TUHS March 2017

tuhs@tuhs.org

87 participants
136 discussions

Re: [TUHS] "Open" Stanford University Network System, et al [was RT/PC-centric AIX history]

by Clem Cole

On Fri, Mar 10, 2017 at 8:15 AM, Jason Stevens < jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote: > > That almost reminds me to ask about the whole "open" Stanford 68000 board > that became the Cisco AGS, and SUN 100.. and I think SGi 1000 > Jason -- I'm not sure what you are trying to say. It was a different time, different culture, different rules. Note: Please I'm not accusing you of this, but I worry you are getting dangerous close to an error that I see made by a lot of folks that grew in the time of the GPL and the "Open Source Culture." My apologies in advance if you think I'm going a little too far, but I want to make something clear that seems to have been lost in time and culture. I do not want to be see as harassing or "shaming" in anyway way. I want to make a point for everyone since the words we use do matter (and I realize I screw them up myself often enough).. I am fairly certain that the "SUN board" - aka the Stanford University Network 68000 board, like UNIX itself was licensed IP. You are correct that the schematics (like the UNIX sources) were well known at the time and "open" in the sense that all of the licenses had them. It was not hard to find papers with a much of the design described. In fact Andy had worked on a similar set of boards when he was a CMU a few years earlier for what we called the "distributed front-end" project (the earlier version was much weaker and had started as Intel chip of sometime which I have forgotten and switched to the 68000 at some point - Phil Karn might remember and even have a copy, I think my copy has been lost to time). Anyway, to build and sell a Multibus board based on Andy's design that he did at Stanford as a grad student, you needed a license from Stanford. You are correct a lot of firms, particularly Cisco, later VLSI Technology - ney Sun Micro Systems, Imagen, and host of took out licenses to build that board. Thus a lot of companies built "JAWS" (just another workstation - so called "3M systems" with a disk), or sometimes diskless terminals as Andy had imagined it in his papers, or purpose built boxes such the AGS router and the Imagen printers. But I flinch a little when I see people call the "SUN" an "open" design. It was "well know" but it was not what we might call "Free and Open" today. I admit you just said "open" in your reply to Charlie and may have meant something different; but so many people today leave the "free" off when they say "open." *i.e.* People often incorrect deny that Unix was open as it actually always was from the beginning -- if you had a license, it just was not "free" to get same. My point is that I believe a license for the "SUN" was from Stanford was not "free" either. Same with the the "MIPS" chip technology of a few years later also from Stanford. So, I would have been happier if you had said something that had included the words "licensed from Stanford." Anyway, Research Universities, such as MIT, Stanford and frankly my own CMU, have long been known for charging for licenses (not always mind you). In fact, I laud my other institution, because I have always said the real father of "free and open source" is my old thesis advisor, the late Don Pederson. In the late 1960s, he founded the UCB EE "Industrial Liaison Program" which was the auspicious institution that original "BSD" tape would be released years later. When he first released the first version of "Simulation Program for Integrate Circuit Evaluation" - aka SPICE, in approx 67 time frame "dop" said: *"I always have given away our work. It means we get to go in the back door and talk to the engineers. My colleagues at some of the other places license there work and they have go in the front door like any other salesman."* When the CS group was added to EE a few years later, their was history, mechanism, etc. Berkeley had been release source code for a lots of different project. The Berkeley Software Distribution for Unix V6 was just the the drop for UNIX - who knew at the time the life it wold spawn (although I note SPICE is still being used, so even with UNIX's success, SPICE still hold the record for the "longest" used" BSD release code). Anyway, " do p" used to love to remind the students of that mantra. And he came up with it 20-25 years before Eric Raymond ever wrote his book and started equating "open" with "Stallmanism." ;-) I hope have a great one, and I hope I did not offend. Clem

8 years

uucp setup

by William Pechter

One note for those who've been away from 4.x for a while... If you're using a console window for editing and you just wonder why the full screen of the VT100 doesn't show up -- it's because the getty is set down at 1200 baud for the good old LA120 DECwriter III. Set /etc/ttys to 18console or 12console and it's expects 9600baud and then vi will let you use full screen to edit. Been a while since I ran a fake Vax under Unix. Bill

8 years

Re: [TUHS] RT/PC-centric AIX history

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Jason Stevens > it also appears that AOS was the router backbone of the NSFNet once > they started to migrate off of the IMPs Say what? IMPs were only every used in the ARPANET (and networks built by BBN for private clients using that technology). The first routers used in the NSFNET were things called Fuzzballs - PDP-11's running software from Dave Mills, driving 56KB lines. They eventually decided they needed to step up a level, and a consortium involving IBM won, with IBM RT PC's running AIX driving T1 lines. Noel

8 years

RT/PC-centric AIX history

by Charles H Sauer

I've refrained from jumping into AIX & RT/PC discussions on TUHS. It seems more appropriate to summarize AIX history than try to correct or clarify specifics out of context. I wrote about 5 pages, got feedback, revised accordingly, and posted at https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2017/03/08/lets-start-at-the-very-beg…. Charlie

8 years

Re: [TUHS] UUCP: working systems, come and get them

by Warren Toomey

On Thu, Mar 09, 2017 at 01:57:05PM +0100, Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > Is it ok to do experimental testing with that host? I've never set up > uucp, so I do not yet know quit what I'm doing. Neither have I! But yes, feel free. In yur SimH .ini file, put (or change) this line to say: attach dz line=0,Connect=simh.tuhs.org:5000 which will connect /dev/tty00 to simh.tuhs.org port 5000. Then set up your L.sys file with a line that says: seismo Any;9 DIR 9600 tty00 "" "" ogin:--ogin:--ogin: uucp ssword: uucp so that the uucp site seismo can be contacted via /dev/tty00. Then you can try doing: # echo hello there | mail seismo\!root <wait a few seconds> # /usr/lib/uucp/uucico -r1 -sseismo -x7 and you should see the debug information with parts of the uucp conversation. Cheers, Warren

8 years

Re: [TUHS] UUCP: working systems, come and get them

by Cory Smelosky

On Thu, Mar 9, 2017, at 18:02, Warren Toomey wrote: > On Thu, Mar 09, 2017 at 05:57:00PM -0800, Cory Smelosky wrote: > > # grep -i "tty00" /etc/ttys > > #tty00 "/etc/getty std.9600" unknown on secure > > > > # tip dialer > > /dev/tty00: Permission denied > > You need to chown uucp /dev/tty00 I think! > > Cheers, Warren > Email had 1 attachment: > + signature.asc > 1k (application/pgp-signature) That did it. -- Cory Smelosky b4(a)gewt.net

8 years

Re: [TUHS] UUCP: working systems, come and get them

by Warren Toomey

On Thu, Mar 09, 2017 at 04:01:09PM -0700, John Floren wrote: > Well, I'm trying to set up lanl-a, it's at 199.180.255.235:6666 > (theoretically). I've set it up to point at seismo but uucico hangs > waiting for the login prompt. OK, try this: Edit your /etc/remote file to say this for dialer: dialer:dv=/dev/tty00:br#9600: Now try: # tip dialer which should connect out over /dev/tty00 to seismo via the TCP connection. Hit Return a few times to see if there is any response. On your host system, do netstat -a | grep ESTAB and see if there is a TCP connection to simh.tuhs.org:5000. I also forgot. To be able to send e-mail, you need to add seismo to the list of known remote sites in /usr/lib/sendmail.cf: CWseismo Cheers, Warren

8 years

Re: [TUHS] Harasing whistlers (Was: UUCP mis-history?)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: "Steve Johnson" > This reminds me of a story from that era. One of the mainframe computers > had the ability to place phone calls and a program was run every night > to collect data from far-flung teletypes [which had been pre-loaded with > data tapes]. ... On day the operators realized that there were two > phone numbers in Nebraska that were getting called every weekday night, > and the numbers were very similar. They suspected one was a wrong > number, so they listened in on the calls to see which one was real. The > phone rang in Nebraska at 2am and was answered by a sleepy man .. The > man was heard to say "It's all right, Bertha. It's just that nut with a > whistle again!" Interesting: I've heard this same story, but told about TIPs and the ARPANET. A computer at BBN was set up to regularly dial all the TIP modem lines, to check that they were working. One line was always down, so they listened in, and heard some human say "it's just that pevert with the whistle again". I wonder which one was the original: anyone know for sure? Noel

8 years

Re: [TUHS] UUCP: working systems, come and get them

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Warren Toomey > attach dz line=0,Connect=simh.tuhs.org:5000 > > which will connect /dev/tty00 Provided that /dev/tty00 exists, and the major device type is set to the cdevsw index for the DZ in whatever Unix you are using, and the minor device is set to the correct value to DZ #0, line #0.... :-) Noel

8 years

Re: [TUHS] Historical uucp maps?

by norman＠oclsc.org

Warning Toomey: In ASCII at http://www.redace.org/html/logical_usenet_map_1984.html === That's no UUCP map. It's a USENET map: a map of netnews propagation. No, they're not the same at all: many places that used UUCP to exchange mail didn't participate in netnews. In particular I see a site I used to run with none of its important mail links like ihnp4, and only a link to a system I don't remember at all. I had left that site a few weeks before that map was published, but I stayed in touch with the folks there; had all the mail links been torn down I'd have known. Had someone decided it was worth while dipping a toe into netnews, though (something I never bothered with) I might not. In fact I suspect it would be difficult to find believable maps for UUCP except amongst major forwarders. At its peak it was an extremely informal network, with lots of links that weren't published anywhere because people at site A wanted to keep in touch with those at sites B and C but didn't want to pay the bills to forward mail between B and C, let alone between those sites and places twelve time zones away. Norman Wilson Toronto ON

8 years

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TUHS March 2017