On 20 Apr 2024 at 07:32p, Skylar pondered and said...
I started using UALR's VAX in 1986. UALR got on BITNET in 1988, I think, and then was the second university in the state to get Internet in 1990.
This implies those VAXen were running VMS? Ah, JNET.
There was also a Unix implementation of RSCS that ran
on at least Data General machines under DG-UX, called
"UREP". BITNET relays were the prototype for IRC.
Lots of those ADM3a terminals in 3 computer labs.
In the mid-to-late 80s, UALR had two computer labs for VAX access with VT220 terminals. Their VAX was a cluster of four 11/780s.
4 hardwired ports and 6 ports hooked up to a dial-up port selector.
Yikes. There were VT220 terminals all over UALR, as the system was used for both administrative work and academic classes. I want to say there
are 24 modems, although I my memory could be way off. There were
certainly more than 6. Those same phone lines/modems were used to access the BBS, although the BBS could only be accessed on one of the trunk lines.
DEC sold several products that could help here, among them
the DECserver 100 (and later model) terminal servers.
These were little boxes with an Ethernet, a bunch of serial
lines, and a microcontroller and some RAM. They booted off
of the network, from a VAX (or whatever could speak the MOP
protocol) and let locally connected terminals connect to a
"host" computer (e.g., a VAX, but also a PDP-11 or perhaps
a PDP-10) over the Ethernet, using e.g. the LAT protocol.
It was an evolution of the TIP idea from the ARPAnet, a
decade prior. Eventually they might have gained the ability
to speak TCP/IP and perhaps TELNET, but I can't remember
anymore; I haven't touched one in years. Anyway, the point
is that by using these as terminal concentrators, you could
support vastly more terminals than, say, a VAX could support
serial ports for, even with DZ11 and DL11 boards (the former
were awful because they had no buffering, and interrupted the
host for every character received or transmitted).
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