30 Jun
2009
30 Jun
'09
12:02 p.m.
I'm running a couple of AT&T SVR4 machines and am thinking of doing an
SVR3. These are running on old Intel hardware, in text-only mode, etc.
Unfortunately I'm really worried about opening these to the public net
because they obviously have a ton of security holes. For instance,
it's really hard to get a modern ssh running on them, so I have to use
telnet. I have them set up on a private network with a modern linux
machine on both the public and private networks that I can ssh into
and telnet out of. It also acts as a mail relay for them.
SVR4 is not that old, so I'm not sure how many might be interested in
it, but if you really are, let me know, and I can set you up an
account and tell you how to get in. The machine has a bunch of the old
text mode software we used to use in those days: games, email clients,
and very soon, USENET. Even a curses-based menu system. It's basically
a rebuild of an old public access UNIX system I used to run.
I'm also interested to know if anyone out there with old systems is
interested in building a dark network for retro computing folks using
UUCP over tcp. I have this perverse urge to get pathalias running
again and build a little UUCP mapping project. Because my SVR4 box is
on a private network, I'll need to bounce through the linux box. I'd
like to implement a set of private USENET groups, and file transfer.
I am also considering completely blowing off net access for these
boxes and just using dialup. I was thinking of buying one of those
MagicJack thingies that give you a local number and unlimited voip
calling for $20 a year and setting up a modem on it. The downside is
that most folks don't have modems any more.
Ideas? Am I just nuts for even considering something like this?
-Tom
30 Jun
30 Jun
11:13 p.m.
On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Tom Manos<tmanos at concursive.com> wrote:
I am also considering completely blowing off net
access for these boxes and
just using dialup. I was thinking of buying one of those MagicJack thingies
that give you a local number and unlimited voip calling for $20 a year and
setting up a modem on it. The downside is that most folks don't have modems
any more.
Ideas? Am I just nuts for even considering something like this?
When I see the MagicJack commercials, I always think "Oh god, what a
scam". Looking online seems to confirm that, even leaving aside people
who say "I DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEEDED INTERNET FOR THIS", it's not a great
company to deal with and the service is not particularly good.
A UUCP net could be cool, though, same goes for running old systems
over dialup (I'm imagining dialing in with my VT220 or the ADM-3).
John
--
"I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS
reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C,
Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba
11:32 p.m.
Once upon a time, in a technology galaxy far, far away....
I wrote a business application suite in 'Business BASIC' (with database
extensions) on a Nova clone, which we delivered to our remote customer. As they worked
with it and found issues or limitations, I did maintenance programming on an ADM-3A over a
300 baud modem. I still remember the pain of watching the screen paint out the
characters, so slowly it seemed I could watch them 'progressively' render across
the 7x9 character cell. Sooooo slooooooooooow......
I'm sorry, the flashbacks still make me nod off -- Ian
________________________________________
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of
John Floren [slawmaster at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 11:13 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Telnet access to moderately old UNIX boxes
On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Tom Manos<tmanos at concursive.com> wrote:
I am also considering completely blowing off net
access for these boxes and
just using dialup. I was thinking of buying one of those MagicJack thingies
that give you a local number and unlimited voip calling for $20 a year and
setting up a modem on it. The downside is that most folks don't have modems
any more.
Ideas? Am I just nuts for even considering something like this?
When I see the MagicJack commercials, I always think "Oh god, what a
scam". Looking online seems to confirm that, even leaving aside people
who say "I DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEEDED INTERNET FOR THIS", it's not a great
company to deal with and the service is not particularly good.
A UUCP net could be cool, though, same goes for running old systems
over dialup (I'm imagining dialing in with my VT220 or the ADM-3).
John
--
"I've tried programming Ruby on Rails, following TechCrunch in my RSS
reader, and drinking absinthe. It doesn't work. I'm going back to C,
Hunter S. Thompson, and cheap whiskey." -- Ted Dziuba
1 Jul
1 Jul
7:16 p.m.
John Floren wrote:
On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Tom Manos<tmanos
at concursive.com> wrote:
I've hacked it to talk to Asterisk and I'm having a good time with it.
Don't usually have to deal with customer service.
Peace... Sridhar
I am also considering completely blowing off net
access for these boxes and
just using dialup. I was thinking of buying one of those MagicJack thingies
that give you a local number and unlimited voip calling for $20 a year and
setting up a modem on it. The downside is that most folks don't have modems
any more.
Ideas? Am I just nuts for even considering something like this?
When I see the MagicJack commercials, I always think "Oh god, what a
scam". Looking online seems to confirm that, even leaving aside people
who say "I DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEEDED INTERNET FOR THIS", it's not a great
company to deal with and the service is not particularly good. 
12:56 a.m.
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:02:15 -0400
Tom Manos <tmanos at concursive.com> wrote:
I was thinking of buying one of those
MagicJack thingies that give you a local number and unlimited voip
calling for $20 a year and setting up a modem on it.
VoIP uses (more or less)
advanced codecs to encode and compress voice
audio. A modem, that expects a 1:1 "wire", will not work well on this.
You can do things like: Setup a Linux box with SSH accounts that have
somthing as cu(1) or tip(1) as login shell. Connect the serial ports of
the linux box to the old unix machines. If the old machines can speak
TCP/IP you can use telnet(1) instead cu(1) / tip(1). Or use SSH
portforwarding...
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
7:13 a.m.
At 9:56 AM +0200 7/1/09, Jochen Kunz wrote:
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:02:15 -0400
Tom Manos <tmanos at concursive.com> wrote:
I'm totally out of the modem world as well, since I'm *forced* to use FIOS.
In the C-64 world at least one comm program will "dial" BBS's over
ethernet. This of course assumes you have ethernet on your C-64,
which I do.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
I was thinking of buying one of those
MagicJack thingies that give you a local number and unlimited voip
calling for $20 a year and setting up a modem on it.
VoIP uses (more or less)
advanced codecs to encode and compress voice
audio. A modem, that expects a 1:1 "wire", will not work well on this.
7:25 p.m.
Jochen Kunz wrote:
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:02:15 -0400
Tom Manos <tmanos at concursive.com> wrote:
What about SLIP/PPP?
Peace... Sridhar
I was thinking of buying one of those
MagicJack thingies that give you a local number and unlimited voip
calling for $20 a year and setting up a modem on it.
VoIP uses (more or less)
advanced codecs to encode and compress voice
audio. A modem, that expects a 1:1 "wire", will not work well on this.
You can do things like: Setup a Linux box with SSH accounts that have
somthing as cu(1) or tip(1) as login shell. Connect the serial ports of
the linux box to the old unix machines. If the old machines can speak
TCP/IP you can use telnet(1) instead cu(1) / tip(1). Or use SSH
portforwarding...
3 Jul
3 Jul
12:46 a.m.
On Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:25:10 -0400
Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:
What about SLIP/PPP?
Perfect, if the target
machine has no Ethernet. You can do things like
tunneling SLIP / PPP over a SSH port forwarding. So a guest can make a
local TCP/IP connection to the target machine. Somthing like a poor
mans VPN.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
1 Jul
1 Jul
6:38 p.m.
Tom Manos wrote:
I am also considering completely blowing off net
access for these boxes
and just using dialup. I was thinking of buying one of those MagicJack
thingies that give you a local number and unlimited voip calling for $20
a year and setting up a modem on it. The downside is that most folks
don't have modems any more.
I would be quite surprised if the magicjack stuff worked with a modem.
You are getting a very limited spectrum with those things.
7:09 p.m.
On Jul 1, 2009, at 9:38 PM, Jim Leonard wrote:
A very limited and *changing* spectrum with some CODECs.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
I am also
considering completely blowing off net access for these
boxes and just using dialup. I was thinking of buying one of those
MagicJack thingies that give you a local number and unlimited voip
calling for $20 a year and setting up a modem on it. The downside
is that most folks don't have modems any more.
I would be quite surprised if the magicjack stuff worked with a
modem. You are getting a very limited spectrum with those things. 
3 Jul
3 Jul
12:42 a.m.
Tom Manos wrote:
I'm also interested to know if anyone out there with old systems is
interested in building a dark network for retro computing folks using
UUCP over tcp. I have this perverse urge to get pathalias running again
and build a little UUCP mapping project. Because my SVR4 box is on a
private network, I'll need to bounce through the linux box. I'd like to
implement a set of private USENET groups, and file transfer.
This bit seems to have gotten lost in a discussion of VoIP codecs.
I'd missed/forgotten that the UUCP Mapping Project had shutdown back in
2000. There are some old maps from 1998 available on ftp.uu.net for
those with a need to kill time. But
There's some interest, but I don't currently have any vintage systems
that'd be up regularly enough to participate.
--S.
5650
days inactive
5653
days old
10 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
classiccmp＠crash.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
IanK＠vulcan.com -
jkunz＠unixag-kl.fh-kl.de -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
ploopster＠gmail.com -
slawmaster＠gmail.com -
tmanos＠concursive.com -
trixter＠oldskool.org