service
HOST, like for example, the CCN machine. However, the machine will
be made available for cooperative projects involving a US group and
Stokes [Page 1]
RFC 588 London Node is Now Up October 1973
an interested party in the UK. Of particular interest to us are
applications in Network measurements, high energy physics, and
accelerator design, though other projects would be considered.
Primitive HELP facilities exist on both the PDP-9 and the 360, and
they are accessed by %H and TYPE JB=HELP, respectively. Up to date
details will be given in the message obtained on connecting to the
PDP-9 and in the PDP-9 Help file.
... A typical scenario is attached.
The intention is to keep the PDP-9/360 available as a HOST between
19.00 and 09.00 local time, as well as a number of periods during the
day (the local time is 8 or 9 hours ahead of California, and 5 hours
ahead of the East Coast). There will be no operator available on the
PDP-9, although during the day and at least the early part of the
evening, there will be users in the computer room who will give
assistance where necessary. The "operator's console" is a Teletype,
so any messages sent during the night will be read in the morning,
and we will try to send replies to all queries (if you tell us where
to reply to Network mail for our site may be send to KRISTEIN@ISI, or
to myself (IDENT=AVS) at the NIC. Connection problems should be
referred to Peter Higginson (NIC ident = PLH).
... Enc.
HELLO 315
@1 42
LOGGER
OPEN
INDRA COMPUTING SERVICE - 17 27 GMT ON 06 NOV 73
TYPE %H FOR HELP
&h
THE HOST AT ULICS IS A PDP-9 FRONT END TO AN IBM 360/195
COMMANDS TO THE PDP-9 ARE:
%HELP (%H)
%LOGIN ID=**.ACCT=**
%LOGOUT
%OPERATOR (%O)
%STATUS (%S)
ALL COMMANDS TERMINATE WITH CARRIAGE RETURN
WHEN NOT LOGGED IN TO 360 ALL LINES GO TO OPERATOR
WILL USA USERS PLEASE TYPE A COUPLE OF LINES SAYING WHO THEY
ARE BEFORE THEY LOG IN TO THE 360
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RFC 588 London Node is Now Up October 1973
FOR FURTHER HELP LOGIN TO THE 360 WITH:
%LOGIN GUEST
AND IF SUCCESSFUL TYPE:
TYPE JB=HELP
THE IMB 360/195 IS UP
THE SYSTEM HAS NO PROMPT AND ONLY TWO CONTROL CHARS:
CTRL U TO CANCEL A LINE
DELETE (177) TO DELETE A CHAR
% login guest
USER 8 F7 BL= 113/250 TL= 197 NL= 13 TG= 8 NG= 2 TJ= 0.01 NJ= 3
SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT TONIGHT AS PER THE SCHEDULE BETWEEN 1730-
1854HRS.
**ELECTRIC TERMINATING IN 0 MINS 50 SECS. AVAILABLE AGAIN AT 1847
HRS **
%logout
OK F7 BL= 113/ 250 TL= 198 NL= 14 TG= 8 NG= 2 TJ= 0.01 NJ= 3
@c
CLOSED T
CLOSED R
Stokes [Page 3]
RFC, FYI, BCP