TUHS

tuhs@tuhs.org

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6532 discussions

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, 3 months

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, 3 months

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, 3 months

Historical uucp maps?

by Warren Toomey

We are going to need some historical uucp maps so that we can construct our simulated uucp network which bears some resemblance to the past. There is a 1984 map on pages 7 to 14 of http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/AUUGN/AUUGN-V05.4.pdf As Dave mentioned, we need some key sites like ihnp4, cbosgd etc. What other key sites? Any volunteers to run some of them? Warren

8 years, 3 months

observations on Unix v6's mount command

by Mark Longridge

I was trying to look at mini-unix so I mounted the disk image inside unix v6 via: /etc/mount /dev/rk4 /usr/mini-unix and I noticed that if I ran the mount command as a user and not root that /etc/mtab would not be updated (but it was updated as expected as root). Of course /etc/mtab is owned by root :) Then I noticed something else when I did an ls in the /usr directory: drwxrwxrwx 20 31 368 Sep 3 1976 mini-unix Normally I would see things like: drwxrwxr-x 2 bin 48 May 13 1975 adm What does the 31 mean? Mark

8 years, 3 months

UUCP mis-history?

by Dave Horsfall

http://www.thefullwiki.org/UUCP ``UUCP was originally written at AT&T Bell Laboratories, by Mike Lesk, and early versions of UUCP are sometimes referred to as System V UUCP.'' Err, it was V7, wasn't it? That considerably predates SysV... -- Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

8 years, 3 months

UUCP Recreation Network

by Cory Smelosky

Okay - let's make this an easy-to-dredge-through thread so I can easily search for stuff later. What means of interconnection are we going to use? I should be able to provide: 1). Actual dial-in (probably not anything above 1200 baud...if I am lucky) 2). SIMH "virtual leased line" dial-in 3). Network mail A map/list of interconnections would be nice. Need a central database somewhere. -- Cory Smelosky b4(a)gewt.net

8 years, 3 months

C News: help!

by Warren Toomey

OK, C News is a bit more complicated than I expected :) The latest version is at ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/c-news/ AFAIKT and a printable install guide at http://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/infosystems/news/transport/cnews/doc/guide.ps.gz Are there any C News experts out there who might be able to help? Can we encourage Henry or Geoff to help at all? Cheers, Warren

8 years, 3 months

Re: [TUHS] Source code abundance?

by Doug McIlroy

> [a] case where AT&T attempted to see whether its Unix code had been stolen > Coherent? I doubt it. The only access to Coherent that I am aware of was Dennis's site visit (recounted in Wikipedia, no less). Steve's Yacc adventure probably concerned another company. Besides the affairs of Coherent and Yacc, there was a guy in Massachusetts who sold Unix-tool lookalikes; I don't remember his name. We were suspicious and checked his binaries against our source--bingo! At the same time, our patent lawyer happened to be negotiating cross-licenses with DEC. DEC had engaged the very plagiarist as an expert to support their claim that AT&T's pile of patents didn't measure up to theirs. After a day of bargaining, our lawyer somehow managed to bring casual conversation around to the topic of stolen code and eventually offered the suspect a peek at a real example. He readily agreed that the disassembled binary on the one hand must have been compiled from the source code on the other. In a Perry Mason moment, the lawyer pounced: "Would it surprise you if I told you that this is ours and that is yours?" The discredited expert didn't appear at next day's meeting. The lawyer returned to Murray Hill aglow about his coup. The product soon disappeared from the market. Doug

8 years, 3 months

UUCP History [was Re: Help request: uucp, mail on 4.2BSD]

by Dan Cross

On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 5:04 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote: > On Tue, 7 Mar 2017, Dan Cross wrote: > > > One or more microcomputer BBS (Bulletin Board System) platforms had UUCP > > support to bridge their store-and-forward messaging networks to USENET > > and send email, etc. The implementation I remember off the top of my > > head was Waffle, written by Tom Dell. [...] > > Was this the UUCP that was available for CP/M? I found it on the old > Walnut Creek CD, moved it over to my CP/M box via SneakerNet (I ran CP/M > for years, carefully avoiding DOS/WinDoze) and it worked; it was overlaid > to hell and back hence really slow, but it worked. > Maybe? Though I tend to doubt it. It looks like Waffle originally ran on the Apple II, but was fairly quickly ported to DOS and then Unix/Xenix. I believe it was written in C, but the source code is not generally available. More information on it is here: http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/IBM/DOS/WAFFLE/ As I mentioned before, the BBS thing was kind of interesting. What strikes me, however, is how closely the timing lines up with developments in the Unix world. As Jacob mentions earlier, UUCP was "published" in February 1978 and an improved version distributed with 7th Edition in October of that year. The first BBS was announced via an article in the November 1978 edition of Byte magazine (available online, with some information here: https://www.wired.com/2010/02/0216cbbs-first-bbs-bulletin-board/) For those that don't know, the whole idea behind a BBS was that a person with a computer (usually a microcomputer), a modem, and a POTS phone line (usually into the person's house) would run software on the machine that answered the phone when called (assumed the remote caller was using a modem, of course) and presented the remote user with an interface for interacting with the local machine: most often, this was menu based. Most often, the BBS only had one phone line and the functionality was limited: sending and receiving simple messages, uploading and downloading files using protocols like x- y- and zmodem (or kermit!) and maybe playing specially written games. However, some BBSs became quite sophisticated supporting multiple lines, interactive chat, multiplayer games and so forth. Early software was mostly homebrew (the Byte article talks about software *and* hardware), but eventually packaged systems emerged. There was even a commercial marketplace for BBS software. Around 1984, they developed a messaging "network" called Fidonet for routing email and sending files around; the goal was to minimize long-distance telephone charges by relaying things through nodes in the network that were geographically "close" to the next calling region and transmitting things in batch. Think USENET (which predated it by several years) but much smaller in scope. The Internet killed it for the most part, of course, but these things developed quite the following; some are even still running, though most are now accessible via telnet/ssh. Somewhat confusingly, some of the operators seem to think they are some kind of alternative to the "Internet" instead of just another application of the net. It's sort of an odd viewpoint, but I think it comes from not being altogether all that savvy: it was mostly a hobbyist thing. But in the BBS heyday, there was something like 100,000 of them in North America alone. Sorry for the wall of text, but I think the parity between the rise of BBSs and UUCP/USENET is interesting. - Dan C.

8 years, 3 months

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