Message-ID: <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> From: Tim Shoppa Organization: Trailing Edge Technology X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.03Gold (X11; I; OpenVMS V7.0 DEC 3000 Model 300L) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 40 Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 13:40:17 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.232.144.27 X-Trace: audrey2.cais.com 911933355 198.232.144.27 (Tue, 24 Nov 1998 13:49:15 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 13:49:15 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!howland.erols.net!news-peer1.sprintlink.net!news-in-east1.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!in1.nntp.cais.net!199.0.216.204.MISMATCH!audrey2.cais.com!not-for-mail D. Peschel wrote: > Some people on this group use VMS for work _and_ play. But I've only used it > for work (like you seem to have). As long as you want to restrict yourself to using VMS *only* for play, you can get a free hobbyist license. See http://www.montagar.com/hobbyist/ > finding that software is (to me) much harder than with UNIX, because VMS never > completely embraced the Internet, I think. That's funny - I know several major corporations who run their web servers on some very kick-ass VMS machines :-). > I'd also say that's the reason > why you never hear about or can use TOPS anymore. Have you completely forgotten SIMTEL20 :-)? Just over five years ago, it was *the* most singularly major FTP site on the Internet. And it ran TOPS-20. (I'm sure purists will now lecture me about how TOPS-20 wasn't TOPS!) Alas, "wsmr-simtel20.army.mil" was shut down in September 1993, and there no longer is even a DNS entry for it. Walnut Creek appears to have copyrighted "SIMTEL", so I'm not even sure that I could write a homage to what simtel20 was without getting my butt sued off. Amazing how short the attention span of the Internet is, isn't it? Heck, some of the major search engines - inspired by the barrage of TV commercials by hotbot.com - are now starting to remove "old" (meaning more than a few weeks old) material from their indices. And they think this is a selling point! -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 ###### From: Mark Crispin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 12:10:20 -0800 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing Lines: 54 Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: tomobiki-cho.cac.washington.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 911938223 21004 (None) 140.142.17.35 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: sean To: Tim Shoppa In-Reply-To: <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!isdnet!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.u.washington.edu!Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU!mrc On Tue, 24 Nov 1998, Tim Shoppa wrote: > D. Peschel wrote: > > VMS never > > completely embraced the Internet, I think. > > I'd also say that's the reason > > why you never hear about or can use TOPS anymore. Saying that TOPS-20 "never completely embraced the Internet" is somewhat like saying Darwin never completely embraced the theory of evolution. The original implementations of the TCP/IP protocol and the basic applications (DNS, TELNET, FTP, SMTP, POP, IMAP, etc.) were developed on TOPS-20 (and Tenex, the immediate precessor to TOPS-20). I confess to have written some of these, on TOPS-20 and on other PDP-10 operating systems. UNIX was very much a johnny-come-lately. For a long time, the root DNS servers were all TOPS-20, because BIND at that time wasn't up to the task. The command interface of UNIX telnet and ftp was copied from the TOPS-20 programs. Not very well, though; it's enough to look bizarre to a UNIX hacker yet it omits all the benefits of that interface. And, goddamn it, I *hate* brain-damaged UNIX sockets and the piece of garbage C library resolver routines!! How I miss the ability to redirect standard input/output to a TCP filespec on the command line (I can't believe that UNIX geeks haven't hacked this into the shell yet) not to mention the wonderful Chives resolver. TOPS-20 died a slow and agonizing death *because* it was so net-friendly. It would have vanished in a flash otherwise, given the determined efforts of its sole vendor to kill it. > Have you completely forgotten SIMTEL20 :-)? Thanks for the memories, Tim. I had something to do with that system too... ;-) > Alas, "wsmr-simtel20.army.mil" was shut down in September > 1993 And was replaced with multple 3B2s, of all absurdities. > Amazing how short the attention span of the Internet is, isn't it? Yup. I'm rather amazed to see announcements of "newly developed techniques" that were well-known to us old farts of the 1970s. -- Mark -- * RCW 19.149 notice: This email address is located in Washington State. * * Unsolicited commercial email may be billed $500 per message. * Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 24 Nov 1998 23:07:28 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 87 Message-ID: <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul3.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 911948848 22334 (None) 140.142.17.39 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article , Mark Crispin wrote: >On Tue, 24 Nov 1998, Tim Shoppa wrote: >> D. Peschel wrote: >> > VMS never >> > completely embraced the Internet, I think. >> > I'd also say that's the reason >> > why you never hear about or can use TOPS anymore. > >Saying that TOPS-20 "never completely embraced the Internet" is somewhat >like saying Darwin never completely embraced the theory of evolution. > >The original implementations of the TCP/IP protocol and the basic >applications (DNS, TELNET, FTP, SMTP, POP, IMAP, etc.) were developed on >TOPS-20 (and Tenex, the immediate precessor to TOPS-20). I confess to >have written some of these, on TOPS-20 and on other PDP-10 operating >systems. UNIX was very much a johnny-come-lately. Yes, I understand that (from reading some of the older RFCs). I know a bit about how the Internet protocols evolved before UNIX came out, and even some bits of history about IMPs, the SUPDUP protocol, etc. But I still think there's a difference in philosophy, especially concerning the distribution of programs and information. If TOPS-20 really used the 'net to its advantage, shouldn't we see lots of software and documentation around? (I realize the OS itself was never redistributed, of course.) Now it's possible that the documentation was so good that there was no need for any "new user" tutorials, quick references, FAQs, etc. It's also possible that the philosophy of the Internet went against distributing information that everyone knew, or it was distributed but has since been erased, or I'm just not looking in the right place. All I know is, from my experience VMS sites tend to be cliquish and try to be self-sufficient; they also try to worry about security. And they may relegate games to "after hours" unofficial programming. The same may have been true of TOPS at MIT, Stanford, etc. And I've seen only a few documents online about PDP-10 assembly language programming, none about the TOPS interface, and very little software. DECWARS? The version of SITBOL that someone wanted? It's all just *gone*, as far as I can tell. Please, correct me if I'm wrong. I have no facts (TOPS was way before my time). But I do have a sense of how things are. >For a long time, the root DNS servers were all TOPS-20, because BIND >at that time wasn't up to the task. That's interesting! I didn't know that. >The command interface of UNIX telnet and ftp was copied from the TOPS-20 >programs. Not very well, though; it's enough to look bizarre to a UNIX >hacker yet it omits all the benefits of that interface. The UNIX interface, in turn, has been shoddily copied by people who have no sense of design and like to ship unfinished code. (The Microsoft FTP and Telnet programs are glaring examples, but even the FTP client in NCSA Telnet for the Macintosh would download nonexistent files for you. Many other clients don't follow the specs. The OSF/1 v3 telnet program doesn't follow its own manual entry -- at least, I haven't figured out how to get it to.) Wasn't the Ctrl-] character originally Ctrl-^? (I'm thinking of "The Telnet Song" here.) Actually, the behavior in the song doesn't seem to work these days. >And, goddamn it, I *hate* brain-damaged UNIX sockets and the piece of >garbage C library resolver routines!! How I miss the ability to redirect >standard input/output to a TCP filespec on the command line (I can't >believe that UNIX geeks haven't hacked this into the shell yet) not to >mention the wonderful Chives resolver. I am ignorant of any of the code you mention. You would think people would write new shells, but inertia seems to be very strong. >Yup. I'm rather amazed to see announcements of "newly developed >techniques" that were well-known to us old farts of the 1970s. You would think that with all the fundamental developments in the 70's, when people finally started to understand compilers, operating systems, software architecture, how to build good systems that work together as systems, debuggers, object-oriented programming, and a bunch of other stuff, that our software would be vastly better. Unfortunately it's almost worse. That's the main reason I don't like the direction that research and the industry are going in. -- Derek ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!usenet From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 25 Nov 1998 20:04:22 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 15 Sender: neil@chonsp.franklin.ch Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Tim Shoppa writes: > > That's funny - I know several major corporations who run their > web servers on some very kick-ass VMS machines :-). Do you have an source for an free httpd for VMS? I have got an VAXstation 3100 with VMS 5.5 here that would like some work to do. -- Neil Franklin, Nerd, Geek, Unix Guru, Hacker, Mystic neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ "No, it was a JOKE! You can't RUN this!" Ken Thompson ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!usenet From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 25 Nov 1998 20:11:22 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 44 Sender: neil@chonsp.franklin.ch Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Mark Crispin writes: > systems. UNIX was very much a johnny-come-lately. In form of 4.xBSD. > And, goddamn it, I *hate* brain-damaged UNIX sockets Anyone for /dev/tcp? > How I miss the ability to redirect > standard input/output to a TCP filespec on the command line (I can't > believe that UNIX geeks haven't hacked this into the shell yet) Well one of them did come up with netcat (sockets for pipes), so like: target-machine# nc -l -p 1234 | tar xf - -C /usr source-machine# tar cf - -C /usr local | nc target-machine 1234 That copies /usr/local to an new machine. I have a copy at http://neil.franklin.ch/Info_Texts/nc110.tar.gz > mention the wonderful Chives resolver. What is that? Enquiring Unix hacker wants to know. > TOPS-20 died a slow and agonizing death *because* it was so net-friendly. > It would have vanished in a flash otherwise, given the determined efforts > of its sole vendor to kill it. Yet annother reason for good programmers to not waste their talent on managers who have no respect for good work as soon as they can't see dollars. -- Neil Franklin, Nerd, Geek, Unix Guru, Hacker, Mystic neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ "No, it was a JOKE! You can't RUN this!" Ken Thompson ###### From: Bill Westfield Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 24 Nov 1998 17:04:50 -0800 Organization: Cisco Systems, Inc. Lines: 11 Message-ID: <54r9us1t1p.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: flipper.cisco.com X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news-master.cisco.com!not-for-mail I still run mm (the columbia ccmd based one) on unix, and it allows me to run rings around most of the "mail readers" in terms of archive retrieval. It's not very supported anymore, of course :-( I'm a little surprised Mark didn't re-port to the mac or something... I do miss some of those Hermes features, though. BillW -- (remove spam food from return address) ###### From: Mark Crispin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 17:12:34 -0800 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing Lines: 65 Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: tomobiki-cho.cac.washington.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 911956356 16088 (None) 140.142.17.37 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: gibb To: "D. Peschel" In-Reply-To: <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU!mrc On 24 Nov 1998, D. Peschel wrote: > But I still think there's a difference in philosophy, especially concerning > the distribution of programs and information. If TOPS-20 really used the 'net > to its advantage, shouldn't we see lots of software and documentation around? For all intents and purposes, there was only one vendor of TOPS-20 and the PDP-10 hardware which ran it (Foonly and SC don't count). In order to promote its other product line (the VAX), that vendor did its damnedest for several years prior to 1983 to discourage people from buying PDP-10 systems in the hope that customers would give up on it on their own. When that failed, the vendor killed the entire PDP-10 product line in 1983. Nonetheless, it still took *years* for the PDP-10 to die. PDP-10 systems remained the center of the Internet until the late 1980s. There was a *huge* resistance against moving to VMS (stab me in the back one, shame on you; stab me in the back twice, shame on me); but there was an equal reluctance to move to UNIX. In the end, UNIX won because it was the only game in town; it wasn't VMS, and it had enough features that it could be made tolerable. > Now it's > possible that the documentation was so good that there was no need for any > "new user" tutorials, quick references, FAQs, etc. It's also possible that > the philosophy of the Internet went against distributing information that > everyone knew, or it was distributed but has since been erased, or I'm just > not looking in the right place. There were new user tutorials, quick references, FAQs, etc. Most of this has been destroyed. > All I know is, from my experience VMS sites tend to be cliquish and try to be > self-sufficient; they also try to worry about security. And they may relegate > games to "after hours" unofficial programming. The same may have been true > of TOPS at MIT, Stanford, etc. Nothing could have been further from the truth. One of the excuses given for getting rid of PDP-10 systems was that they encouraged too many students to hack instead of doing their classwork. > And I've seen only a few documents online > about PDP-10 assembly language programming, none about the TOPS interface, > and very little software. DECWARS? The version of SITBOL that someone wanted? > It's all just *gone*, as far as I can tell. Yes. On the one hand, it's normal for people to clean out what they no longer need. On the other hand, there was an aggressive effort to toss out anything that could have reminded people that there was once something better. > Wasn't the Ctrl-] character originally Ctrl-^? (I'm thinking of "The Telnet > Song" here.) Actually, the behavior in the song doesn't seem to work these > days. That's right. I know all about that behavior. I wrote the standard implementations of Telnet for ITS, SAIL, and TOPS-20 successively; and my Telnets had that interface. -- Mark -- * RCW 19.149 notice: This email address is located in Washington State. * * Unsolicited commercial email may be billed $500 per message. * Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ###### From: Bill Westfield Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 24 Nov 1998 17:43:05 -0800 Organization: Cisco Systems, Inc. Lines: 93 Message-ID: <54pvac1r9y.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: flipper.cisco.com X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news-master.cisco.com!not-for-mail >Saying that TOPS-20 "never completely embraced the Internet" is somewhat >like saying Darwin never completely embraced the theory of evolution. Yes, I understand that (from reading some of the older RFCs). But I still think there's a difference in philosophy, especially concerning the distribution of programs and information. If TOPS-20 really used the 'net to its advantage, shouldn't we see lots of software and documentation around? (I realize the OS itself was never redistributed, of course.) Now it's possible that the documentation was so good that there was no need for any "new user" tutorials, quick references, FAQs, etc. It's also possible that the philosophy of the Internet went against distributing information that everyone knew, or it was distributed but has since been erased, or I'm just not looking in the right place. All of this is true. The non-funded use of the arpanet WAS kept "low profile". The actual NUMBER of applications was small, and users were typically TAUGHT to use them in classes. In addition, you have to remember that there were several orders of magnitudes FEWER tops users than there are currently mac or windows or even amiga users. Computing was DIFFERENT in those days. You also need to understand that TOPS died well before those orders of magnitudes worth of people showed up, and LONG before "Internet" became a household word (Let's see. The DEC 36 bit line was canceled in 83 with a 10-year "migration" plan. The first MAC came out in 84. Cisco started selling internet stuff about 87, but hardly anyone knew what it was. Clinton/Gore were elected in 92, and helped push the internet along. I don't recall exactly when "commercial use" of the internet became acceptable - I was too busy writing code. Windows-95 included tcp/ip support, but the browser wars started well after that. So, "the web" as we know it is no more than 5 years old, and came about AFTER TOPS was gone (except for fanatics.) Note that simtel-20 pretty much ran on freeware (as well as distributing it.) Mail system by Crispin at stanford, X/YModem by Westfield at SRI, choice of assorted FTP and FTP Servers, Operating system hacks by people all over. And they may relegate games to "after hours" unofficial programming. The same may have been true of TOPS at MIT, Stanford, etc. Mainframe mentality, common wherever resources are more limitted than "all uses" would need. You can still see this today in anyplace with less than one computer per user, or over network resources. DECWARS? The version of SITBOL that someone wanted? It's all just *gone*, as far as I can tell. Yep, probably. More accurately, it's probably sitting on a bunch of 9track magtapes that would cost more to get read than it's worth. OTOH, I have email archives that go back to about 1980 and are still readable (using the same mail system I use for todays mail.) Part of that is always having had "friendly" job changes, so that I could take things with me. I've got most of tops20 on a mac disk, too. Don't tell Compaq. Wasn't the Ctrl-] character originally Ctrl-^? (I'm thinking of "The Telnet Song" here.) Actually, the behavior in the song doesn't seem to work these days. Ctrl-^ on most 36bit systems. Unix had to be different. It's still ctrl-^ on cisco gear, and the song still works... >Yup. I'm rather amazed to see announcements of "newly developed >techniques" that were well-known to us old farts of the 1970s. You would think that with all the fundamental developments in the 70's, when people finally started to understand compilers, operating systems, software architecture, how to build good systems that work together as systems, debuggers, object-oriented programming, and a bunch of other stuff, that our software would be vastly better. Unfortunately it's almost worse. That's the main reason I don't like the direction that research and the industry are going in. IMHO, nearly ALL of the effort since then has gone into improving usability by "the masses." That way, you can sell MORE computers. If you implement it badly enough, to can sell the same people a NEW computer every couple of years, cause their old one won't be big or fast I. I am unable to resolve whether I believe this is a good thing or not. :-( (The flip side of this is that many of the "important issues" from those days just AREN'T any more. I mean, I worked on the stanford newswire software that packed some of its data storage files into 5bit bytes so that they could fit 7 characters in a word and conserve disk space. Stuff that used to need fancy database algorithms (say, finding a particular email in a 40 MByte archive) can now be done faster using a linear text searchs.) BillW -- (remove spam food from return address) ###### From: Mark Crispin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 18:13:10 -0800 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing Lines: 17 Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <54r9us1t1p.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: tomobiki-cho.cac.washington.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 911959993 33276 (None) 140.142.17.37 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: ken To: Bill Westfield In-Reply-To: <54r9us1t1p.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!news-peer1.sprintlink.net!news-in-east1.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU!mrc On 24 Nov 1998, Bill Westfield wrote: > I still run mm (the columbia ccmd based one) on unix, and it allows me to > run rings around most of the "mail readers" in terms of archive retrieval. > > It's not very supported anymore, of course :-( I'm a little surprised Mark > didn't re-port to the mac or something... The IMAP protocol is the direct descendant of MM, and Pine can justly be called MM's successor. MM was an outstanding program in its day, but times have changed. -- Mark -- * RCW 19.149 notice: This email address is located in Washington State. * * Unsolicited commercial email may be billed $500 per message. * Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ###### From: Mark Crispin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 20:36:20 -0800 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing Lines: 18 Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <73fvhf$imt@bonkers.taronga.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: tomobiki-cho.cac.washington.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 911968582 11238 (None) 140.142.17.38 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: u812 To: Peter da Silva In-Reply-To: <73fvhf$imt@bonkers.taronga.com> Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU!mrc On 24 Nov 1998, Peter da Silva wrote: > >How I miss the ability to redirect > >standard input/output to a TCP filespec on the command line (I can't > >believe that UNIX geeks haven't hacked this into the shell yet) > Because netcat lets you do it as a separate program. % netcat netcat: Command not found. Reproduced on several different UNIX variants. Not a widely-distributed program. -- Mark -- * RCW 19.149 notice: This email address is located in Washington State. * * Unsolicited commercial email may be billed $500 per message. * Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ###### From: Mark Crispin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 20:40:43 -0800 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <54pvac1r9y.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> <73fvu4$iom@bonkers.taronga.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: tomobiki-cho.cac.washington.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 911968845 30060 (None) 140.142.17.40 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: yfong To: Peter da Silva In-Reply-To: <73fvu4$iom@bonkers.taronga.com> Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-dc.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU!mrc On 24 Nov 1998, Peter da Silva wrote: > ^] is easier to type on most keyboards, so it probably wasn't entirely > arbitrary. Which is, of course, a bug. CTRL/^ was picked specifically because it is hard to type and not likely to be used by anything else. The same can not be said for CTRL/]. -- Mark -- * RCW 19.149 notice: This email address is located in Washington State. * * Unsolicited commercial email may be billed $500 per message. * Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ###### From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 24 Nov 1998 22:02:55 -0600 Organization: none Lines: 27 Message-ID: <73fvhf$imt@bonkers.taronga.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.taronga.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!ultraneo.neosoft.com!bonkers!not-for-mail In article , Mark Crispin wrote: >And, goddamn it, I *hate* brain-damaged UNIX sockets and the piece of >garbage C library resolver routines!! So do I, because they're *not* a UNIX interface. The real UNIX network interface is lost forever in the bowels of Bell Labs. >How I miss the ability to redirect >standard input/output to a TCP filespec on the command line (I can't >believe that UNIX geeks haven't hacked this into the shell yet) Because netcat lets you do it as a separate program. I think you could implement it in libc and get enough coverage to do a proof of concept, and even make it reasonably portable. >not to >mention the wonderful Chives resolver. Is this documented anywhere? I dislike gethostbyname() intensely. -- This is The Reverend Peter da Silva's Boring Sig File - there are no references to Wolves, Kibo, Discordianism, or The Church of the Subgenius in this document "The GCOS GERTS interface is so bad that a description here is inappropriate. Anyone seeking to use this interface should seek divine guidance." ###### From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 24 Nov 1998 22:09:40 -0600 Organization: none Lines: 13 Message-ID: <73fvu4$iom@bonkers.taronga.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <54pvac1r9y.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.taronga.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!ultraneo.neosoft.com!bonkers!not-for-mail In article <54pvac1r9y.fsf@flipper.cisco.com>, Bill Westfield wrote: >Ctrl-^ on most 36bit systems. Unix had to be different. It's still ctrl-^ >on cisco gear, and the song still works... ^] is easier to type on most keyboards, so it probably wasn't entirely arbitrary. -- This is The Reverend Peter da Silva's Boring Sig File - there are no references to Wolves, Kibo, Discordianism, or The Church of the Subgenius in this document "The GCOS GERTS interface is so bad that a description here is inappropriate. Anyone seeking to use this interface should seek divine guidance." ###### From: stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu (Stewart Stremler) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Date: 25 Nov 1998 02:57:00 GMT Organization: San Diego State University Lines: 15 Message-ID: <73frls$11n$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: rohan.sdsu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news1.best.com!newshub.sdsu.edu!gondor!rohan!stremler D. Peschel (dpeschel@u.washington.edu) wrote: [snip] > Wasn't the Ctrl-] character originally Ctrl-^? (I'm thinking of "The Telnet > Song" here.) Actually, the behavior in the song doesn't seem to work these > days. So...what's the song? Some of us are ignorant, but not by choice... -- ---------------------------------------------------\ "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed \ stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu my father. Prepare to die." -_The Princess Bride_ \ Stewart Stremler \----------------------- ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 25 Nov 1998 04:13:11 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 74 Message-ID: <73g04n$101i$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <73frls$11n$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul5.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 911967191 32818 (None) 140.142.17.37 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article <73frls$11n$1@gondor.sdsu.edu>, Stewart Stremler wrote: >So...what's the song? From http://www.poppyfields.oaktree.co.uk/filks/authindex.html If you want to do what the intro says, you'll have to write Guy Steele, since Donald Knuth no longer uses e-mail. Luckily, Guy Steele is the real composer; Knuth only wrote the article. -- Derek Title - Telnet Song Original - ? Group - ? Author - Guy L. Steele / D.E. Knuth Intro - D.E. Knuth, 'The Complexity of Songs', Communications of the ACM 27 (4) pp. 345--348, April, 1984 (repetitions indicated; the song is only sung correctly if the appropriate number of repetitions is used) Some comments: Strictly speaking, the song is not part of the article; it was appended afterwards. The composer and lyricist is Guy L. Steele, Jr. The melody has a certain haunting quality that is quite hard to convey in ASCII text. I don't know whether it has ever been played. The composer has email, so it shouldn't be too hard to find out. Song - Telnet Song There is a program called TELNET to get to another CPU. Control up-arrow is the escape; it's doubled to send it through, and "quit" is control up-arrow Q. A hacker once used TELNET to get to another CPU. He knew he could quit whenever he wanted to: all he had to do was type control up-arrow Q. Instead the hacker used TEL-NET to get to another CPU. He knew he could quit whenever he wanted to: all he had to do was type control up-arrow [at i-th time, repeat 2^i times] Q. [repeat verse n times; the choice of n is free] The hacker soon got bored with this, and wanted to get back. He sighed, and started the exponential popping of the stack: The hacked flushed the TEL-NET to the most distant CPU: He couldn't log out until he had killed them all, counting up powers of two: he typed control up-arrow [at i-th time, repeat 2^(n-i+1) times] Q. [repeat n times] Whew! The hacker's eyes were bloodshot; his fingers, black and blue; He wanted to log out and and go home to bed, and sleep for a day or two. He typed L O G O U T ... carriage return ... The hacker was on a network with only twenty CPU's. But if he had telnetted to them all, he would not yet be through with typing control up-arrow [repeat 7 times] Q! ###### From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 25 Nov 1998 07:24:55 -0600 Organization: none Lines: 19 Message-ID: <73h0f7$rhg@bonkers.taronga.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <54pvac1r9y.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> <73fvu4$iom@bonkers.taronga.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.taronga.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!ultraneo.neosoft.com!bonkers!not-for-mail In article , Mark Crispin wrote: >On 24 Nov 1998, Peter da Silva wrote: >> ^] is easier to type on most keyboards, so it probably wasn't entirely >> arbitrary. >Which is, of course, a bug. CTRL/^ was picked specifically because it is >hard to type and not likely to be used by anything else. The same can not >be said for CTRL/]. I would say that, if it's a flaw, it's a design flaw rather than a bug. And I really don't think that making a different user interface decsion should automatically be considered a flaw. -- This is The Reverend Peter da Silva's Boring Sig File - there are no references to Wolves, Kibo, Discordianism, or The Church of the Subgenius in this document "The GCOS GERTS interface is so bad that a description here is inappropriate. Anyone seeking to use this interface should seek divine guidance." ###### From: mhwood@Ameritech.net (Mark H. Wood) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 11:18:21 GMT Organization: La Petite Hackerie Lines: 46 Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mhw.ulib.iupui.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950515BETA PL0] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!isdnet!howland.erols.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news.indiana.edu!news.iupui.edu!haystack!mhwood Mark Crispin (mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU) wrote: [deletia] Thanks for the discussion. A copy is going into my history file. : > Amazing how short the attention span of the Internet is, isn't it? : : Yup. I'm rather amazed to see announcements of "newly developed : techniques" that were well-known to us old farts of the 1970s. Me, too. I'm forever reminding people that something or other had been done decades ago. Witness the current excitement surrounding the "storage area network". That was supposed to be the only way you would have connected disks to the DECSYSTEM-2080 had it ever got out the door, and we ran one for years with VMS nodes on it in the mid-to-late 80s when it was already old hat among DEC customers. When people started talking up Object-Oriented techniques, I just sighed and remembered the OO stuff I did in Simula 67 under TOPS back in the '70s. The computing industry is often living proof of the truth in that old song: Don't throw the past away -- You might need it some rainy day. ... 'Cause everything old is new again. +++++++++++++++++ BTW can anybody tell me whether DYNLIB was the first implementation of dynamic linking that shipped with a commercial product? The paper that came with it sure sounded like original research. The early adopters among the Unices have only had dynamic linking for a few years, and some flavors either *still* don't have it or are just now getting it. Has anybody here actually *used* DYNLIB? [raises hand] I remember turning the external sort library code into a dynamic library just for grins, but that was just before we [sniff] decommissioned that system so I didn't get to play with it very much. -- -- Mark H. Wood, radical centrist mhwood@ameritech.net Having seen what's at the edges of the road, I much prefer the dead armadillos. ###### From: mhwood@Ameritech.net (Mark H. Wood) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 11:46:06 GMT Organization: La Petite Hackerie Lines: 24 Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <54r9us1t1p.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mhw.ulib.iupui.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950515BETA PL0] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!howland.erols.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news.indiana.edu!news.iupui.edu!haystack!mhwood Mark Crispin (mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU) wrote: : On 24 Nov 1998, Bill Westfield wrote: : > I still run mm (the columbia ccmd based one) on unix, and it allows me to : > run rings around most of the "mail readers" in terms of archive retrieval. : > : > It's not very supported anymore, of course :-( I'm a little surprised Mark : > didn't re-port to the mac or something... : : The IMAP protocol is the direct descendant of MM, and Pine can justly be : called MM's successor. MM was an outstanding program in its day, but : times have changed. Granted, and I use and enjoy Pine every day. But I'd rather have something like MM. A commandline interface lets you do things that would be quite awkward with a keystroke interface. Shoot, commandline interfaces let you *think* in ways that are distinctly different from, and often more powerful than, those required by keystroke or GUI interfaces. What I always wanted was something that would let me compose DATATRIEVE-like queries to be run against my mail archive -- try doing that naturally with anything but a commandline. -- -- Mark H. Wood, radical centrist mhwood@ameritech.net Having seen what's at the edges of the road, I much prefer the dead armadillos. ###### From: s.c.sprong@student.utwente.nl (S.C.Sprong) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Supersedes: Date: 25 Nov 1998 15:11:39 GMT Organization: University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands Lines: 27 Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <54pvac1r9y.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> Reply-To: s.c.sprong@student.utwente.nl NNTP-Posting-Host: wit381007.student.utwente.nl X-Server-Date: 25 Nov 1998 15:11:39 GMT X-Superseded-By: s.c.sprong@student.utwente.nl (S.C.Sprong) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!surfnet.nl!news.nic.utwente.nl!wit381007.student.utwente.nl!scsprong Bill Westfield wrote: [PDP-10 ponderings] >>DECWARS? The version of SITBOL that someone wanted? It's all just >>*gone*, as far as I can tell. >Yep, probably. More accurately, it's probably sitting on a bunch of >9track magtapes that would cost more to get read than it's worth. Hello! As long as you ghosts of a golden age gone by are rattling with your chains, may I remind you of the DECWAR resurrection project? A one-player variant done in QBASIC for MSDOS is already available, and there are advanced steps made towards multi-player variants. see: <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Organization: D Bit, Troy, NY From: wilson@dbit.com (John Wilson) NNTP-Posting-Host: dbit.dbit.com Message-ID: <365c7445.0@news.wizvax.net> Date: 25 Nov 1998 16:19:01 -0500 X-Trace: 25 Nov 1998 16:19:01 -0500, dbit.dbit.com Lines: 15 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newspeer.monmouth.com!newsfeed.wizvax.net!news.wizvax.net!dbit.com!wilson In article , Roger Ivie wrote: >When I tell linux to 'mput *', it gives the filenames to the remote >system as './mumble', which (of course) is lots of fun to clean up on my >VMS account. To be fair, I'm running an older Linux here, and it's >entirely possible that someone has fixed this in at least one of the >distributions that's out there... I've run into the same problem using Linux trying to send files to RSX11M+, where such filenames are totally invalid so I get piles of errors. *I* get the errors (visually) that is, not FTP of course because actually checking the server reply codes would require, like, *effort* 'n stuff. John Wilson D Bit ###### From: rivie@rivie.daautah.com (Roger Ivie) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 25 Nov 1998 16:27:20 GMT Organization: XMission http://www.xmission.com/ Lines: 21 Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: rivie@daa-utah.com NNTP-Posting-Host: logan8.modem.xmission.com X-Trace: news.xmission.com 912011240 17926 166.70.3.200 (25 Nov 1998 16:27:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@xmission.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 25 Nov 1998 16:27:20 GMT X-Newsreader: slrn (0.8.8.2 UNIX) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!xmission!nnrp.xmission!rivie In article <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu>, D. Peschel wrote: >The UNIX interface, in turn, has been shoddily copied by people who have no >sense of design and like to ship unfinished code. (The Microsoft FTP and >Telnet programs are glaring examples, but even the FTP client in NCSA Telnet >for the Macintosh would download nonexistent files for you. Many other >clients don't follow the specs. The OSF/1 v3 telnet program doesn't follow >its own manual entry -- at least, I haven't figured out how to get it to.) When I tell linux to 'mput *', it gives the filenames to the remote system as './mumble', which (of course) is lots of fun to clean up on my VMS account. To be fair, I'm running an older Linux here, and it's entirely possible that someone has fixed this in at least one of the distributions that's out there... -- Roger Ivie Design Analysis Associates 75 West 100 South Logan, UT 84321 mailto:rivie@daa-utah.com phoneto:(435)753-2212 ###### From: genew@vip.net (Gene Wirchenko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 16:33:13 GMT Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com - Discussions start here! Lines: 21 Message-ID: <365bab3e.50144777@news.vip.net> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <54pvac1r9y.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> Reply-To: genew@vip.net NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.209.212.68 X-Trace: 912011452 A01OARAUVD444CCD1C usenet52.supernews.com X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/32.230 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!howland.erols.net!nntp.abs.net!feeder.qis.net!newsfeed-east.supernews.com!supernews.com!Supernews69!not-for-mail Bill Westfield wrote: [snip] > Wasn't the Ctrl-] character originally Ctrl-^? (I'm thinking of "The > Telnet Song" here.) Actually, the behavior in the song doesn't seem to > work these days. > >Ctrl-^ on most 36bit systems. Unix had to be different. It's still ctrl-^ >on cisco gear, and the song still works... Please post the song with an explanation of any obscure parts. Sincerelym, Gene Wirchenko Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices. ###### From: Bill Westfield Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 25 Nov 1998 16:53:07 -0800 Organization: Cisco Systems, Inc. Lines: 18 Message-ID: <54yaozb7gs.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: flipper.cisco.com X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news-master.cisco.com!not-for-mail : > Amazing how short the attention span of the Internet is, isn't it? : : Yup. I'm rather amazed to see announcements of "newly developed : techniques" that were well-known to us old farts of the 1970s. Me, too. I'm forever reminding people that something or other had been done decades ago. What I think I *REALLY* miss, even though I never saw it when it was first around, is all the "courseware" from the CDC (?) Plato system. I think technology has finally caught up to allow pretty-near universal access to such material, but it's all dissappeared. I haven't seen online tutorial classware that even matches LIRICS/LICUS MACRO-10 course in quality (not that i've really gone looking.) BillW -- (remove spam food from return address) ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 25 Nov 1998 17:38:04 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 15 Message-ID: <73hf9s$cmu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <54pvac1r9y.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> <365bab3e.50144777@news.vip.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul5.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 912015484 13022 (None) 140.142.17.38 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsgate.cistron.nl!het.net!news.tele2.nl!newsfeed1.swip.net!swipnet!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article <365bab3e.50144777@news.vip.net>, Gene Wirchenko wrote: > Please post the song with an explanation of any obscure parts. I already posted it (see another branch in this thread). It's actually not obscure at all. It's more or less a self-explaining song. It even comes with explicit mathematical directions for singing. I guess in order to make it a _completely_ self-explaining song, or at least a self-documenting song, we would need a meta-song. The Telnet Song Song? This could get scary. -- Derek ###### From: Mark Crispin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 20:04:40 -0800 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing Lines: 13 Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <54r9us1t1p.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: tomobiki-cho.cac.washington.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 912053084 43510 (None) 140.142.17.38 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: mishk To: "Mark H. Wood" In-Reply-To: Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!howland.erols.net!news-peer1.sprintlink.net!news-backup-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU!mrc On Wed, 25 Nov 1998, Mark H. Wood wrote: > What I always wanted was something that would let me > compose DATATRIEVE-like queries to be run against my mail archive -- > try doing that naturally with anything but a commandline. IMAP! ;-) -- Mark -- * RCW 19.149 notice: This email address is located in Washington State. * * Unsolicited commercial email may be billed $500 per message. * Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ###### From: Mark Crispin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 20:10:25 -0800 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing Lines: 18 Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <73frls$11n$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <73g04n$101i$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365CA102.2940A8F9@no.spam> NNTP-Posting-Host: tomobiki-cho.cac.washington.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 912053427 22868 (None) 140.142.17.37 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: okamoto In-Reply-To: <365CA102.2940A8F9@no.spam> Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU!mrc On 26 Nov 1998, The Bakers wrote: > > Donald Knuth no longer uses e-mail. > Why ? Prof. Knuth is among the truly elite, those who, by choice, are *not* at the beck and call of anyone who can figure out an email address. Even in the early 1980s, email for him went to his secretary unless you knew the secret alias that was his real mailbox. I envy and admire his bold pioneering spirit. I intend to undertake that step myself someday. -- Mark -- * RCW 19.149 notice: This email address is located in Washington State. * * Unsolicited commercial email may be billed $500 per message. * Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. ###### From: Tovar Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 25 Nov 1998 22:01:35 -0800 Organization: Spam Haters (please remove -nojunk before replying) Lines: 25 Message-ID: <87pvabt2kg.fsf@mongrel.kd6pag.ampr.org> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: op204.value.net X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news1.best.com!vnetnews.value.net!not-for-mail TOPS-20 (and Tenex, the immediate precessor to TOPS-20). I confess to have written some of these, on TOPS-20 and on other PDP-10 operating systems. UNIX was very much a johnny-come-lately. -- MRC Excuse me!?! I ran a network UNIX for the Berkeley Speech Research group, one of only three or four UNIX systems on the 'Net at that time. And that was with a VDH interface, no less! [Hint: That was before BSD meant anything...] Why hack an '11? Heck, i wanted access to/from the PDP-10 at Stanford!! Now i won't disagree with you about modern networking; if anything, i continue to be surprised how little UNIX has chanced since 1975 when i wrote its first pseudo-teletype driver (patterned off the SAIL version, of course). And, yes, that lowly PDP-11/40 ran EDDT. Do you think i wanted to deal with 'core' files?? And the attached GT40 had Spacewar as well (ableit it *really* needed button boxes). I don't know how many times i replaced the darn deflection transistors on that thing. Of course, UNIX went somewhere else from there; but apparently 'pty.c' survives to this day in various forms. I recognized it a dozen years later on a Symbolics distribution tape for UNIX support, by the MACRO-10/ FAIL style comments in it! "And so now you know the rest of the story." -- TVR ###### From: The Bakers Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 26 Nov 1998 00:30:15 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Lines: 7 Message-ID: <365CA102.2940A8F9@no.spam> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <73frls$11n$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <73g04n$101i$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: donteventry@no.spam NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.250.113.45 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!howland.erols.net!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.225!attworldnet!newsadm "D. Peschel" wrote: > Donald Knuth no longer uses e-mail. Why ? ###### From: raphael@research.canon.com.au Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 26 Nov 1998 01:21:40 GMT Organization: Canon Information Systems Research Australia Lines: 2 Message-ID: <73iaf4$dlp$1@cass.research.canon.com.au> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fvhf$imt@bonkers.taronga.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: cass.research.canon.com.au X-Trace: cass.research.canon.com.au 912043300 14009 203.12.174.231 (26 Nov 1998 01:21:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@research.canon.com.au NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Nov 1998 01:21:40 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!news.research.canon.com.au!not-for-mail The netcat executable is usually nc ... but you knew that. ;-) ###### From: gerglery@usa.net (Fluffy) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 26 Nov 1998 02:05:59 GMT Organization: Ruler of Usenet (all) Message-ID: <73id27$ib4$1@meowhost.meow.invalid> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 912045985 mail2news:6705 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!out2.ibm.net!meowhost.meow.invalid X-P-Meow: Meow Mail-Copies-To: never X-URL: http://members.tripod.com/~gerglery/ X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.5.3-canlock UNIX) Lines: 6 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Neil Franklin wrote: > Do you have an source for an free httpd for VMS? ###### From: westin*nospam@graphics.cornell.edu (Stephen H. Westin) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 26 Nov 1998 03:04:17 -0500 Organization: Program of Computer Graphics -- Cornell University Lines: 19 Sender: westin@blynken.graphics.cornell.edu Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <73frls$11n$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <73g04n$101i$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365CA102.2940A8F9@no.spam> NNTP-Posting-Host: blynken.graphics.cornell.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.6.44/Emacs 20.2 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!howland.erols.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!portc01.blue.aol.com!newsstand.cit.cornell.edu!news.graphics.cornell.edu!news The Bakers writes: > "D. Peschel" wrote: > > > Donald Knuth no longer uses e-mail. > > Why ? His explanation included, roughly, "Email is great for keeping on top of things; I like to get to the bottom of things." My understanding is that he just wants to work on his books with no interruptions, and figures that important messages will get through. See his Web page at for the real story. -- -Stephen H. Westin Any information or opinions in this message are mine: they do not represent the position of Cornell University or any of its sponsors. ###### From: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 26 Nov 1998 09:01:36 GMT Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Lines: 9 Message-ID: <73j5dg$5qs@freenet-news.carleton.ca> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <73frls$11n$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <73g04n$101i$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365CA102.2940A8F9@no.spam> Reply-To: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet5.carleton.ca X-Given-Sender: ab528@freenet5.carleton.ca (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newshub.northeast.verio.net!newsserver.jvnc.net!xcski.com!freenet-news.carleton.ca!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!ab528 Stephen H. Westin (westin*nospam@graphics.cornell.edu) writes: > > His explanation included, roughly, "Email is great for keeping on top > of things; I like to get to the bottom of things." My understanding is > that he just wants to work on his books with no interruptions, [snip] Volumes 4 through 7 perhaps? ###### From: sethm@loomcom.com (Seth J. Morabito) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 26 Nov 1998 12:34:07 PST Organization: RetroNet - The Bleeding Edge of Yesterday's Technology Lines: 15 Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> Reply-To: sethm@loomcom.com NNTP-Posting-Host: motherbrain.squeep.com X-no-archive: yes X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.4.3 UNIX) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!newsfeed.concentric.net!207.155.183.80.MISMATCH!global-news-master >Have you completely forgotten SIMTEL20 :-)? Just over five >years ago, it was *the* most singularly major FTP site on the >Internet. And it ran TOPS-20. (I'm sure purists will now >lecture me about how TOPS-20 wasn't TOPS!) My God -- I'm going to show my ignorance here, but I had no idea, and I must have been one of SIMTEL20's biggest downloaders ;) Wow, that brings back some college memories. Thanks Tim! -Seth -- "Sometimes the milk can hurt you, if you sethm@loomcom.com put it on your cereal before you smell Seth Morabito the plastic container." -- Frank Zappa ###### From: The Bakers Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 26 Nov 1998 14:24:12 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Lines: 8 Message-ID: <365D6474.95E7C1F5@no.spam> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fe7g$lpu$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <73frls$11n$1@gondor.sdsu.edu> <73g04n$101i$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365CA102.2940A8F9@no.spam> Reply-To: donteventry@no.spam NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.250.113.217 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!howland.erols.net!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.225!attworldnet!newsadm Many thanks to you & Mark & everyone else for your replies to my query "Why doesn't Knuth use email anymore ?". The reference to his webpage was particularly interesting & enlightening. Thanks again! ###### From: lucvdv@null.net (Luc Van der Veken) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 19:21:43 GMT Organization: . Lines: 24 Message-ID: <3660a9c5.4479591@news.uunet.be> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fvhf$imt@bonkers.taronga.com> <73iaf4$dlp$1@cass.research.canon.com.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: pool02b-194-7-145-35.uunet.be Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 X-No-Archive: yes Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!join.news.pipex.net!pipex!krypton.inbe.net!INbe.net!not-for-mail Also sprach raphael@research.canon.com.au on 26 Nov 1998 01:21:40 GMT to alt.folklore.computers: > The netcat executable is usually nc ... but you knew that. ;-) Maybe he didn't, but he should have realized that 6 characters is _way_ too long for a unix command name, and started digging :) What I don't understand: unix has a strong preference for two-character names, and the user can create longer named links (or aliases) if he wants to. Why not the other way around? It would at least keep novices with poor memories from inventing things like typing " rm -r * " when they really want to _r_ead _m_ail, -r ('recent', or maybe 'marked read too'), * ('all messages'). [rm is so basic that I don't know anyone who used it this way, but when I had just installed Linux after not having seen a *x prompt in years, I've had a few messages myself that I wouldn't have gotten from the command I really meant :) ] -- "Managing senior programmers is like herding cats." --Dave Platt ###### From: huge@nospam.demon.co.uk (Hugh Davies) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 27 Nov 1998 10:58:22 GMT Organization: Piglet's Pickles and Preserves Message-ID: <73m0ke$lg2@axalotl.demon.co.uk> References: <365D6474.95E7C1F5@no.spam> Reply-To: huge@nospam.demon.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Host: axalotl.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: axalotl.demon.co.uk:158.152.24.143 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 912182268 nnrp-08:19303 NO-IDENT axalotl.demon.co.uk:158.152.24.143 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net x-no-archive: yes Lines: 19 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!diablo.theplanet.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!axalotl.demon.co.uk!axalotl!usenet In article <365D6474.95E7C1F5@no.spam>, The Bakers writes: >Many thanks to you & Mark & everyone else for your replies to my query >"Why doesn't Knuth use email anymore ?". The reference to his webpage was >particularly interesting & enlightening. Me too! I particularly liked the pipe organ. And the jokey TeX & MetaFONT version numbers. (Doubtless these are old hat to TeX hackers, but I've never used it, so it was new to me.) -- "The road to Paradise is through Intercourse." The uk.transport FAQ; http://www.axalotl.demon.co.uk/transport/FAQ.html [Substitute "axalotl" for "nospam" to email me] ###### From: David O'Bedlam Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <54r9us1t1p.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> Organization: Gehenna-By-The-Sea Lines: 32 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.201.34.8 X-Trace: news6.ispnews.com 912203982 207.201.34.8 (Fri, 27 Nov 1998 16:59:42 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 16:59:42 EDT Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 21:59:42 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!hub1.ispnews.com!news6.ispnews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Mark H. Wood wrote: > Granted, and I use and enjoy Pine every day. As do I. And for Usenet I edit with Pico. 'S easy! > But I'd rather have something like MM. A commandline interface lets > you do things that would be quite awkward with a keystroke interface. That sounds too much like baking plain white bread from scratch. Why? Because while you're kneading the dough (held together by sweat from your forehead) you can daydream about how good it'll smell as it bakes. > Shoot, commandline interfaces let you *think* in ways that are > distinctly different from, and often more powerful than, those required > by keystroke or GUI interfaces. Yeah, absolutely: one can think "I'm really glad I bought the manual so I could copy out all the interesting little marks and switches and tape the resulting cheat-sheet to the wall by my monitor so I can spend half my time looking at my notes instead of actually getting anything done." WYSIWYG word processors, e.g., were definitely an improvement. "Powerful thinking"? More like "when I was your age we had to shape the each silicon wafer by hand first! A man could drudge all manly-like then!" David -- "I can't gracefully accept the universe. But I've found I that I *can* gracefully accept the fact that the universe should not exist." -- Satanas Uxora, on alt.angst ###### From: David O'Bedlam Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fvhf$imt@bonkers.taronga.com> <73iaf4$dlp$1@cass.research.canon.com.au> Organization: Gehenna-By-The-Sea Lines: 14 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.201.34.8 X-Trace: news6.ispnews.com 912204058 207.201.34.8 (Fri, 27 Nov 1998 17:00:58 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 17:00:58 EDT Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 22:00:58 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!howland.erols.net!hub1.ispnews.com!news6.ispnews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail raphael@research.canon.com.au wrote: > The netcat executable is usually nc ... but you knew that. ;-) "Not found" here either. What IS it? D. -- "I can't gracefully accept the universe. But I've found I that I *can* gracefully accept the fact that the universe should not exist." -- Satanas Uxora, on alt.angst ###### From: martin@ibert.com (Martin Ibert) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 22:32:14 GMT Organization: The Seventh Heaven, Berlin, Germany Lines: 14 Message-ID: <366327ad.20351921@news.home.ibert.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fvhf$imt@bonkers.taronga.com> <73iaf4$dlp$1@cass.research.canon.com.au> <3660a9c5.4479591@news.uunet.be> NNTP-Posting-Host: arezzo.home.ibert.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!newscore.ipf.de!unlisys!news.snafu.de!home.ibert.com!news On Thu, 26 Nov 1998 19:21:43 GMT, lucvdv@null.net (Luc Van der Veken) wrote: >It >would at least keep novices with poor memories from inventing >things like typing " rm -r * " when they really want to _r_ead >_m_ail, -r ('recent', or maybe 'marked read too'), * ('all >messages'). Anyone who would even contemplate such as thing while not under the influence of mind-altering drugs should never ever be allowed near a UN*X command line. Granted that "rm" might be "read mail", granted that "-r" might mean "recent", but an unquoted asterisk cannot ever mean "all messages". If it did, it would need to be quoted. Everyone knows that. Or their hands should be superglued to a mouse. ###### From: Brian Macke Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 28 Nov 1998 01:34:30 GMT Organization: Strangelove Networking Lines: 19 Message-ID: <73njv6$7i4$1@sword.avalon.net> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fvhf$imt@bonkers.taronga.com> <73iaf4$dlp$1@cass.research. Reply-To: macke@strangelove.net NNTP-Posting-Host: ripper.strangelove.net X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 (NOV) Originator: macke@ripper.strangelove.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!204.71.106.34!avalon.net!ripper.strangelove.net!macke David O'Bedlam writes: >raphael@research.canon.com.au wrote: >> The netcat executable is usually nc ... but you knew that. ;-) >"Not found" here either. What IS it? http://www.l0pht.com/~weld/netcat/index.html Think about the name.. 'net' 'cat'. The README on that page should point out what should be obvious right now. >D. -- -Brian James Macke macke@strangelove.net The Prophet "In order to get that which you wish for, you must first get that which builds it." -- Unknown ###### From: Bill Westfield Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 28 Nov 1998 23:22:14 -0800 Organization: Cisco Systems, Inc. Lines: 19 Message-ID: <54u2zj2cbd.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <54r9us1t1p.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: flipper.cisco.com X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news-master.cisco.com!not-for-mail > Shoot, commandline interfaces let you *think* in ways that are > distinctly different from, and often more powerful than, those required > by keystroke or GUI interfaces. Yeah, absolutely: one can think "I'm really glad I bought the manual so I could copy out all the interesting little marks and switches and tape the resulting cheat-sheet to the wall by my monitor so I can spend half my time looking at my notes instead of actually getting anything done." In my major use of MM, reading several hundred messages a day or so, I use approximately three keys - "k", "space", and "return." I can do ALMOST as well with netscape mail, except it requires more movement, either between mouse and keyboard or different mouse buttons. GUIs (nearly) invariably make the common more complex in their attempts to make the uncommon more accessable, and then fail at the latter anyway. BillW -- (remove spam food from return address) ###### From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 29 Nov 1998 05:55:34 -0600 Organization: none Lines: 16 Message-ID: <73rcnm$opa@bonkers.taronga.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <54u2zj2cbd.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.taronga.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.axxsys.net!ultraneo.neosoft.com!bonkers!not-for-mail Someone whose message has vanished wrote: > Yeah, absolutely: one can think "I'm really glad I bought the manual so > I could copy out all the interesting little marks and switches and tape > the resulting cheat-sheet to the wall by my monitor so I can spend half > my time looking at my notes instead of actually getting anything done." If you make that your experience with command lines, then that's what your experience with command lines will be. You can choose not to do that, of course. A GUI, on the other hand, provides no way to traverse the gap between naivete and efficiency. -- This is The Reverend Peter da Silva's Boring Sig File - there are no references to Wolves, Kibo, Discordianism, or The Church of the Subgenius in this document "The GCOS GERTS interface is so bad that a description here is inappropriate. Anyone seeking to use this interface should seek divine guidance." ###### From: Roy Trubshaw Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 11:44:25 +0000 Organization: Very little Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <54r9us1t1p.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: museltd.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: museltd.demon.co.uk:158.152.108.40 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 912340409 nnrp-03:27305 NO-IDENT museltd.demon.co.uk:158.152.108.40 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: Turnpike (32) Version 4.00 Lines: 27 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!museltd.demon.co.uk!Roy In article , David O'Bedlam writes >Mark H. Wood wrote: [Snip] >> Shoot, commandline interfaces let you *think* in ways that are >> distinctly different from, and often more powerful than, those required >> by keystroke or GUI interfaces. > >Yeah, absolutely: one can think "I'm really glad I bought the manual so >I could copy out all the interesting little marks and switches and tape >the resulting cheat-sheet to the wall by my monitor so I can spend half >my time looking at my notes instead of actually getting anything done." >WYSIWYG word processors, e.g., were definitely an improvement. Yeah, they let you spend all that time messing with the _appearance_ of your document.... > >"Powerful thinking"? More like "when I was your age we had to shape the >each silicon wafer by hand first! A man could drudge all manly-like then!" Silicon wafers! We used to _dream_ of silicon wafers... > >David > Toodle pip, Roy -- Roy Trubshaw You haven't lived 'til you died, in MUD! ###### From: David O'Bedlam Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <54r9us1t1p.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> <54u2zj2cbd.fsf@flipper.cisco.com> Organization: Gehenna-By-The-Sea Lines: 22 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.201.34.8 X-Trace: news6.ispnews.com 912339891 207.201.34.8 (Sun, 29 Nov 1998 06:44:51 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 06:44:51 EDT Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 11:44:51 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!hub1.ispnews.com!news6.ispnews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Bill Westfield wrote: > In my major use of MM, reading several hundred messages a day or so, I use > approximately three keys - "k", "space", and "return." I can do ALMOST as > well with netscape mail, except it requires more movement, either between > mouse and keyboard or different mouse buttons. Point taken. Netscape mail is not an improvement: I only use it when I see an URL to follow that's likely to have pictures in it. What do you think of Pine? Do the little "Clue Characters" at the bottom bother you? I don't pay much attention to them anymore myself (nor do I care enough to figure out whether one can disable them); *reading* mail is easy, mainly requiring the "enter" and "n" keys. (Sending and sorting mail is easy in Pine too, but you specified 'reading' it.) Does you count Pine as a GUI, even tho I learned while running a 286 with a yellow-on-black ASCII display? I learned that "GUI" means pictures, but I could agree Pine draws a little frame and a push-up menu on the screen. David ###### From: jkatz@ultrix6.cs.csubak.edu (who?) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 29 Nov 1998 12:02:39 GMT Organization: California State University, Bakersfield Lines: 24 Message-ID: <73rd4v$pqs$2@hades.csu.net> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fvhf$imt@bonkers.taronga.com> <73iaf4$dlp$1@cass.research. <73njv6$7i4$1@sword.avalon.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: ultrix6.cs.csubak.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!howland.erols.net!usc!newshub.csu.net!ultrix6.cs.csubak.edu!jkatz Brian Macke (macke@spam.strangelove.net) wrote: : David O'Bedlam writes: : >raphael@research.canon.com.au wrote: : >> The netcat executable is usually nc ... but you knew that. ;-) : >"Not found" here either. What IS it? : http://www.l0pht.com/~weld/netcat/index.html : Think about the name.. 'net' 'cat'. The README on that page should point : out what should be obvious right now. Except that you're pointing him in the direction of the NT port. For the original, see www.avian.org, except that its been unavailable for the last few weeks. The idea essentially (and I think someone lambasted *NIX not to long ago for lacking this) is to bring redirection to tcp (and udp) connections. The implications of this are, to say the least, profound. It makes a rather easy to use testing/probing utility, as well as being useful in 'production' situations. Ok, enough praise. Obviously Im a fan. jeremy ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!usenet From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 29 Nov 1998 23:20:06 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 23 Sender: neil@chonsp.franklin.ch Message-ID: References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fvhf$imt@bonkers.taronga.com> <73iaf4$dlp$1@cass.research. <73njv6$7i4$1@sword.avalon.net> <73rd4v$pqs$2@hades.csu.net> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 jkatz@ultrix6.cs.csubak.edu (who?) writes: > > Brian Macke (macke@spam.strangelove.net) wrote: > > : http://www.l0pht.com/~weld/netcat/index.html > > Except that you're pointing him in the direction of the NT port. NT, Shudder. > For the original, see www.avian.org, except that its been unavailable for > the last few weeks. Not there any more? Good luck I have a local copy: http://neil.franklin.ch/Info_Texts/nc110.tar.gz -- Neil Franklin, Nerd, Geek, Unix Guru, Hacker, Mystic neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ "No, it was a JOKE! You can't RUN this!" Ken Thompson ###### From: wurton@mindspring.com (Bill Urton) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: Tue, 01 Dec 1998 01:28:32 GMT Organization: The South Carolina Home For The Criminally Inane Lines: 12 Message-ID: <3663459d.2340358@news.mindspring.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> Reply-To: wurton@mindspring.com NNTP-Posting-Host: d1.c0.15.4a Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 1 Dec 1998 01:29:43 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 X-No-Archive: yes Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail On Tue, 24 Nov 1998 13:40:17 -0400, Tim Shoppa wrote: >D. Peschel wrote: (snip) > >Have you completely forgotten SIMTEL20 :-)? Just over five (snip) I checked at work today--ftp for AIX 4.x still accepts tenex as a command along with the ususal ascii and binary. However the ftp that comes with Windows NT does not accept tenex as a command. ###### From: David Scheidt Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 1 Dec 1998 05:11:35 GMT Organization: EnterAct L.L.C. Turbo-Elite News Server Lines: 8 Message-ID: <73vtq7$si7$1@eve.enteract.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <3663459d.2340358@news.mindspring.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.229.143.6 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!newspeer1.nac.net!netnews.com!newsfeed.enteract.com!news.enteract.com!dscheidt Bill Urton wrote: : I checked at work today--ftp for AIX 4.x still accepts tenex as a : comes with Windows NT does not accept tenex as a command. So does FreeBSD 3.0-current. I had forgotten that that should exist. David Scheidt ###### From: inwap@best.com (Smith and O'Halloran) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 1 Dec 1998 17:23:23 -0800 Organization: a user of Best Internet Communications, Inc. www.best.com Message-ID: <7424qb$jl8$1@shell3.ba.best.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> Lines: 36 NNTP-Posting-Host: shell3.ba.best.com X-Trace: nntp1.ba.best.com 912561808 229 inwap@206.184.139.134 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.voicenet.com!news2.best.com!news3.best.com!nntp1.ba.best.com!not-for-mail In article , Seth J. Morabito wrote: >>Have you completely forgotten SIMTEL20 :-)? Just over five >>years ago, it was *the* most singularly major FTP site on the >>Internet. And it ran TOPS-20. (I'm sure purists will now >>lecture me about how TOPS-20 wasn't TOPS!) > >My God -- I'm going to show my ignorance here, but I had no idea, >and I must have been one of SIMTEL20's biggest downloaders ;) Don't forget the "tenex" command built into some FTP clients. It was needed to interface 8-bit computers (CP/M, MS-DOS, PDP-11, UNIX) with 36-bit ones (TOPS-10/TOPS-20/TENEX). When an 8-bit binary file is stored on a TOPS-20 system with a file byte size of 8, then four bytes are stored per word on the -20, and the remaining 4 bits in the 36-bit word are wasted. In BINARY mode, the TOPS-20 FTP server would send or receive a stream of bits. This meant that four and a half bytes would be stored the the first 36-bit word, and the second 36-bit word would have the second half-byte and four more for a total of nine bytes (72 bits) per two 36-bit words. The 'tenex' command built into 8-bit oriented FTP clients tells the remote TOPS-20 FTP server to switch to 8-bit mode, overriding the 36-bit byte size in the remote file's info block. I've also seen a TENEX.COM program; it was used to recover data when you FTPed a file from a TENEX/TOPS-20 system and forgot to use the 'tenex' command on the client side. It would read the partially corrupted file nine bytes at a time, clean them up, and write eight bytes at a time to the output file. -Joe -- INWAP.COM is Joe and Sally Smith, John and Chris O'Halloran and our cats See http://www.inwap.com/ for PDP-10, "ReBoot", "Shadow Raiders"/"War Planets" ###### From: Mike Swaim Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73eokf$16lk$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <365AB741.51191DAD@trailing-edge.com> <3663459d.2340358@news.mindspring.com> <73vtq7$si7$1@eve.enteract.com> Organization: PointeCom User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980818 ("Laura") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/3.0-RELEASE (i386)) Lines: 13 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 14:38:07 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.127.0.130 X-Trace: news2.giganews.com 912609487 209.127.0.130 (Wed, 02 Dec 1998 08:38:07 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 08:38:07 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!207.207.0.26!nntp.giganews.com!news2.giganews.com.POSTED!gemini.c-com.net!swaim David Scheidt wrote: : Bill Urton wrote: : : I checked at work today--ftp for AIX 4.x still accepts tenex as a : : comes with Windows NT does not accept tenex as a command. : So does FreeBSD 3.0-current. I had forgotten that that should exist. It's good for embarassing internet "experts." -- Mike Swaim, Avatar of Chaos: Disclaimer:I sometimes lie. Home: swaim@c-com.net Alum: swaim@alumni.rice.edu Quote: "Boingie"^4 Y,W&D ###### From: tph@longhorn.uucp (Tom Harrington) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: SIMTEL20 (was Re: Is VMS taboo, or what?) Date: 3 Dec 1998 17:58:06 GMT Organization: Mechanist Industries Lines: 17 Message-ID: <746jfe$j723@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> References: <73ela0$51h@hermes.acs.unt.edu> <73fvhf$imt@bonkers.taronga.com> <73iaf4$dlp$1@cass.research. <73rd4v$pqs$2@hades.csu.net> Reply-To: tph@rmi.net NNTP-Posting-Host: cs0053.eld.ford.com X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!141.211.144.13!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!jobone!dailyplanet.srl.ford.com!eccws1.dearborn.ford.com!longhorn!tph who? (jkatz@ultrix6.cs.csubak.edu) wrote: : Brian Macke (macke@spam.strangelove.net) wrote: : : http://www.l0pht.com/~weld/netcat/index.html : : Think about the name.. 'net' 'cat'. The README on that page should point : : out what should be obvious right now. : Except that you're pointing him in the direction of the NT port. Scroll down the page a bit, and you find a section labelled "unix netcat". -- Tom Harrington --------- tph@rmii.com -------- http://rainbow.rmii.com/~tph "And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?" -Talking Heads Cookie's Revenge: ftp://ftp.rmi.net/pub2/tph/cookie/cookies-revenge.sit.hqx