The Medley Interlisp Project2d ago

The Clearinghouse is the directory and naming service of the Xerox Network Systems (XNS) protocol suite, which was used by Xerox workstations and other machines including Interlisp systems. The Clearinghouse is to XNS what DNS is to TCP/IP.

https://www.connected.app/ports/54

#xns #interlisp #retrocomputing

Port 54: XNS Clearinghouse — The Name Service That Named Things Before DNS • Connected

Port 54 carries the XNS Clearinghouse protocol, Xerox PARC's pioneering directory service from the early 1980s. It solved the problem of finding machines by name before DNS existed, and then the world moved on without it.

Paolo AmorosoJun 16

This is Medley Interlisp running the Lafite email program. The mailbox window at the bottom left has a single entry, a test message I sent myself shown in the large window to the right.

What's neat is Lafite delivered to and retrieved the message from a mail server by exchanging packets over the Xerox XNS local network, here emulated with the server on my Linux box via Dodo Services. See the network logs in the black Prompt Window at the top left.

Nick Briggs @nhbriggs is reviving the original XNS network stack of Interlisp, which can now run Lafite and other network applications.

https://github.com/devhawala/dodo/tree/master

#interlisp #xns #lisp