Donald Qualls , oct 04, 2004; 12:52 p.m.
Dektol used to be the only developer in the Kodak Darkroom Kits that were sold to consumers in the 1950s and 1960s. It works fine for film, though if you shoot 35 mm you'll find the grain excessive (as already mentioned). You can get "normal" speed and process times by diluting, of course; common dilution for paper is 1:2 or 1:3, and I think I recall (this was 30+ years ago, and I did it one time only) for Verichrome Pan I used it diluted 1:4 or 1:6 with a process time of around ten minutes at 68 F, twirl-stick agitation five seconds every 30. If I were doing it now, I'd change to inversion agitation, five seconds every minute, and possibly add a minute or two to compensate for the reduced agitation, but I'd have to do some test rolls to get the dilution and time right.
If there were only one developer in the world, I'd have to ask for either HC-110 (which can be used as a paper developer, at Dilution A) or Dektol (I shoot mostly medium and large format anyway, so grain isn't that big a deal). Either one will do pretty nearly anything you ask of it.