[ntp:questions] Re: a new NTP implementation (dntp)

mayer at gis.net mayer at gis.net
Wed Apr 27 16:30:40 UTC 2005


----- Original Message Follows -----
> David,
> 
> Well, there never was a real 7-bit ASCII, except on the Digital
> TOPS-20  machine, which encoded characters as five 7-bit septets in
> one 36-bit word.
> 

And on TOPS0-10 and TENEX. I remember writing assembler to manipulate
strings on these machines. It was fun. Retorical question: what does
one do with the bit left over in the word?

> I prepared both the SNTP and Autokey documents with FrameMaker in
> Postel  style format encoded as PDF. A kind soul converted the PDF to
> Postel  ASCII using his own tools. The Autokey document is full of
> modular  arithmetic and formulas that would be destroyed in such a
> process. It's  possible that much of the NTPv4 specification project
> could be done the  same way.
> 

Dave, for IETF we will need to separate out the onwire protocol, ie
what's in the protocol packets from what each end does with it and
the algorithms with dealing with the time information which don't
care how it got there. The former can be ASCIIized, the latter may
be a lot more problematic to get through IETF.

Danny

> Dave
> 
> David Magda wrote:
> > "David L. Mills" <mills at udel.edu> writes:
> > 
> > 
> >>standards publication in PDF, which is the only format I will
> >>use. It might well be the case that a NTPv4 specification will
> >>never become a full standard unless somebody else does the
> >>conversion. Thus, there is no excuse to avoid deploying NTPv4 on
> >>the basis of standard.
> > 
> > 
> > If someone where to convert the NTPv4 PDF to Postel ASCII, which PDF
> > should they convert? There's quite a few files and papers on ntp.org
> > (and your personal web page as well). Is the PDF in the proper RFC
> > language / format (sections, references, etc.), or does further
> > editing need to be done besides a conversion to 7-bit ASCII? (I'm
> > assuming that 7-bit ASCII is what you mean by "Postel ASCII".)
> > 
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