NS/VT Protocol: Specifications?

[Jeffrey Chiu]

Does anyone know where I can find some information on Hewlett Packward's
proprietary protocol, NS/VT? It is used for host access to HP3000(MPE)
systems and uses TCP/IP for transport.

I have been hunting for a host emulation program for Linux that can
support this protocol, but to no avail. So I'm thinking of trying to
write one myself if I can only find some documentation... The only
program I know of that supports NS/VT is WRQ Reflection, and that is
only available for Win95.

Thanks for any help,
Jeff

[Phil Ramsden]

Jeff,

A little background...NS stands for Network Services, the umbrella name
for the suite of functions that provided virtual terminal, file
transfer, program to program communication, etc. for MPE. These services
predate the use of TCP/IP on the HP3000, running over proprietary point
to point links and X.25. When HP switched network transport on MPE to
TCP/IP, these NS services were able to run over it and use standard link
protocols such as Ethernet and Token Ring. As open systems increased in
popularity, standards based alternatives for some of these functions
were added, such as Telnet, FTP and BSD Sockets.

You don't indicate what you really need to do with the 3K. Most of the
functionality of VT is available with Telnet. Probably of more
importance than the virtual terminal protocol is the terminal emulation
used. Any of the applications specifically developed for the 3K most
likely require HP239X or HP700/9X type terminal emulation to operate
properly. Of course, if only plain character or line mode text access is
needed, this wouldn't apply. The 3K provides Posix support and
applications ported from UNIX environments would probably be happy with
more generic terminal types.

The WRQ products run on the entire Windows product line, including NT.
As you indicated, they provide NS/VT support. I'm not aware of any
products running on Linux that do, although there may be HP terminal
emulation available that could be used with Telnet protocol, since HP
terminal types menioned above are also available on HP UNIX.
--
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Phil Ramsden * Internet: phil_r...@hp.com

I speak for me......not H-P
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