Sender: eric@ruckus.brouhaha.com From: Eric Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: software history (was Re: Old Usenet archives, Deja, and Internet history) References: <7t3soj$jo$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <37f90b1d.8609125@news.newsguy.com> <7td77i$18m2@news1.newsguy.com> <37fb5704.249189@news.newsguy.com> <7tfs3c$vui$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <7ti0fl$8c8$5@autumn.news.rcn.net> X-Disclaimer: Everything I write is false. Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy. Date: 07 Oct 1999 22:50:06 -0700 Message-ID: Lines: 21 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 NNTP-Posting-Host: ruckus.brouhaha.com X-Trace: 7 Oct 1999 23:12:02 -0800, ruckus.brouhaha.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!naxos.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!enews.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!news.spies.com!ruckus.brouhaha.com jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: > Right now, as far as I can tell, everything that we TOPS10 had in > storage or marked as 'to be preserved' is gone. There was a lot of > stuff that never got shipped to customers that should have been saved. > Even most of JMF's work when he did his UNIX project is gone. Is there a "gently weeping" emoticon? For some reason a paraphrase of the old anti-littering television advertisement/jingle from the 70s comes to mind: If we don't pitch in to archive interesting software, there won't be interesting software any more. > Commercial is not the way to do it. I've seen far too much stuff that was supposed to get archived simply get thrown away. The only was I can see to avoid this is for the people who are involved and who care about it to personally control the archive (perhaps despite corporate policy), and even that doesn't guarantee it. What happens when that person is gone? I guess in the software industry we're condemned to repeat history, since no one is going to remember (save) enough of it. ###### Subject: Re: software history (was Re: Old Usenet archives, Deja, and Internet history) From: aek@spies.com (Al Kossow) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <7tkou8$bva$4@autumn.news.rcn.net> Originator: aek@spies.com NNTP-Posting-Host: goonsquad.spies.com Message-ID: <37fe14f4@news.spies.com> Date: 8 Oct 1999 08:59:48 -0800 X-Trace: 8 Oct 1999 08:59:48 -0800, goonsquad.spies.com Lines: 34 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!news.spies.com!spies.com!aek From article <7tkou8$bva$4@autumn.news.rcn.net>, by jmfbahciv@aol.com: > In article , > Eric Smith wrote: >>jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: >>> Right now, as far as I can tell, everything that we TOPS10 had in >>> storage or marked as 'to be preserved' is gone. There was a lot of >>> stuff that never got shipped to customers that should have been saved. >>> Even most of JMF's work when he did his UNIX project is gone. >> >>Is there a "gently weeping" emoticon? > > Nope. There's a really PISSED OFF emoticon there. :-) > I had everything arranged, saved, archived, etc. I thought > I had anticipated everything that could go wrong. What > I never planned on was people whose intentions were to > destroy this work. I'm discovering now that a good > education in history (not the crap we got in schools) > would have been quite useful. > Does anyone know if anything related to 10 software still exists anywhere inside of Stanford, CMU, MIT, etc? I remember years ago, when the 20 was still in MJH that they had racks of 7 track tapes in the top floor that they were trying to figure out how to archive. I hope they succeeded, and that the stuff didn't get dumpstered when they moved. I wish I knew what the right answer is to this. It seems that the only thing that is being preserved sometimes is some company's intellectual property rights to NOT have it's intellectual property saved for future generations. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: software history (was Re: Old Usenet archives, Deja, and Internet history) Date: Fri, 08 Oct 99 10:33:07 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 62 Message-ID: <7tkou8$bva$4@autumn.news.rcn.net> References: <7t3soj$jo$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <37f90b1d.8609125@news.newsguy.com> <7td77i$18m2@news1.newsguy.com> <37fb5704.249189@news.newsguy.com> <7tfs3c$vui$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <7ti0fl$8c8$5@autumn.news.rcn.net> X-Trace: qzrdQHqRyjuUWw4vQVsI9lavlL0NEB31l+EoMziwkjA= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 8 Oct 1999 12:43:52 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!d4 In article , Eric Smith wrote: >jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: >> Right now, as far as I can tell, everything that we TOPS10 had in >> storage or marked as 'to be preserved' is gone. There was a lot of >> stuff that never got shipped to customers that should have been saved. >> Even most of JMF's work when he did his UNIX project is gone. > >Is there a "gently weeping" emoticon? Nope. There's a really PISSED OFF emoticon there. :-) I had everything arranged, saved, archived, etc. I thought I had anticipated everything that could go wrong. What I never planned on was people whose intentions were to destroy this work. I'm discovering now that a good education in history (not the crap we got in schools) would have been quite useful. > For some reason a paraphrase of >the old anti-littering television advertisement/jingle from the 70s >comes to mind: If we don't pitch in to archive interesting software, >there won't be interesting software any more. The key word is "we". Everything fell apart when I got too sick to work. > >> Commercial is not the way to do it. > >I've seen far too much stuff that was supposed to get archived simply >get thrown away. I had this stuff archived. We had a contract with (I don't remember who) that the stuff we submitted in bits would be saved forever (this was a group internal to the company). What they did was ship everything back. By that time, there wasn't anybody around who say what was "important". IT WAS ALL IMPORTANT or I wouldn't have had it archived. Even the cataloging that went with the archive had been trashed. The only thing that came back was a skid of boxes filled with tapes (I have no idea what happened to the paper). >The only was I can see to avoid this is for the people >who are involved and who care about it to personally control the archive >(perhaps despite corporate policy), and even that doesn't guarantee it. >What happens when that person is gone? I can answer that. When the person is gone, the knowledge of what is important and why it's important goes away, too. > >I guess in the software industry we're condemned to repeat history, >since no one is going to remember (save) enough of it. Unfortunately, I think you're right [very sad emoticon here]. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### Subject: Re: software history (was Re: Old Usenet archives, Deja, and Internet history) From: aek@spies.com (Al Kossow) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <7tkvff$1idi$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> Originator: aek@spies.com NNTP-Posting-Host: goonsquad.spies.com Message-ID: <37fe32cb@news.spies.com> Date: 8 Oct 1999 11:07:07 -0800 X-Trace: 8 Oct 1999 11:07:07 -0800, goonsquad.spies.com Lines: 19 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!enews.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!news.spies.com!spies.com!aek From article <7tkvff$1idi$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, by glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com: > (Ok, who has a tape drive > that'll read 7-track tape reels? What about 8-inch floppies?). 8 inch soft sectored floppies in IBM single or double density formats are still readable, since systems into the mid 80's had them. Hard sectored are a bit more difficult, since there were fewer vendors of those drives. Reading 7 track tapes was already a problem 10 years ago (esp lower density ones) The real problems occur with software that exists on, say, a cake-platter 70's or 60's disc pack. What are the chances of the drive still working after 30 years? If it doesn't, you create nasty sounds and line the inside of the drive with aluminum dust. Do companies still exist that recover data from 2514 disc packs? ###### From: glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: software history (was Re: Old Usenet archives, Deja, and Internet history) Date: 8 Oct 1999 14:35:27 GMT Organization: IBM Austin Lines: 100 Message-ID: <7tkvff$1idi$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> References: <7t3soj$jo$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <37f90b1d.8609125@news.newsguy.com> <7td77i$18m2@news1.newsguy.com> <37fb5704.249189@news.newsguy.com> <7tfs3c$vui$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <7ti0fl$8c8$5@autumn.news.rcn.net> <7tkou8$bva$4@autumn.news.rcn.net> Reply-To: wa4qal@vnet.ibm.net NNTP-Posting-Host: glass2.cv.lexington.ibm.com X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 2.0 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cs.utexas.edu!geraldo.cc.utexas.edu!tivoli.com!ausnews.austin.ibm.com!not-for-mail In <7tkou8$bva$4@autumn.news.rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: >In article , > Eric Smith wrote: >>jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: >>> Right now, as far as I can tell, everything that we TOPS10 had in >>> storage or marked as 'to be preserved' is gone. There was a lot of >>> stuff that never got shipped to customers that should have been saved. >>> Even most of JMF's work when he did his UNIX project is gone. >> >>Is there a "gently weeping" emoticon? > >Nope. There's a really PISSED OFF emoticon there. :-) >I had everything arranged, saved, archived, etc. I thought >I had anticipated everything that could go wrong. What >I never planned on was people whose intentions were to >destroy this work. I'm discovering now that a good >education in history (not the crap we got in schools) >would have been quite useful. > >> For some reason a paraphrase of >>the old anti-littering television advertisement/jingle from the 70s >>comes to mind: If we don't pitch in to archive interesting software, >>there won't be interesting software any more. > >The key word is "we". Everything fell apart when I got too sick >to work. > >> >>> Commercial is not the way to do it. >> >>I've seen far too much stuff that was supposed to get archived simply >>get thrown away. > >I had this stuff archived. We had a contract with (I don't >remember who) that the stuff we submitted in bits would be >saved forever (this was a group internal to the company). >What they did was ship everything back. By that time, >there wasn't anybody around who say what was "important". >IT WAS ALL IMPORTANT or I wouldn't have had it archived. >Even the cataloging that went with the archive had been >trashed. The only thing that came back was a skid of >boxes filled with tapes (I have no idea what happened to >the paper). > > >>The only was I can see to avoid this is for the people >>who are involved and who care about it to personally control the archive >>(perhaps despite corporate policy), and even that doesn't guarantee it. >>What happens when that person is gone? > >I can answer that. When the person is gone, the knowledge of >what is important and why it's important goes away, too. > >> >>I guess in the software industry we're condemned to repeat history, >>since no one is going to remember (save) enough of it. > >Unfortunately, I think you're right [very sad emoticon here]. > >/BAH > > >Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. Actually, my experience indicates that it's not all that uncommon to lose archived software. Sometimes, it's the new guy who doesn't understand the importance of keeping that 'obselete' stuff and wasting the disk/tape space on it, so he takes explicit action to throw it out. Or, sometimes it's a matter of the company not wanting to expend resources to maintain an archive of the older information, and thus it's allowed to decay. Even if either of these scenarios aren't the problem, there are still a lot of obsticles to retaining older software. Sometimes, it's a problem with the source being archived on an archaic media which can no longer be read (Ok, who has a tape drive that'll read 7-track tape reels? What about 8-inch floppies?). Even if all of the source code is archived, there are other aspects which may not be archived. Ocassionally, the compiler used to compile the source has disappeared, or, even more insidious, won't run on a current machine (Ok, so who has a S/360 system running OS/360-MFT right now?). The link-edit control cards may have been lost (They aren't really part of the source, are they?). With some projects, there's too much source archived (How many versions did they have, and which one was the last usable one?). Sometimes, there's no one left around which understands the language the source was written in (Ok, who remembers a language called BSL?). Even if someone manages to stash a complete copy of the (machine readable) source materials (including the link-edit control cards) away on a media which will be readable in the future, and maintains a compiler to compile it, and also retains the knowledge of the langauge, chances still aren't too good that'll it'll be available into the future. Dave P.S. Standard Disclaimer: I work for them, but I don't speak for them. ###### From: alderson@netcom2.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: software history (was Re: Old Usenet archives, Deja, and Internet history) Date: 09 Oct 1999 00:39:26 GMT Organization: NETCOM On-line services Lines: 17 Message-ID: References: <7tkou8$bva$4@autumn.news.rcn.net> <37fe14f4@news.spies.com> Reply-To: alderson@netcom.com NNTP-Posting-Host: netcom2.netcom.com X-NETCOM-Date: Fri Oct 08 7:39:26 PM CDT 1999 NNTP-Posting-User: alderson In-reply-to: aek@spies.com's message of 8 Oct 1999 08:59:48 -0800 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!howland.erols.net!ix.netcom.com!206.214.99.8!alderson In article <37fe14f4@news.spies.com> aek@spies.com (Al Kossow) writes: >Does anyone know if anything related to 10 software still exists anywhere >inside of Stanford, CMU, MIT, etc? >I remember years ago, when the 20 was still in MJH that they had racks of 7 >track tapes in the top floor that they were trying to figure out how to >archive. I hope they succeeded, and that the stuff didn't get dumpstered when >they moved. I think Martin Frost got a lot of that stuff transferred to CD or the like. I think. Rich Alderson Last LOTS Tops-20 Systems Programmer, 1984-1991 Current maintainer, MIT TECO EMACS (v. 170) last name @ XKL dot COM Chief systems administrator, XKL LLC, 1998-now ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: software history (was Re: Old Usenet archives, Deja, and Internet history) Date: Sat, 09 Oct 99 11:23:36 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 52 Message-ID: <7tng95$8kq$2@autumn.news.rcn.net> References: <7tkou8$bva$4@autumn.news.rcn.net> <37fe14f4@news.spies.com> X-Trace: xoMC0sxSvEiHPlQg2o52CwiWB/M4Tel0Sm+5B1cdBwM= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 9 Oct 1999 13:34:29 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!netnews.com!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!d10 In article <37fe14f4@news.spies.com>, aek@spies.com (Al Kossow) wrote: >From article <7tkou8$bva$4@autumn.news.rcn.net>, by jmfbahciv@aol.com: >> In article , >> Eric Smith wrote: >>>jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: >>>> Right now, as far as I can tell, everything that we TOPS10 had in >>>> storage or marked as 'to be preserved' is gone. There was a lot of >>>> stuff that never got shipped to customers that should have been saved. >>>> Even most of JMF's work when he did his UNIX project is gone. >>> >>>Is there a "gently weeping" emoticon? >> >> Nope. There's a really PISSED OFF emoticon there. :-) >> I had everything arranged, saved, archived, etc. I thought >> I had anticipated everything that could go wrong. What >> I never planned on was people whose intentions were to >> destroy this work. I'm discovering now that a good >> education in history (not the crap we got in schools) >> would have been quite useful. >> > >Does anyone know if anything related to 10 software still >exists anywhere inside of Stanford, CMU, MIT, etc? > >I remember years ago, when the 20 was still in MJH that >they had racks of 7 track tapes in the top floor that they >were trying to figure out how to archive. I hope they >succeeded, and that the stuff didn't get dumpstered when >they moved. > >I wish I knew what the right answer is to this. It seems >that the only thing that is being preserved sometimes is >some company's intellectual property rights to NOT have >it's intellectual property saved for future generations. Right. Most of our stuff was lost due to in-house politics and the notion that the bits were "ours". By rights, they did belong to DEC and it was the fear that maybe someday Digital (it wasn't DEC by then) might make some money that led to the stuff getting lost. I wanted to ship everything to the customers in bits, including the documentation. The marketing types were so afraid that we might lose a penny of profit from illicit bit copying with the result that a lot of useful bits never got shipped. One of the reasons that JMF and I produced that Customer Supported Tape was so that we could ship bits that we no longer supported. You wouldn't believe the war we had to wage just to get that on the BoM. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.