BITNET - NJE - HNET

Long before the Internet, there was the BITNET, a collection of mainframes and mini-computers (such as VAX machines) inter-connected to each other by means of IBM's NJE (ie Network Job Entry) protocol. 

Most of the connections were over modem dial-up lines at speeds of 300 bauds or sometimes 1200 bauds. Some of the links were leased lines at 64kbit, even. 

The BITNET was an academic network and only universities were allowed to connect to the network.  IBM's VNET network was built on the same protocol, same interconnects but was distinct from BITNET. However, there were some gateways between BITNET and VNET. 

At one time over 5000 mainframes and time-sharing computers were connected to BITNET by means of NJE. 

In 2019 the mainframe enthusiast community revived the BITNET network by using the same protocol and the Hercules mainframe emulator. Some VAX machines connected using an NJE protocol implementation for openVMS. As of the time of this blog post, over 100 mainframes are connected over NJE into what is informally called HNET. 

Some people started offering value-add services on top of HNET (see http://relayserver.dynu.net). 

A list of known HNET nodes can be found here: http://moshix.dynu.net 

As of today the following operating systems have been seen on HNET:

VM/370
MVS 3.8
MVS/SP 1.3
VM/ESA
VM/SP rel5
VM/SP rel6
VM/SP HPO
z/VM
z/OS
AIX 3
AIX 4
VSE/SP
z/VSE
MUSIC/SP
MULTICS
GECOS
RSX11M
openVMS 5.1
openVMS 5.5
openVMS 6.1
openVMS 7.3   
Linux
Sine Nomine Associates's NJE
Windows
Cisco Routers
Python

As of Christmas 2020, even a new implementation of the famous first trojan CHRISTMA EXEC  was seen on HNET. 




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