12 Sep
2016
12 Sep
'16
5:10 p.m.
On Mon, 12 Sep 2016, Al Kossow wrote:
Put it this way. The product manager for the cube was
the first person
I know of who had one as a kleenex dispenser. It was a failed industrial
design experiment that never should have shipped and even he felt that
way.
And now they have the mac pro which looks like a very elegant $3,000.00
can of tomato juice. Not much changes.
Meanwhile, I am on my second mac Mini (third if you count my wife's)
because i really like the mac mini so I probably would have bought the
cube if I had been in the market for a mac at that time.
--
Richard Loken VE6BSV, Systems Programmer - VMS : "...underneath those
Athabasca University : tuques we wear, our
Athabasca, Alberta Canada : heads are naked!"
** rlloken at telus.net ** : - Arthur Black
12 Sep
12 Sep
5:14 p.m.
On Sep 12, 2016, at 14:10 , Richard Loken <rlloken
at telus.net> wrote:
On Mon, 12 Sep 2016, Al Kossow wrote:
I think it looks more like a trash can, or perhaps a flower pot. I'd like a nice Oscar
the Grouch doll to install in the top vent of mine.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
Put it this way. The product manager for the cube
was the first person
I know of who had one as a kleenex dispenser. It was a failed industrial
design experiment that never should have shipped and even he felt that
way.
And now they have the mac pro which looks like a very elegant $3,000.00
can of tomato juice. Not much changes. 
6:58 p.m.
On 12 September 2016 at 23:10, Richard Loken <rlloken at telus.net> wrote:
Meanwhile, I am on my second mac Mini
Actually, now that you come to mention it, so am I. I had -- have -- a
G4 as well as the Core i5 I'm typing on. It was never my main machine,
though.
The thing I like about the minis, I guess, is that I have free choice
of display, keyboard and mouse. I like iMacs -- I have a dead G5, too
-- but they're not very expandable and if they die you can't reuse the
screen.
Whereas my Mac mini has 3rd party RAM and both an SSD and an HD
(upgrades from a Toshiba desktop-replacement notebook that the Mac
replaced) on a 3rd party bracket, and I'm using a Dell 5-button mouse
and an Apple Extended keyboard from '97 or so, on a 3rd-party ADB-USB
adaptor. And a pair of mismatched 2nd hand 23" LCDs.
All cheap, all used and repurposed. I don't like Apple's modern
keyboards, mice, trackpads etc., so if I bought a new iPad, they'd be
effectively wasted. The Retina iMac has a lovely screen, but it's also
jolly expensive and these sub-$100 used items are good enough.
Small, cheap, quiet, does the job.
And with the original '80s keyboard, it _feels_ (and sounds) like a
proper (i.e. '80s) Mac when I'm typing on it. :-)
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
7:46 p.m.
On 13 September 2016 at 01:21, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
well, . . .
you should put a microphone into an old mouse, and start designing
transparent aluminum panels.
Heh. :-)
It's rather odd. I have, or have had, a number of hobbies over the
years, and most have been odd enough that I never knew anyone else
into them. The closest I've ever come to popular pastimes were things
like being into recumbent bicycles or motor trikes -- pretty niche
activities.
(Oh, and retrocomputing and you lot, natch.)
But vintage mechanical keyboards are a thing of which I'm very fond. I
specifically brought my cleanest IBM Model M with me when I moved
countries, and later, when I bought this Mac mini, I went back to
London and dug out an Apple Extended II and my ADB convertor.
Now, though, vintage keyboard fancying is a big thing, and there are
multiple websites devoted to it. For example, in re my current
keyboard:
https://deskthority.net/wiki/Apple_Extended_Keyboard
http://lowendmac.com/2006/the-legendary-apple-extended-keyboard/
And there are compare-and-contrast pieces:
https://www.wired.com/2008/05/a-tale-of-two-k/
For me, this feels positively mainstream. At both my office jobs over
here in Czechia, people came over to see what I was typing on, to feel
it and try it.
It's most disconcerting.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
13 Sep
13 Sep
2:35 a.m.
On 09/12/2016 02:10 PM, Richard Loken wrote:
And now they have the mac pro which looks like a very
elegant
$3,000.00 can of tomato juice. Not much changes.
Meanwhile, I am on my second mac Mini (third if you count my wife's)
because i really like the mac mini so I probably would have bought
the cube if I had been in the market for a mac at that time.
Too new! This past week, I used a beige G3 to recover a pile of 800K
Mac floppies. The only one I couldn't read turned out to be a PC
formatted 720K disk.
After struggling with trying to find a good ftp facility for OS 9, I
stuffit-ed the disks up and transfered them to a USB flash drive and
sneakernet-ed it over to the Linux box.
--Chuck
12:19 p.m.
On 9/12/16 11:35 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
After struggling with trying to find a good ftp
facility for OS 9
As someone else mentioned, Fetch works pretty well.
I had just been using Appleshare until I switched to an Intel based
server which no longer supports the old protocol. There was a company
that sold a package that put the protocol back, but they have gone
out of business, so I've been bouncing it through a FreeNAS server,
which still works, but AFP support is kinda klunky (never liked AppleDouble
very much..)
12:44 p.m.
On 09/13/2016 09:19 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
After I'd done the job, I found out that MacSSH is available at SourceForge.
What initially stunned me is how any vendor who supplied TCP/IP
networking could fail to include ftp and telnet as a standard part of
the package, I mean, in addition to every version of *nix supplying it,
ftp has been a standard MS offering since MSLANMAN. But clearly, I'll
never get used to the Apple Way.
I'd mostly run the G3 under OS X 10.4 using XPostFacto, but I don't
believe that the combo supports the old 400K and 800K floppy formats. I
could have booted the G3 into OS X after I'd done the reading under OS
9.2, but that seemed to be the long way 'round the problem.
--Chuck
After
struggling with trying to find a good ftp facility for OS 9
As someone else mentioned, Fetch works pretty well. 
12:51 p.m.
What initially stunned me is how any vendor who
supplied TCP/IP
networking could fail to include ftp and telnet as a standard part of
the package, [...]
That was my reaction when I found Raspbian (the Debian variant a Pi 3
that $WORK bought came with) lacked telnet.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
12:53 p.m.
On 9/13/16 11:51 AM, Mouse wrote:
See Also RedHat and CentOS. No
telnet, netstat, etc.
What initially
stunned me is how any vendor who supplied TCP/IP
networking could fail to include ftp and telnet as a standard part of
the package, [...]
That was my reaction when I found Raspbian (the Debian variant
a Pi 3
that $WORK bought came with) lacked telnet.
2:13 p.m.
See Also
RedHat and CentOS. No telnet, netstat, etc.
csh though in the modern world I can see why clear text
protocols aren't
shipped out of the box
If you think of telnet, the program, as strictly an interface to
telnet, the remote login protocol, then I can see how you might think
it reasonable to drop it.
But telnet-the-program hasn't been just that for...decades, at the very
least. Every telnet I can recall, clear back to the days (circa
4.2BSD) when my wetware memory isn't reliable any longer, accepted a
port number and was extremely useful for dealing with any of various
possible networking issues.
To name three real uses I've made of it recently: to check what a
remote sshd banners as, to check what an RFB server banners as, and (in
conjunction with script(1) to capture the output of a one-off server
set up to transfer a text file (this being the use case I had for it on
the Pi 3).
netstat, that's a completely different issue. There's no "clear text
protocol" issue there.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
2:23 p.m.
See Also RedHat and CentOS. No telnet, netstat,
etc.
csh 
19 Sep
19 Sep
2:42 a.m.
On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 02:13:33PM -0400, Mouse wrote:
To name three real uses I've made of it recently: to check what a
remote sshd banners as, to check what an RFB server banners as, and (in
conjunction with script(1) to capture the output of a one-off server
set up to transfer a text file (this being the use case I had for it on
the Pi 3).
You might find netcat useful. Not sure if/which distribution has it by
default.
/P
7:33 a.m.
To name three
real uses I've made of [telnet] recently: [...]
You might find netcat useful.
Not sure if/which distribution has it
by default. 
13 Sep
13 Sep
3:43 p.m.
On 9/13/2016 10:00 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
On 9/13/16 9:53 AM, Ryan K. Brooks wrote:
They can be added, and it was only after quite a
long time of warning
that telnet was not a safe protocol as Al says that the steps were taken
to remove it. And sshd is removed on a lot of distributions, so that
avenue of attack is not present out of the box. It is secure over the
net, but if default passwords exist, and sshd is there, and not set up
to deny remote logins of certain id's you have as big a problem
Of course with the means to create a distro a week, you can create a
clone of any distribution with telnet and telnetd any time you like.
thanks
Jim
See Also RedHat and CentOS. No telnet,
netstat, etc.
csh
though in the modern world I can see why clear text protocols
aren't shipped out of the box
1:31 p.m.
On 13 September 2016 at 18:53, Ryan K. Brooks <ryan at hack.net> wrote:
See Also RedHat and CentOS. No telnet, netstat,
etc.
My lack of fannish enthusiasm for the RH family of Linuxes got me
fired from Red Hat.
Nonetheless, their willingness to remove old, insecure legacy stuff
from the OS so that users are encouraged to get with
the programme and
move on to modern modern equivalents -- ssh, the ip command,
whatever
-- is something I strongly approve of, and wish Debian and its kin
were quicker to imitate.
Also see merging /bin + /sbin + /usr/bin + /usr/sbin into one and
other such steps.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
1:44 p.m.
On 9/13/16 12:31 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
On 13 September 2016 at 18:53, Ryan K. Brooks <ryan
at hack.net> wrote:
Are ifconfig, netstat, traceroute, et al really insecure? (Maybe a
case could be made for traceroute) These types of changes to the core
of userland are epic dumb IMHO. Telnet is very useful for debugging,
and certainly dropping telnetd is a good thing - which everyone has done.
See Also RedHat and CentOS. No telnet,
netstat, etc.
My lack of fannish enthusiasm for the RH family of Linuxes got me
fired from Red Hat.
Nonetheless, their willingness to remove old, insecure legacy stuff
from the OS so that users are encouraged to get with the programme and
move on to modern modern equivalents -- ssh, the ip command, whatever
-- is something I strongly approve of, and wish Debian and its kin
were quicker to imitate.
2:17 p.m.
On 13 September 2016 at 19:44, Ryan K. Brooks <ryan at hack.net> wrote:
Are ifconfig, netstat, traceroute, et al really
insecure?
Well, OK, no, not that I know of!
(Maybe a case
could be made for traceroute)
Wouldn't know.
But AIUI the new ``ip'' command subsumes a lot of this stuff. I'm not
very au fait with it but it was high time -- it was due for some
rationalisation.
These types of changes to the core of
userland are epic dumb IMHO.
Why? Seriously?
Telnet is very useful for debugging, and
certainly dropping telnetd is a good thing - which everyone has done.
So add it back if you need it.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
3:41 p.m.
New subject: No telnet! omg! What do I do? - Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...)
On 2016-09-13 1:44 PM, Ryan K. Brooks wrote:
On 9/13/16 12:31 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
Boy are you going to get a shock when you start using containers for
deployment.
--Toby
(who doesn't understand why it's such a big deal to install 1 package
for telnet client)
On 13 September 2016 at 18:53, Ryan K. Brooks
<ryan at hack.net> wrote:
Are ifconfig, netstat, traceroute, et al really insecure? (Maybe a
case could be made for traceroute) These types of changes to the core
of userland are epic dumb IMHO. Telnet is very useful for debugging,
and certainly dropping telnetd is a good thing - which everyone has done.
See Also RedHat and CentOS. No telnet,
netstat, etc.
My lack of fannish enthusiasm for the RH family of Linuxes got me
fired from Red Hat.
Nonetheless, their willingness to remove old, insecure legacy stuff
from the OS so that users are encouraged to get with the programme and
move on to modern modern equivalents -- ssh, the ip command, whatever
-- is something I strongly approve of, and wish Debian and its kin
were quicker to imitate.
3:45 p.m.
New subject: No telnet! omg! What do I do? - Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...)
Boy are you going to get a shock when you start using
containers for
deployment.
--Toby
(who doesn't understand why it's such a big deal to install 1 package
for telnet client)
I get that none of thius applies to modern devops, but sometimes crap
goes wrong, or you're working on a host (RHEL w/ KVM is compelling) for
a shop that would go looking for tupperware if you mentioned a container.
14 Sep
14 Sep
3:29 a.m.
On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:44:39PM -0500, Ryan K. Brooks wrote:
[...]
Are ifconfig, netstat, traceroute, et al really
insecure?
No, they're "legacy", i.e. do not support DeadRat's aims of creating an
inscrutable proprietary platform where one is more or less compelled to buy a
support contract to be able to use it. Never mind that trying to get their
alleged "support" to actually fix anything is like pissing into the wind. Their
Perl packages are particularly awful and not fit for purpose.
Debian adopting systemd was what finally pushed me over the edge into the BSD
camp. The rot had been setting in for years before that, though.
13 Sep
13 Sep
1:50 p.m.
On 09/13/2016 10:31 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Nonetheless, their willingness to remove old, insecure
legacy stuff
from the OS so that users are encouraged to get with the programme
and move on to modern modern equivalents -- ssh, the ip command,
whatever -- is something I strongly approve of, and wish Debian and
its kin were quicker to imitate.
Well, the packages *should* be available for installation, if desired.
There are various back doors to linux-embedded appliances (mostly using
BusyBox) that employ telnet and ftp and they're not likely to implement ssh.
OpenBSD is probably the most draconian in this respect. They don't
offer an optional ftpd/telnetd in any package. If you want a cleartext
server, you have to find the source, modify and re-compile it yourself.
But what I originally stated still holds. Perhaps you don't have
plain-text ftp and telnet, but you have the ssh equivalents, so at least
you have *something* to get the job done. Mac OS gave me nothing for
doing standard stuff over TCP/IP connections.
--Chuck
2:12 p.m.
On 13 September 2016 at 19:50, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
But what I originally stated still holds. Perhaps
you don't have
plain-text ftp and telnet, but you have the ssh equivalents, so at least
you have *something* to get the job done. Mac OS gave me nothing for
doing standard stuff over TCP/IP connections.
OK, but are we talking MacOS or Mac OS X here?
If classic MacOS, no, probably not, but there were tons of 3rd party
tools, many of them free or shareware. In the Classic era, TCP/IP was
a bit of a bolt-on extra on MacOS -- AppleTalk was necessary for most
real networking with other Macs.
That's why MachTen and so on existed -- to make classic Mac boxes
serve up all that weird Unix Internet type stuff. Making 'em /clients/
to it was a bit easier.
Similar to TCP's status on Novell Netware 2/3/4, or early VMS, or
early IBM mini/mainframe stuff from what I've heard. Even to Windows 3
and WfWg. That was the era of proprietary protocols, and every vendor
had their own.
First, gradually, TCP/IP got added, often as a token gesture with
severe caveats and restrictions. Later versions of most of them
integrated it properly, then in subsequent versions, the
proprietary-protocol support gradually got ripped out.
In the late '80s or early-mid '90s, to me, TCP was the Unix protocol,
and since I didn't use much Unix, it was an alien outcast in a world
of AppleTalk, NetBEUI, IPX/SPX and DECnet. Most of my work involved
getting Windows to talk several of these at once so it could both talk
to other Windows boxes and to some alien kit at the same time... early
on, ideally while still having enough memory to do anything useful.
TCP didn't figure at all until post-'96, when the WWW suddenly
started to be something people wanted. For the next 5y or so, my
networks ran NetBEUI or IPX for workstation-workstation and
workstation-server comms, and TCP just to talk to the proxy/email
server and thus to the outside world.
By the early noughties, Smoothwall came in and made Windows proxy
servers a thing of the past. Around the same time my clients started
switching to broadband, and soon, I ripped out all the proprietary
protocols. Soon after, Mac OS X did the same.
By about 2005 or so most things were pure TCP.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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2:58 p.m.
On 09/13/2016 11:12 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
OK, but are we talking MacOS or Mac OS X here?
As I said, Mac OS 9.2. I'm not interested for my G3 to talk to other
Macs--the only other one here is a Performa 6100 running OS 7.mumble.
That's why MachTen and so on existed -- to make
classic Mac boxes
serve up all that weird Unix Internet type stuff. Making 'em /clients/
to it was a bit easier.
But isn't that typical of the Apple Way? Right from the start, there
were tools and hardware for the 5150 to talk to the rest of the world.
Apple just kept to their own little community--or did I miss the
announcement of SDLC/SNA support for Mac?
--Chuck
3:15 p.m.
On Sep 13, 2016, at 11:58 AM, Chuck Guzis <cclist
at sydex.com> wrote:
But isn't that typical of the Apple Way? Right from the start, there
were tools and hardware for the 5150 to talk to the rest of the world.
Apple just kept to their own little community--or did I miss the
announcement of SDLC/SNA support for Mac?
There was SNAps:
http://imap.parismoveis.com/index.pl/S0/http/www.thefreelibrary.com/APPLE+S…
https://books.google.com/books?id=aRQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&…
3:43 p.m.
On 09/13/2016 12:15 PM, Brendan Shanks wrote:
And it only took them until 1993!
While it happened, it goes to my point that non-Apple connectivity has
always gotten short shrift.
--Chuck
4:05 p.m.
On Sep 13, 2016, at 12:43 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 09/13/2016 12:15 PM, Brendan Shanks wrote:
Apple had a package available with SNA support in the late 1980s, along with the NuBus
token ring card. I think there was also a DECnet package. And MacTCP was available early
on, too.
There was SNAps:
And it only took them until 1993! While it happened, it goes to my point that non-Apple
connectivity has
always gotten short shrift.
This is pretty much a myth. It was actually not very long after Jobs? ouster that Apple
started to work on expandable Macs, integration with other systems, etc.
-- Chris
6:06 p.m.
There were nubus IRMA cards for 3270 fans
http://www.ebay.com/itm/290443334905
and the Apple Cluster Controller
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/brochures/Apple_Cluster_Controller_and_Apple…
I'm sure these were checkbox items.
There was a push in the late 80's buy the Networking and Communications group
for better connectivity, mainly to get penetration into corporations.
On 9/13/16 2:55 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Does bisync and HASP, does it?
6:08 p.m.
On 9/13/2016 2:55 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 09/13/2016 01:05 PM, Chris Hanson wrote:
Those would not have been much use. If they could do IND$FILE
uploading and downloading that was usually what a connected device
needed to do. The bisync required either a dedicated comm program of
some sort, and HASP was usually a shared resource.
I don't think Apple though of much money to be made doing the server
type functions of either of those.
There is also the LU stuff that went on on SNA, which is a big steaming
pile, and very few ever got that to work other than IBM. In the case
where I worked on a project with it, the IBM side was never made to work.
thanks
Jim
Apple had a package available with SNA support in
the late 1980s,
along with the NuBus token ring card. I think there was also a DECnet
package. And MacTCP was available early on, too.
Does bisync and HASP, does it?
--Chuck
6:13 p.m.
On 9/13/16 3:08 PM, jim stephens wrote:
There is also the LU stuff that went on on SNA, which
is a big steaming pile, and very few ever got that to work other
than IBM.
I worked with the guy who did the Nubus token ring card. He originally used the TI chip
set, then had to switch to IBM's
because TI's didn't work thanks to undocumented stuff in IBM's implementation.
Apple's LU 6.2 was no fun at all.
Like you said, a lot of sunk costs for very few sales.
7:11 p.m.
On 09/13/2016 03:13 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
Like you said, a lot of sunk costs for very few sales.
Around 1984, we leased a VAX 11/750 running BSD with the understanding
from the lessor that the desired configuration was to
support HASP via a
Bell 209 modem and leased-line.
We got the leased line, the modem connected fine, but the promised BSD
software didn't work. Berkeley Systems was called in and they couldn't
get it to work either.
Eventually, I think we just hooked up a 5160 with the necessary support.
--Chuck
7:45 p.m.
On 13 September 2016 at 20:58, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 09/13/2016 11:12 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Ah, I guess I missed that earlier. Sorry.
OK, but are we talking MacOS or Mac OS X here?
As I said, Mac OS 9.2. I'm not interested for my G3 to talk to other
Macs--the only other one here is a Performa 6100 running OS 7.mumble. But isn't that typical of the Apple Way?
What I was getting at is that it was typical of _everyone's_ way back
in the '80s.
Everyone who did a full-stack OS had their own network stack and their
own protocol, and it was supported far better than anything else.
Right from the start, there
were tools and hardware for the 5150 to talk to the rest of the world.
But it had a whole choice of OSes and most of them didn't include
networking at all in the early days, AFAIK. IBM's big iron networking
wouldn't have fitted into the RAM of the original PC.
Did CP/M-86 have networking? I remember it being an expensive, fiddly
add-on for CDOS years later, and not very flexible then. I don't think
the UCSD p-System networked at all, and DOS didn't for a long time.
Only after the advent of WfWg did MS offer a free network stack for
DOS as standard, and even to this day it's not wildly enthusiastic
about TCP/IP, although it will do it. If you used Novell Netware Lite
or P2P Netware, you got IPX; Pathworks, DECnet; Farallon, AppleTalk;
etc.
All, as I said, intended to talk to some other proprietary system.
Openness? No, we haven't even heard of it.
Apple just kept to their own little community--or did
I miss the
announcement of SDLC/SNA support for Mac?
As others have said -- yes, it existed, albeit from 3rd party tools.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
9:08 p.m.
On 09/13/2016 04:45 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
Did CP/M-86 have networking? I remember it being an
expensive, fiddly
add-on for CDOS years later, and not very flexible then. I don't think
the UCSD p-System networked at all, and DOS didn't for a long time.
Only after the advent of WfWg did MS offer a free network stack for
DOS as standard, and even to this day it's not wildly enthusiastic
about TCP/IP, although it will do it. If you used Novell Netware Lite
or P2P Netware, you got IPX; Pathworks, DECnet; Farallon, AppleTalk;
etc.
CP/Net. I don't know if Novell ever deployed their RS-422 networking
with CP/M-86 however.
There were networking packages for the PC early on. Remember Banyan?
They date from 1985. Corvus? Even Datapoint had an ARCnet facility for
PCs in 1984. Quite a few vendors had 802.3 capability. Networking,
however disorganized, was a very hot thing by 1987.
--Chuck
14 Sep
14 Sep
9:50 a.m.
On 14 September 2016 at 03:08, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
CP/Net. I don't know if Novell ever deployed
their RS-422 networking
with CP/M-86 however.
There were networking packages for the PC early on. Remember Banyan?
They date from 1985. Corvus? Even Datapoint had an ARCnet facility for
PCs in 1984. Quite a few vendors had 802.3 capability. Networking,
however disorganized, was a very hot thing by 1987.
This is quite interesting in terms of an Europe/NorAm divide.
I entered the business in 1988. After 25y in support, working on
thousands of systems in half a dozen countries, from 2-man outfits to
multi-billion-dollar multinationals, no, I never ever saw any systems
whatsoever running:
* Banyan VINES
* Corvus
* ARCnet
* LittleBigLAN
* The $25 Network
(Obviously, I've heard of them.)
To this day, I have never once used any form of NFS or ever seen it in use.
However, I routinely worked with:
* 3Com 3+Share
* Sage MainLAN
* Personal Netware
* Netware Lite
* DEC Pathworks
Most of these never seem to get mentioned in Stateside comms.
Odd.
--
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9:59 a.m.
On 14 September 2016 at 15:50, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
To this day, I have never once used any form of NFS or
ever seen it in use.
A typo, I presume? NFS, as in Network File System?
Used, for example, everywhere where Sun boxes were installed, for our
(European) company that would be from around 1989 and onwards (and we
were a bit late with Sun), and it's going strong, although (almost)
without Sun boxes. And common with NAS, of course.
10:51 a.m.
On 14 September 2016 at 15:59, Tor Arntsen <kspt.tor at gmail.com> wrote:
On 14 September 2016 at 15:50, Liam Proven <lproven
at gmail.com> wrote:
No typo. As far as I know, working in tech since 1988, I have never
ever seen it used.
All Unix types assume that it is very common. In mixed environments --
which means more or less every one I've ever worked in -- it isn't.
--
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Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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To this day, I have never once used any form of
NFS or ever seen it in use.
A typo, I presume? NFS, as in Network File System?
Used, for example, everywhere where Sun boxes were installed, for our
(European) company that would be from around 1989 and onwards (and we
were a bit late with Sun), and it's going strong, although (almost)
without Sun boxes. And common with NAS, of course.
15 Sep
15 Sep
3:30 a.m.
On 14 September 2016 at 16:51, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
On 14 September 2016 at 15:59, Tor Arntsen
<kspt.tor at gmail.com> wrote:
I still find it very strange. Back in 1988 was probably when I first
got to use a Sun machine, and from 1989 we started using more of them,
but it was certainly a mixed environment - it had to be, we had a lot
of infrastructure from earlier. It took quite a few years until it was
all *nix (and *nux, after a while). The thing is that a Sun machine at
the time more often than not didn't have a disk big enough to keep all
the software (and other files), and/or the sysadm found it difficult
to maintain even a small number of workstations or servers
individually. So at that time it was extremely common to have a lot of
the software accessible via NFS. In other words, an NFS path was
usually part of the computer user's $PATH.
So unless there was only a single *nix machine on campus there would
be NFS. I saw the same thing in other local companies and in other
European countries, e.g. Italy, which I visited extensively back then.
Companies would have different environments, but most of them would
have a small number of Unix servers and maybe a single workstation,
the rest would be terminals. And later Windows PCs. The small number
of Unix boxes would in any case always use NFS in one way or another.
Back to 2016. In an environment with mixed Unix, Linux and Windows
computers, the shared documents are simply made available via NFS for
*nix and Samba for Windows. From the same server(s). Been that way
forever by now. If there's a single *nix box which needs anything from
somewhere else then NFS is the natural choice, mixed environment or
not.
In any case I'm absolutely certain that as far as NFS is concerned
there couldn't and can't possibly be any difference in usage between
Europe and the US. I spent so many years travelling between various
sites on both sides of the Atlantic pre- and post-2k, and I never
noticed anything different there. I actually suspect that you *have*
seen NFS in use, you just didn't notice it. A bit like not noticing
that the USB stick runs Linux.. which happens. And various other more
or less surprising places.
On 14 September 2016 at 15:50, Liam Proven
<lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
No typo. As far as I know, working in tech since 1988, I have never
ever seen it used.
All Unix types assume that it is very common. In mixed environments --
which means more or less every one I've ever worked in -- it isn't. To this day, I have never once used any form of
NFS or ever seen it in use.
A typo, I presume? NFS, as in Network File System?
Used, for example, everywhere where Sun boxes were installed, for our
(European) company that would be from around 1989 and onwards (and we
were a bit late with Sun), and it's going strong, although (almost)
without Sun boxes. And common with NAS, of course.
5:43 a.m.
On 15 September 2016 at 09:30, Tor Arntsen <kspt.tor at gmail.com> wrote:
I still find it very strange.
Yes, that was the point of my post!
So unless there was only a single *nix machine
Virtually every *nix deployment I have ever worked upon, yes, the was
one, single *nix machine in the site/building/company.
Between 2000 and 2005, in most instances, it was an old PC running Smoothwall.
It has always been, in my working life, very very rare.
One AIX box, ever.
One AS/400, ever.
One S/36, ever.
One PDP-11, ever.
I don't think I've ever had a client who had a connect, working Sun
workstation. A handful of servers in 1 job, but I never touched them.
Back to 2016. In an environment with mixed Unix, Linux
and Windows
computers, the shared documents are simply made available via NFS for
*nix and Samba for Windows. From the same server(s).
This might surprise you, but in my own home network, I used Samba for
connections from Linux to Linux. It was easier.
In any case I'm absolutely certain that as far as
NFS is concerned
there couldn't and can't possibly be any difference in usage between
Europe and the US.
I suspect that there can. That in what I am now told are not SMEs
after all, but "microbusinesses", the bulk of my career, Sun kit was
always just too expensive to be worth it. Windows is utterly, totally
dominant, with these days some Macs and a tiny bit of Linux. Linux is
usually in niche roles, such as firewalls, web proxies, DNS servers or
caches, occasionally as NAS hosts. NFS does not enter into the
equation, at all, ever.
Obviously -- well, it's obvious to me, but I'm spelling it out because
I find that people make assumptions... Obviously, I am not claiming
that my experience is universal or general or applies to anyone else.
Others will have had different experiences.
However, I have had a fairly varied career in IT. I've worked for
VARs, for shops, in repair, in systems design, in sysadmin, in 1st,
2nd & 3rd line support, I've done a smattering of development work
early on, I've worked in training, I've worked for end users, I've
been a consultant, I've been a journalist and an editor and a
technical writer. I've worked for software houses, charities,
government divisions, multinationals, banks, stockbrokers, investment
houses.
I've done a lot of stuff over 28 years in IT.
And I have never seen NFS in use, anywhere, ever.
I guess it figures that the thing I consider massively marginal and
niche is the one that provoked the reaction of surprise and disbelief
that I was actually looking for and trying to cause.
A bit like not noticing
that the USB stick runs Linux.. which happens.
Er. Explain? How can a dumb storage device run any OS?
I have various bootable USB sticks around the place, all with Linux
on, but they don't _run_ it. I won't touch the "smart Wifi enabled"
ones.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
6:57 a.m.
On 15 September 2016 at 11:43, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry, yes, not the dumbest mass-storage ones, but the slightly
smarter ones, e.g. wi-fi enabled sticks and SD cards. I have a couple
of those. On the other hand the electronics of even "simple" USB
gadgets is getting pretty sophisticated, and I wouldn't be at all
surprised if a mass-storage USB stick turns out to actually run an OS.
On 15 September 2016 at 09:30, Tor Arntsen
<kspt.tor at gmail.com> wrote:
A bit like not
noticing
that the USB stick runs Linux.. which happens.
Er. Explain? How can a dumb storage device run any OS?
I have various bootable USB sticks around the place, all with Linux
on, but they don't _run_ it. I won't touch the "smart Wifi enabled"
ones.
9:50 a.m.
So unless there was only a single *nix machine on
campus there would
be NFS.
When I was a University of California student, the news spool and
(depending on the system) the mail spool were both NFS mounts on the
system I used -- sdcc12 and sdcc13/17, respectively, for any other
UCSD students who want to reminisce.
Some of the freenets used, and still use, NFS for a similar purpose,
and the university I later worked for had a couple Sun systems that
did this for specific departments although it was primarily a NetWare
shop initially.
That said, on my own systems, the only NFS server is set up so it can
be a swap device for the Dreamcast. ;)
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- One can live in Paris ... on just grief and anguish. -- Henry Miller -------
14 Sep
14 Sep
11:56 a.m.
New subject: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
On 9/14/2016 8:50 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
On 14 September 2016 at 03:08, Chuck Guzis<cclist
at sydex.com> wrote:
I too started in 1988, doing the same kind of work (mid-Atlantic region, USA), same number
and types of places. Just to compare:
* Banyan VINES (never saw)
* Corvus (saw once)
* ARCnet (saw many times)
* LittleBigLAN (never heard of or saw)
* The $25 Network (never heard of or saw)
* NFS (there were SUNs at the-then NBS (Bureau of Standards)
(but I rarely encountered UNIX anywhere)
* 3Com 3+Share (saw only one place -- at NASA Goddard)
* Sage MainLAN (never heard of)
* Personl Netware (never saw)
* Netware Lite (never saw)
* DEC Pathworks (saw only two places -- NASA G and NBS)
Most frequently worked with:
* Netware 3.x& 4.x
* Lantastic
* Windows / Microsoft
- J.
There were networking packages for the PC early
on. Remember Banyan? They date from 1985. Corvus? Even Datapoint had an ARCnet facility
for PCs in 1984. Quite a few vendors had 802.3 capability. Networking, however
disorganized, was a very hot thing by 1987.
This is quite interesting in terms of an Europe/NorAm divide.
I entered the business in 1988. After 25y in support, working on
thousands of systems in half a dozen countries, from 2-man outfits to
multi-billion-dollar multinationals, no, I never ever saw any systems
whatsoever running:
* Banyan VINES
* Corvus
* ARCnet
* LittleBigLAN
* The $25 Network
(Obviously, I've heard of them.)
To this day, I have never once used any form of NFS or ever seen it in use.
However, I routinely worked with:
* 3Com 3+Share
* Sage MainLAN
* Personal Netware
* Netware Lite
* DEC Pathworks
Most of these never seem to get mentioned in Stateside comms.
Odd.
12:04 p.m.
New subject: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 11:56 AM, js at cimmeri.com <js at cimmeri.com> wrote:
I too started in 1988, doing the same kind of work (mid-Atlantic region,
USA), same number and types of places. Just to compare:
* Banyan VINES (never saw)
* Corvus (saw once)
* ARCnet (saw many times)
* LittleBigLAN (never heard of or saw)
* The $25 Network (never heard of or saw)
* NFS (there were SUNs at the-then NBS (Bureau of Standards)
(but I rarely encountered UNIX anywhere)
* 3Com 3+Share (saw only one place -- at NASA Goddard)
* Sage MainLAN (never heard of)
* Personl Netware (never saw)
* Netware Lite (never saw)
* DEC Pathworks (saw only two places -- NASA G and NBS)
Most frequently worked with:
* Netware 3.x& 4.x
* Lantastic
* Windows / Microsoft
- J.
Also a mid-Atlantic alumni...
I started the networking portion of my career in 1987, working at IBM.
Part of my job was to set up Token Ring Network for sales demos (college
intern). Also Hypercard related networking was big in the late 80's. Dd
a lot of TCP/IP networking starting in 1992 or so.
Bill
1:12 p.m.
New subject: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
On 9/14/2016 11:04 AM, william degnan
wrote:
On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 11:56 AM, js at
cimmeri.com<js at cimmeri.com> wrote:
Cool. I was a big fan of running
Netware over Token Ring. But remember
eventually
just getting crushed by cheap and easier
to install ethernet. One of my main
clients at
the time was on 4mb Token, and we were
asked for a proposal to speed it up.
16mb Token Ring had just come out, and
the per-card cost was very high. Another
vendor proposed with 10mbit ethernet and
stole the client... despite them having to
ditch the expensive, genuine IBM 4mb
Token setup (whose wiring could have still
been used for 16mb) and rewire the
place. Still bugs me to this day, which is
probably why I'm writing about it now. :-)
- J.
I too started in 1988, doing the same kind of work (mid-Atlantic region,
USA), same number and types of places. Just to compare:
* Banyan VINES (never saw)
* Corvus (saw once)
* ARCnet (saw many times)
* LittleBigLAN (never heard of or saw)
* The $25 Network (never heard of or saw)
* NFS (there were SUNs at the-then NBS (Bureau of Standards)
(but I rarely encountered UNIX anywhere)
* 3Com 3+Share (saw only one place -- at NASA Goddard)
* Sage MainLAN (never heard of)
* Personl Netware (never saw)
* Netware Lite (never saw)
* DEC Pathworks (saw only two places -- NASA G and NBS)
Most frequently worked with:
* Netware 3.x& 4.x
* Lantastic
* Windows / Microsoft
- J.
Also a mid-Atlantic alumni...
I started the networking portion of my career in 1987, working at IBM.
Part of my job was to set up Token Ring Network for sales demos (college
intern). Also Hypercard related networking was big in the late 80's. Dd
a lot of TCP/IP networking starting in 1992 or so.
Bill
1:38 p.m.
New subject: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
Earliest networking? Not telco lines, but hardwired stuff.
I recall that in 1974/75 I was making one of my trips to Control Data
Arden Hills and noticed a backhoe at work digging a trench around the
employee's parking lot in back of the main building.
I asked what was going on and was told that Jim Thornton was
experimenting with high-speed distance networking by laying a couple of
loops of coax around the parking lot. Rumor was that he was aiming for
the then-unthinkable speed of 50 Mbit/second.
I don't recall the outcome.
--Chuck
1:45 p.m.
New subject: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
Re: Tacky Ring (what we used to call it) vs Enet. IIRC one of the issues
going forward with TR was that it was mostly an IBM design (patented?) and
the prices of TR chips available to card manufacturers was pretty high.
This was around 1988. I think that the reason for the high cost was that
there was not a second source of TR chips available at that time because
IBM had control of it and charged a large license fee for the design. They
also misjudged the demand.
I worked at at a large corporate IBM shop with lots of mainframes and 3270
Terminals. PC's came in grudgingly (IBM PS/2) of course) and we bought
Madge and IRMA cards to get them to talk to the IBMs. Everyone thought of
the PS/2 as cheaper 3270 replacements. I think a 3270 cost about $6000 each
back then. Don't know what the PS/2 cost but it was *much* cheaper. The
cards (4 mb) were very expensive (@$500) at that time as was the type-1
cabling needed for connection. When 16 mb came out the cost to upgrade was
just too high. Also, the programs that ran on the mainframes started to be
ported to smaller systems that ran something else than TR so it was
apparent that we didn't actually need to spend millions on IBM mainframes
any more.
Wayne Sudol
Riverside PressEnterprise
A DigialFirst Media Newspaper.
On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 10:12 AM, js at cimmeri.com <js at cimmeri.com> wrote:
On 9/14/2016 11:04 AM, william degnan wrote:
On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 11:56 AM, js at
cimmeri.com<js at cimmeri.com> wrote:
Cool. I was a big fan of running Netware over Token Ring. But remember
eventually
just getting crushed by cheap and easier to install ethernet. One of my
main clients at
the time was on 4mb Token, and we were asked for a proposal to speed it up.
16mb Token Ring had just come out, and the per-card cost was very high.
Another
vendor proposed with 10mbit ethernet and stole the client... despite them
having to
ditch the expensive, genuine IBM 4mb Token setup (whose wiring could have
still
been used for 16mb) and rewire the place. Still bugs me to this day,
which is
probably why I'm writing about it now. :-)
- J.
I too started in 1988, doing the same kind of work (mid-Atlantic region,
USA), same number and types of places. Just to compare:
* Banyan VINES (never saw)
* Corvus (saw once)
* ARCnet (saw many times)
* LittleBigLAN (never heard of or saw)
* The $25 Network (never heard of or saw)
* NFS (there were SUNs at the-then NBS (Bureau of Standards)
(but I rarely encountered UNIX anywhere)
* 3Com 3+Share (saw only one place -- at NASA Goddard)
* Sage MainLAN (never heard of)
* Personl Netware (never saw)
* Netware Lite (never saw)
* DEC Pathworks (saw only two places -- NASA G and NBS)
Most frequently worked with:
* Netware 3.x& 4.x
* Lantastic
* Windows / Microsoft
- J.
Also a mid-Atlantic alumni...
I started the networking portion of my career in
1987, working at IBM.
Part of my job was to set up Token Ring Network for sales demos (college
intern). Also Hypercard related networking was big in the late 80's. Dd
a lot of TCP/IP networking starting in 1992 or so.
Bill
15 Sep
15 Sep
8:42 a.m.
New subject: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
On 14 September 2016 at 19:12, js at cimmeri.com <js at cimmeri.com> wrote:
Cool. I was a big fan of running Netware over Token
Ring. But remember
eventually
just getting crushed by cheap and easier to install ethernet. One of my
main clients at
the time was on 4mb Token, and we were asked for a proposal to speed it up.
16mb Token Ring had just come out, and the per-card cost was very high.
Another
vendor proposed with 10mbit ethernet and stole the client... despite them
having to
ditch the expensive, genuine IBM 4mb Token setup (whose wiring could have
still
been used for 16mb) and rewire the place. Still bugs me to this day, which
is
probably why I'm writing about it now. :-)
I saw a few "BrokenString" deployments, but it always was very
expensive, relatively speaking, and except on very heavily-loaded
networks, it was slower, so even at the turn of the '90s, in my world,
it was being replaced by Ethernet unless IBM big iron connectivity was
required.
I've also, just the once, removed an ATM network adaptor from a
desktop PC. Never saw it in real life, but that client had just
returned from Singapore where their home broadband was delivered over
ATM.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
14 Sep
14 Sep
12:13 p.m.
New subject: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
On 14 September 2016 at 17:56, js at cimmeri.com <js at cimmeri.com> wrote:
I too started in 1988, doing the same kind of work
(mid-Atlantic region,
USA), same number and types of places. Just to compare:
* Banyan VINES (never saw)
* Corvus (saw once)
* ARCnet (saw many times)
I honestly don't know what cabling SAGE MainLAN used. It may have been
related. D9 connectors, about 4Mb/s speed?
* LittleBigLAN (never heard of or saw)
* The $25 Network (never heard of or saw)
Odd... They were sold in the UK as being American imports...
* NFS (there were SUNs at the-then NBS
(Bureau of Standards)
(but I rarely encountered UNIX anywhere)
I put in a load of Xenix and later some SCO Unix boxes running
multiuser accounts, often replacing CCP/M and CDOS systems -- but they
were never networked.
I never saw CP/M networked in my life.
* 3Com 3+Share (saw only one place -- at NASA
Goddard)
Weird. Quite a big product in the UK in the '80s.
* Sage MainLAN (never heard of)
SAGE -- British accountancy s/w company. US tax law is different;
Brits can't use US financial or accounts s/w. Gave an opening for UK
players to get big.
* Personl Netware (never saw)
Typo for "Personal" of course.
Wasn't big here.
* Netware Lite (never saw)
Ditto.
One of 'em was bundled with Novell DOS 6 or 7. I forget which. That
gave it a boost but it was a PITA to configure. Already, by then,
people were mainly shipping NDIS drivers for WfWg which _did_ work but
in a painful way and wasted a ton of RAM.
* DEC Pathworks (saw only two places -- NASA G and
NBS)
It wasn't big but a lot of VAX users ran it. It bundled a ton of
useful stuff from email to X.11 servers, but it was as slow as hell,
burned RAM and was a pig to configure. Never played nice with WfWg.
Most frequently worked with:
* Netware 3.x& 4.x
2 and 3 here. 4 was the beginning of the end. It foisted mandatory
NDS on a million single-served microbusinesses who had no need for it,
and the needless complexity and pain killed the product. Most
egregious case of corporate suicide I ever saw.
* Lantastic
I forgot that. I think I saw that very occasionally.
* Windows / Microsoft
Well, yes.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
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12:15 p.m.
New subject: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
* LittleBigLAN
(never heard of or saw)
* The $25 Network (never heard of or saw)
Odd... They were sold in the UK as being American imports... I never saw CP/M networked in my life.
I've never seen it in operation, but the Gemini
Galaxy (somewhat based on the Nascom, with
the same bus) had a network option. It was a little
board that hung off the parallel connector on the
CPU board. The one I have had had all the numbers
scratched off the ICs, it took me about 2 minutes
to realise that the main 40 pin IC was a dumb
UART. The rest of the board was a bit of logic
to interface it to the parallel port, a clock
generator and RS485 buffers.
Wasn't there some kind of network for the
RML380Z and 480Z machines?
Of course the common network in UK schools
in the early 80s was Econet (Acorn's network
for the BBC micro, Atom, etc).
-tony
15 Sep
15 Sep
8:40 a.m.
New subject: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
On 14 September 2016 at 18:15, tony duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Dare I suggest that perhaps they flopped in the states so they
tried to flog them to us :-)
I share your cynicism in general on that point, but this was sold for
_years_ by, IIRC, a little company called EQ Consultants, IIRC.
http://eqc.co.uk/
It was definitely a thing when Ethernet was still too expensive.
Here's a mini-review:
http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue142/70_Getting_wired.php
* LittleBigLAN (never heard of or saw)
* The $25 Network (never heard of or saw)
Odd... They were sold in the UK as being American imports... I've never seen it in operation, but the Gemini
Galaxy (somewhat based on the Nascom, with
the same bus) had a network option. It was a little
board that hung off the parallel connector on the
CPU board. The one I have had had all the numbers
scratched off the ICs, it took me about 2 minutes
to realise that the main 40 pin IC was a dumb
UART. The rest of the board was a bit of logic
to interface it to the parallel port, a clock
generator and RS485 buffers.
Interesting. I heard of it, certainly, but I never knew of anyone who
actually used it.
Of course the common network in UK schools
in the early 80s was Econet (Acorn's network
for the BBC micro, Atom, etc).
I saw quite a few decommissioned machines with Econet adaptors, and
I've seen a demo network set up at a show in the last decade I think,
but I don't think I ever saw one in action.
I did see IEE-488 in use, both on CBM PETs and BBC Micros, in
education -- both for storage and for connecting to lab equipment.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
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14 Sep
14 Sep
12:37 p.m.
New subject: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
Orchid PC-Net
Tallgrass
12:52 p.m.
New subject: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
At 11:56 AM 9/14/2016, js wrote:
On 9/14/2016 8:50 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
>On 14 September 2016 at 03:08, Chuck Guzis<cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
Folks -
Please do not change the subject line in a thread. The subject line of this thread has
been changed twice since it began as "68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production
use..." When you change a subject line the header information concerning the subject
is unchanged, and that is what the list archives and some email clients go by. There are
now three threads concerning different subjects archived as one thread at classiccmp.org.
If you want to change a subject please start a new thread, and if you wish you can give
the new thread a subject line such as "New Subject (was Old Subject)" to reflect
its origin.
Dale H. Cook, Contract IT Administrator, Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA
http://plymouthcolony.net/starcityeng/index.html
9:30 p.m.
New subject: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))
Banyan Vines - did LOTS of Banyan stuff from the military. Thousands of end
users. Great stuff, but Banyan had no more product marketing skills than IBM
did with OS/2. The Banyan NOS stuff ran on top of a SysV Release III Unix if I
remember correctly. Its been a while.
ARCnet - saw some of this, not a lot though
ENS StreetTalk - Again from Banyan, IMHO, the first real practical directory
service. Even as Banyan Vines (proper) servers were dwindling, we ran
StreetTalk on top of Solaris boxes.
OS/2 stuff - did more than my fair share of OS/2 stuff. For file shares
primarily SMB, but a lot over NFS also.
NFS - really surprised from the OP's comments. NFS file shares have been the
"bread-N-butter" of files shares for (me) for over 2 decades
GOSIP - Anyone remember this? I spent 6 months, 8 hours a day learning
intricate details about GOSIP in the mid 1990's. FWIW, this is/was the only
networking protocol that actually matches up with the OSI 7 layer model. No,
TCP/IP doesn't come anywhere close. Read more here if you are really interested:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Open_Systems_Interconnection_Profile>
IBM System 34 & 36 mini's - got my start here.
I guess we ultimately all have unique experiences.
Unix and (Cisco) core routing and switching has kept a roof over my head since
the mid 1990's.
I have a number of unique skills that (so far) have kept me employed thru all
the bad times in the economy, and to provide the leverage to keep employers from
forcing m$ junk on me.
Jerry
m$ free since '93
On 09/14/16 10:56 AM, js at cimmeri.com wrote:
On 9/14/2016 8:50 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
> On 14 September 2016 at 03:08, Chuck Guzis<cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
>> There were networking packages for the PC early on. Remember Banyan? They
>> date from 1985. Corvus? Even Datapoint had an ARCnet facility for PCs in
>> 1984. Quite a few vendors had 802.3 capability. Networking, however
>> disorganized, was a very hot thing by 1987.
>
> This is quite interesting in terms of an Europe/NorAm divide.
>
> I entered the business in 1988. After 25y in support, working on
> thousands of systems in half a dozen countries, from 2-man outfits to
> multi-billion-dollar multinationals, no, I never ever saw any systems
> whatsoever running:
> * Banyan VINES
> * Corvus
> * ARCnet
> * LittleBigLAN
> * The $25 Network
>
> (Obviously, I've heard of them.)
>
> To this day, I have never once used any form of NFS or ever seen it in use.
>
> However, I routinely worked with:
> * 3Com 3+Share
> * Sage MainLAN
> * Personal Netware
> * Netware Lite
> * DEC Pathworks
>
> Most of these never seem to get mentioned in Stateside comms.
>
> Odd.
>
13 Sep
13 Sep
2:24 p.m.
But what I originally stated still holds. Perhaps
you don't have
plain-text ftp and telnet, but you have the ssh equivalents,
There is no ssh equivalent to telnet (the command). It sounds to me as
though you are thinking of telnet, the command, as nothing but an
interface to telnet, the remote login protocol. That is far from its
only use; indeed, these days, that isn't much of a use at all. I can't
recall the last time I saw a machine running a telnet daemon even on an
isolated intranet.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
2:26 p.m.
But what I
originally stated still holds. Perhaps you don't have
plain-text ftp and telnet, but you have the ssh equivalents,
There is no ssh equivalent to telnet (the command). It sounds to me as
though you are thinking of telnet, the command, as nothing but an
interface to telnet, the remote login protocol. That is far from its
only use; indeed, these days, that isn't much of a use at all. I can't
recall the last time I saw a machine running a telnet daemon even on an
isolated intranet.
2:50 p.m.
On 09/13/2016 11:26 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
Actually, most of my systems on *this* isolated
intranet run a
telnetd. It's inward facing, of course, but there's no reason for
encryption on this network when I'm the sole user.
Exactly so--I'm interested in communication between local systems used
by myself. No need for security. In fact, most of my systems don't use
passwords for login. Why? When I'm the only one using them, demanding
the use of passwords and encryption is pure insanity.
I have enough of a problem remembering the host names of the various boxes.
I might as well install cipher locks on all the interior doors of my
house. It wouldn't make me one bit more secure--just frustrated with
the useless effort.
--Chuck
6:48 p.m.
tis 2016-09-13 klockan 19:31 +0200 skrev Liam Proven:
On 13 September 2016 at 18:53, Ryan K. Brooks <ryan
at hack.net> wrote:
I dislike very much the removal of perl from the default install.
The rather temperamental behaviour of anaconda when working with
kickstart files is ... unsatisfying.
So is the behaviour when doing interactive installs against a virtual
machine (vmware server as host), temperamental to say the least. The
trouble was with the geometry of the screen and the selected graphical
chip.
See Also RedHat and CentOS. No telnet,
netstat, etc.
My lack of fannish enthusiasm for the RH family of Linuxes got me
fired from Red Hat.
Nonetheless, their willingness to remove old, insecure legacy stuff
from the OS so that users are encouraged to get with the programme and
move on to modern modern equivalents -- ssh, the ip command, whatever
-- is something I strongly approve of, and wish Debian and its kin
were quicker to imitate.
Also see merging /bin + /sbin + /usr/bin + /usr/sbin into one and
other such steps.
7:40 p.m.
On 14 September 2016 at 00:48, Stefan Skoglund (lokal anv?ndare)
<stefan.skoglund at agj.net> wrote:
I dislike very much the removal of perl from the
default install.
I didn't know about that. It does surprise me.
Stupid question: it's not called ``perl5'' or something now, as Perl 6
is *finally* out?
The rather temperamental behaviour of anaconda when
working with
kickstart files is ... unsatisfying.
Never tried that.
So is the behaviour when doing interactive installs
against a virtual
machine (vmware server as host), temperamental to say the least. The
trouble was with the geometry of the screen and the selected graphical
chip.
I have found CentOS a PITA in VMware, I can concur there.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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14 Sep
14 Sep
8:52 a.m.
On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 01:40:40AM +0200, Liam Proven wrote:
Stupid question: it's not called ``perl5''
or something now, as Perl 6
is *finally* out?
About a zillion lines of software expect it to be called "perl".
And perl6 has been imminent for ... some time. FreeBSD shows 5394 ports
listed in the "perl5" category, approximately a dozen of which reference
perl6 in their names.
In other words, I'll believe it when I see it :-) There's an awful lot
of intertia behind perl5.
mcl
8:45 a.m.
On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 12:48:00AM +0200, Stefan Skoglund (lokal anv?ndare) wrote:
I dislike very much the removal of perl from the
default install.
Yeah, well ... about that :-(
I understand the reasoning behind it. At one time FreeBSD had perl in
the base. The problem was the support cycle. At some point you had a
supported release that you had to keep going with an unsupported perl --
the perl development moves that much faster.
The argument over "what is in the default install" continues within
FreeBSD to this day, as I'm sure it does in every software project.
There's no perfect solution.
mcl
3:21 p.m.
On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 10:53 AM, Ryan K. Brooks <ryan at hack.net> wrote:
See Also RedHat and CentOS. No telnet, netstat,
etc.
And Fedora (also in RH family). Not having telnet never bothered me
because "yum install telnet" (now "dnf install telnet") is obvious
enough, but for netstat, ifconfig, and route, you have to install the
"net-tools" package.
Part of the rationale for not installing net-tools by default is that
most users are expected to use the gui NetworkManager to configure
their network. The other part is that ifconfig and route are
deprecated in favor of the "ip" command, which is installed by
default. However, my fingers still are prone typing ifconfig and
route.
13 Sep
13 Sep
1:32 p.m.
On 13 September 2016 at 18:51, Mouse <mouse at rodents-montreal.org> wrote:
That was my reaction when I found Raspbian (the Debian
variant a Pi 3
that $WORK bought came with) lacked telnet.
Because it's insecure. OpenSSH is the recommendation these days.
But if you need it, it's trivial to add it back.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
12:58 p.m.
On 9/13/16 9:44 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I'd mostly run the G3 under OS X 10.4 using
XPostFacto, but I don't
believe that the combo supports the old 400K and 800K floppy formats. I
could have booted the G3 into OS X after I'd done the reading under OS
9.2, but that seemed to be the long way 'round the problem.
yea.. another project. Getting an Apple 20 pin drive working with a flux
transition reader.
I would be very surprised if much effort was put into making floppies work
under OS X
Apple was dragged kicking and screaming into the TCP world.
The one example that directly involved me was I asked them to support NTP
internally on the engineering network, so I didn't have to set the clock
constantly (I had a prototype machine with an RTC that ran fast). Around
1997 at the peak of the "dark times" an email (which was FINALLY SMTP and
not some stupidity like AppleLink) went out that there was no budget to
maintain the NTP server any more. Fortunately, the NeXT purchase of Apple
happened, the people that groked Unix came in, and that bit of stupidity
was killed.
1:33 p.m.
On 13 September 2016 at 18:58, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
I would be very surprised if much effort was put into
making floppies work
under OS X
As far as I know, legacy floppies on a SWIM or whatever are not and
never have been supported at all.
However, USB floppies work fine -- but only for standard disk formats.
You can't read/write old Mac 400/800kB disks in 'em.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
1:43 p.m.
On 09/13/2016 09:58 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
yea.. another project. Getting an Apple 20 pin drive
working with a
flux transition reader.
Not that much of an issue--after all, the old CopyIIPC deluxe option
board came with a bunch of 400K/800K Mac utilities and uses standard
drives. I might have used that, but the system was buried at the
bottom of a pile and I wanted to preserve the Apple file structure as
much as was possible, not translate it into MS-DOS.
The one example that directly involved me was I asked
them to support
NTP internally on the engineering network, so I didn't have to set
the clock constantly (I had a prototype machine with an RTC that ran
fast). Around 1997 at the peak of the "dark times" an email (which
was FINALLY SMTP and not some stupidity like AppleLink) went out that
there was no budget to maintain the NTP server any more. Fortunately,
the NeXT purchase of Apple happened, the people that groked Unix came
in, and that bit of stupidity was killed.
Heh, the first message that I got after I changed the PRAM battery and
booted MacOS was that the system time didn't match the NTP time within
reasonable limits. But there the oddity hit--if I wanted to get rid of
the message, I had to open the Control Panel and manually set the time
to something close to NTP--Mac OS did not offer to do it for me.
--Chuck
7 p.m.
tis 2016-09-13 klockan 10:43 -0700 skrev Chuck Guzis:
Heh, the first message that I got after I changed the PRAM battery and
booted MacOS was that the system time didn't match the NTP time within
reasonable limits. But there the oddity hit--if I wanted to get rid of
the message, I had to open the Control Panel and manually set the time
to something close to NTP--Mac OS did not offer to do it for me.
Which is how it is done in Linux today - if the system clock is to much
off ntpd won't touch it.
What would happen if the selected ntp server which ntpd wants is cracked
and intentionally serving false time ?
For ntpd it is a security feature that it won't change a system time
which is badly out of sync.
ntp is intentionally designed so that it will only change system time
gradually.
1:25 p.m.
After
struggling with trying to find a good ftp facility for OS 9
As someone else mentioned, Fetch works pretty well.
I had just been using Appleshare until I switched to an Intel based
server which no longer supports the old protocol. 
4:29 p.m.
New subject: FDN303 datasheet
By any chance does anyone have (or know where I could find) a datasheet for an FDN303 LSI
chip used in a number of floppy drives?
Lots of tantalizing links in Google but the ones I followed all lead nowhere...
TIA,
m
6:29 p.m.
New subject: FDN303 datasheet
On 9/13/16 1:29 PM, Mike Stein wrote:
By any chance does anyone have (or know where I could
find) a datasheet for an FDN303 LSI chip used in a number of floppy drives?
Lots of tantalizing links in Google but the ones I followed all lead nowhere...
you're going to have a really tough time finding tech data for any Japanese ASIC
it looks like it is a Panasonic part (most of the hits on FDN303 are for the Fairchild smt
part)
used in an NEC FD1231H
about the only thing I see are mods for using them on Amigas
7:10 p.m.
New subject: FDN303 datasheet
----- Original Message -----
From: "Al Kossow" <aek at bitsavers.org>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2016 6:29 PM
Subject: Re: FDN303 datasheet
On 9/13/16 1:29 PM, Mike Stein wrote:
========
So I've found... ;-)
========
By any chance does anyone have (or know where I
could find) a datasheet for an FDN303 LSI chip used in a number of floppy drives?
Lots of tantalizing links in Google but the ones I followed all lead nowhere...
you're going to have a really tough time finding tech data for any Japanese ASIC
it looks like it is a Panasonic part (most of the hits
on FDN303 are for the Fairchild smt part)
used in an NEC FD1231H
about the only thing I see are mods for using them on Amigas
========
I should have said the links lead nowhere that's relevant...
As a matter of fact I am playing with some NEC FD1231T's, trying to modify them for
8" emulation (1.2MB mode); I had read some of the Amiga mod articles and they were a
little help although they don't address the speed issue and the DC on pin 2 mod
doesn't apply.
Fortunately I found the NEC's motor speed control is labelled on the inside of the
motor, so maybe I've got enough info to make it work.
That also tells me the speed control pin of the FDN303 (pin 38) which may come in handy on
other drives.
It'd still be nice to have a datasheet though.
Thanks, Al!
m
7:51 p.m.
New subject: FDN303 datasheet
On 09/13/2016 04:10 PM, Mike Stein wrote:
As a matter of fact I am playing with some NEC
FD1231T's, trying to
modify them for 8" emulation (1.2MB mode); I had read some of the
Amiga mod articles and they were a little help although they don't
address the speed issue and the DC on pin 2 mod doesn't apply.
Save yourself some aggravation and just pick up some Samsung SFD-321B
drives--common as dirt, particularly if you're not fussy about the
bezel. Easily modified for 360RPM operation--and even has READY as
well as DISK CHANGED outputs.
--Chuck
9:01 p.m.
New subject: FDN303 datasheet
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2016 7:51 PM
Subject: Re: FDN303 datasheet
On 09/13/2016 04:10 PM, Mike Stein wrote:
=======================
Yeah Chuck, that Samsung is definitely one of the easiest to mod for 8" emulation and
documentation is actually available; as a matter of fact I think I'm the one who first
suggested it to you when you were looking some long time ago since some of us Cromemco
users had been using them for a while.
But the bezel layout is a little critical here; the drives have to fit into slimline 1
1/8" x 5 7/8" 5.25" drive bays/adapters like Compaq used in some of their
servers and portables (although they're actually going into a Commodore PET), and the
NECs are indeed out of a couple of Compaq servers.
I could probably kludge the oval eject button and whatever else needed to make another
drive fit, but I wanted to play around with modding other drives for 8" emulation
anyway while I was at it.
I think I may have enough to make them work, but thanks for returning the tip ;-)
m
As a matter of fact I am playing with some NEC
FD1231T's, trying to
modify them for 8" emulation (1.2MB mode); I had read some of the
Amiga mod articles and they were a little help although they don't
address the speed issue and the DC on pin 2 mod doesn't apply.
Save yourself some aggravation and just pick up some Samsung SFD-321B
drives--common as dirt, particularly if you're not fussy about the
bezel. Easily modified for 360RPM operation--and even has READY as
well as DISK CHANGED outputs.
--Chuck
9:12 p.m.
New subject: FDN303 datasheet
On 09/13/2016 06:01 PM, Mike Stein wrote:
I could probably kludge the oval eject button and
whatever else
needed to make another drive fit, but I wanted to play around with
modding other drives for 8" emulation anyway while I was at it.
I think I may have enough to make them work, but thanks for returning
the tip ;-)
Well, I probably have one of the NEC drives in my stash, so if you get
stuck, I'll willing to put my own drive under the soldering iron. Most
of the NEC drives that I've seen are capable of 3-mode operation,
however they try to hide it. Same for most Teac high-density drives.
--Chuck
14 Sep
14 Sep
1:05 p.m.
New subject: FDN303 datasheet
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2016 9:12 PM
Subject: Re: FDN303 datasheet
On 09/13/2016 06:01 PM, Mike Stein wrote:
=======================
Thanks very much Chuck but looks like it works. Once I found the speed control line it was
a simple matter of cutting that trace, routing a pseudo-ready to pin 34 and adding a 3-pin
header for drive 0/1 select.
But being a typical anal nerd, it'd still be nice to see a datasheet or at least the
functions of the various jumpers...
m
I could probably kludge the oval eject button and
whatever else
needed to make another drive fit, but I wanted to play around with
modding other drives for 8" emulation anyway while I was at it.
I think I may have enough to make them work, but thanks for returning
the tip ;-)
Well, I probably have one of the NEC drives in my stash, so if you get
stuck, I'll willing to put my own drive under the soldering iron. Most
of the NEC drives that I've seen are capable of 3-mode operation,
however they try to hide it. Same for most Teac high-density drives.
--Chuck 
12:24 p.m.
Chuck,
(circling back a bit) Al recommended Fetch; I concur. It was my long-term favorite, from
MacOS 6.0.8 or earlier onward.
Apparently, it is still available from the author:
https://fetchsoftworks.com/
But licenses are now $29. It is still possible according to the website to get a free
license for charitable or educational organizations.
It also appears to be possible to download a version for classic back to System 7
(Downloads page)
I was *very* satisfied with it back in the day, have not used it since about Mac OS 8.6,
possibly 9.1, on my Powerbook 3400.
- Mark
210-522-6025 office 210-379-4635 cell
On Sep 13, 2016, at 1:35 AM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
After struggling with trying to find a good ftp
facility for OS 9,
1:20 p.m.
On 09/14/2016 09:24 AM, Tapley, Mark wrote:
(circling back a bit) Al recommended Fetch; I concur.
It was my
long-term favorite, from MacOS 6.0.8 or earlier onward. Apparently,
it is still available from the author:
Thanks, Mark. I also seem to remember reading about "Transmit":
https://download.panic.com/transmit/
However, a USB flash drive turned out to be the simple solution.
Thanks,
Chuck
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