Larry Wall & Cults

[jmfbahciv]

VMS (originally) most decidedly did NOT have either TCP/IP or NFS.

I thought VMS did get TCP/IP into it. I don't know anything about
NFS.

Indeed, it took many years before DEC [sorry, by then it was already
d|i|g|i|t|a|l] had a TCP/IP stack available for VMS --- the dreaded heap
of quivering jelly created by the Eunice idiots.

Before that, people who needed TCP/IP on a Vax used various third-party
solutions, such as the implementations from Carnegie-Mellon (CMU)

Sigh! If CMU had it, I would have assumed it got hornshoed into
VMS.

..or
Wollongong universities. Then, of course, there was what many regarded
as the best TCP/IP stack for VMS, MultiNet from TGV (Two Guys and a VAX).
That product also included a working NFS implementation.

Boy, I sure remember a lot of TCP/IP talk over the walls. However,
I don't seem to recall what was said nor when.

/BAH


Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

 

[Paul Repacholi]

Since we're so far off-topic here anyway ...

It has been so many years since the Challenger disaster that memory
fades (especially at my age), so bear with me if a misremember
something.

As I recall, the particular launch happened during an unusual cold
spell in Florida. I also recall that the investigation uncovered
strong recommendations by several senior engineers, prior to launch,
that the launch should be postponed because the system (shuttle and
boosters) had never been launched during those kinds of weather
conditions. (It could very well be that they might have pointed out
the O-rings specifically, but I don't recall.) Some
managementcritter at some level (probably in NASA) ignored or
overruled those recommendations. I can only conjecture that this
was because that the prevailing culture (in most corporations, then
and now) is "we have to meet our schedules."

Grab a copy of `Genius', Gleiks bio of RF and read the end chapters
and note what was `leaked' to him.

Before the launch, it was known that they where colder than any
previous launch, and that the seal erosion problems they worried about
where wose in colder conditions.

The engineers wanted to holdm but that would have meant Ronny Raygun
could not grandstand on TV, so N.A.S.A.

--
Paul Repacholi 1 Crescent Rd.,
+61 (08) 9257-1001 Kalamunda.
West Australia 6076
comp.os.vms,- The Older, Grumpier Slashdot
Raw, Cooked or Well-done, it's all half baked.
EPIC, The Architecture of the future, always has been, always will be.

 

[Jon Boone]

Sigh! If CMU had it, I would have assumed it got hornshoed into
VMS.

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the remaining VMS machines at CMU
seemed to mostly run TGV MultiNet, which was an absolutely awesome TCP/IP
implementation. All of the VMS admins I had contact with (I had to admin a
single VMS machine) seemed to use MultiNet.

--jon

 

[Morten Reistad]

I thought VMS did get TCP/IP into it. I don't know anything about
NFS.

VMS was too early, and was made too politically correct.

TCP/IP was NOT politically correct until around 1996 or so.
TPTB wanted OSI, GOSIP/Decnet Phase 5 and all that crud, until we
Internet people hammered them.

Indeed, it took many years before DEC [sorry, by then it was already
d|i|g|i|t|a|l] had a TCP/IP stack available for VMS --- the dreaded heap
of quivering jelly created by the Eunice idiots.

Before that, people who needed TCP/IP on a Vax used various third-party
solutions, such as the implementations from Carnegie-Mellon (CMU)

Sigh! If CMU had it, I would have assumed it got hornshoed into
VMS.

Wrong mindset. TCP/IP was never a DEC invention, much less a D I G I T A L
one.

One of these got the nickname Willgowrong aroung here.

Boy, I sure remember a lot of TCP/IP talk over the walls. However,
I don't seem to recall what was said nor when.

-- mrr

 

[Morten Reistad]

There was a city getting restored in Turkey that JMF and I visited;
I cannot remember its name other than it's in the New Testament
written by Paul. It was one of most fascinating places I'd ever
been other than aquariums and zoos. There are ruts in the
stone-block pavements caused by running carts to/from harbor/city.
We were told that these ruts were worn down by usage. I always
wanted to get a big stone and spend 5 min/day rubbing it to see
if the claim was true.

Just visit my old gymnasium (aka "High School", but that loses part
of the concept). 320 pupils entering and leaving 14-18 times a day
wears down asphalt in 2 years, sandstone in 10 and granite in 100.

-- mrr

 

[jmfbahciv]

I thought VMS did get TCP/IP into it. I don't know anything about
NFS.

VMS was too early, and was made too politically correct.

TCP/IP was NOT politically correct until around 1996 or so.
TPTB wanted OSI, GOSIP/Decnet Phase 5 and all that crud, until we
Internet people hammered them.

Indeed, it took many years before DEC [sorry, by then it was already
d|i|g|i|t|a|l] had a TCP/IP stack available for VMS --- the dreaded heap
of quivering jelly created by the Eunice idiots.

Before that, people who needed TCP/IP on a Vax used various third-party
solutions, such as the implementations from Carnegie-Mellon (CMU)

Sigh! If CMU had it, I would have assumed it got hornshoed into
VMS.

Wrong mindset. TCP/IP was never a DEC invention, much less a D I G I T A L
one.

It didn't have to be a DEC invention. If it was CMU, we got it
shoved down our throats and up our asses. However, I see
that the dates explain why TCP/IP didn't get into VMS.
Apparently the protocol got good after Gordon Bell left DEC.

Since TCP/IP was in the 90s, I couldn't have heard about it
over the wall (I think I stopped working in 1987). I could
swear that cybercurd meant something.

ISTR, the -20 types yakking about it.

<snip>

/BAH

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

 

[jmfbahciv]

Grab a copy of `Genius', Gleiks bio of RF and read the end chapters
and note what was `leaked' to him.

Before the launch, it was known that they where colder than any
previous launch, and that the seal erosion problems they worried about
where wose in colder conditions.

The engineers wanted to holdm but that would have meant Ronny Raygun
could not grandstand on TV, so N.A.S.A.

Somebody just wrote in another newsgroup that the two pilots
of the shuttle used to sit in ejectable seats but the others
didn't. So politically correct equal employment opportunity
PHBs eliminated the ejections because it wasn't fair to rest of
the crew.

There is something wrong with this logic.

/BAH


Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

 

[Morten Reistad]

On Thursday, in article
<[email protected]> (e-mail address removed)
wrote:

VMS was too early, and was made too politically correct.

TCP/IP was NOT politically correct until around 1996 or so.
TPTB wanted OSI, GOSIP/Decnet Phase 5 and all that crud, until we
Internet people hammered them.

Indeed, it took many years before DEC [sorry, by then it was already
d|i|g|i|t|a|l] had a TCP/IP stack available for VMS --- the dreaded heap
of quivering jelly created by the Eunice idiots.

Before that, people who needed TCP/IP on a Vax used various third-party
solutions, such as the implementations from Carnegie-Mellon (CMU)

Sigh! If CMU had it, I would have assumed it got hornshoed into
VMS.

Wrong mindset. TCP/IP was never a DEC invention, much less a D I G I T A L
one.

It didn't have to be a DEC invention. If it was CMU, we got it
shoved down our throats and up our asses. However, I see
that the dates explain why TCP/IP didn't get into VMS.
Apparently the protocol got good after Gordon Bell left DEC.

1995 was the year everyone and Bill Gates discovered the Internet
existed; and wanted in on the deal. Suddenly everyone needed Internet
solutions.

Since TCP/IP was in the 90s, I couldn't have heard about it
over the wall (I think I stopped working in 1987). I could
swear that cybercurd meant something.

ISTR, the -20 types yakking about it.

TCP/IP was launched in 1982, and the Internet (or the Arpanet, rather)
converted Jan 1st 1983; with final NCP service turned off everywhere
by mid march 1983.

Tops20 has an IP package; but it was pretty rudimentary in version 4,
and not quite complete even by those standards even in version 7.

... mrr

 

[Brian {Hamilton Kelly}]

VMS (originally) most decidedly did NOT have either TCP/IP or NFS.

I thought VMS did get TCP/IP into it. I don't know anything about
NFS.

Indeed, it took many years before DEC [sorry, by then it was already
d|i|g|i|t|a|l] had a TCP/IP stack available for VMS --- the dreaded heap
of quivering jelly created by the Eunice idiots.

Before that, people who needed TCP/IP on a Vax used various third-party
solutions, such as the implementations from Carnegie-Mellon (CMU)

Sigh! If CMU had it, I would have assumed it got hornshoed into
VMS.

CMU's implementation did not get added to VMS. It was, however, widely
used, because (IIRC) academic sites could get it at a very low cost.

Digital themselves didn't have any TCP/IP support until the release of
"TCP/IP Services for Vax/VMS", which was written by the Unix-end of
Digital, and was *really* cruddy. This didn't happen until the
mid-1990s, anyway.

Hence why most folks, if they could afford it (it was by no means cheap),
bought MultiNet.

 

[John Thingstad]

TCP/IP was launched in 1982, and the Internet (or the Arpanet, rather)
converted Jan 1st 1983; with final NCP service turned off everywhere
by mid march 1983.

Tops20 has an IP package; but it was pretty rudimentary in version 4,
and not quite complete even by those standards even in version 7.

.. mrr

Internet was discovered long before this.
(In 1965 a research project, by the Rand cooperation, for a network that
could survive a nuclear attack. Sponsored by DARPA.
These is the real creators of the Internet technology. Not Unix hackers.)
It was the realization of www (CERN) that spawned the movement toward the
Internet.
So the year in question is about 1987.

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

It was the realization of www (CERN) that spawned the movement toward the
Internet.

Eh?

 

[Kåre Olai Lindbach]

Eh?

http://www.hitmill.com/internet/web_history.asp

Or rather the history of Tim Berners-Lee.

(I even believeI have read it Berners-Lee first tried to implement
this on a norwegian Nord machine - Norsk Data

 

[Roland Hutchinson]

Eh?

A simple case of cart/horse inversion, methinks.

 

[Morten Reistad]

Internet was discovered long before this.
(In 1965 a research project, by the Rand cooperation, for a network that
could survive a nuclear attack. Sponsored by DARPA.

Since I am on a roll with timelines; just one off the top of my head :

Project start : 1964
First link : 1969
Transatlantic : 1972 (to Britain and Norway)
Congested : 1976
TCP/IP : 1983 (the effort started 1979) (sort of a 2.0 version)
First ISP : 1983 (uunet, EUnet followed next year)
Nework Separation : 1983 (milnet broke out)
Large-scale design: 1987 (NSFnet, but still only T3/T1's)
Fully commercial : 1991 (WIth the "CIX War")
Web launced : 1992
Web got momentum : 1994
Dotcom bubble : 1999 (but it provided enough bandwith for the first time)
Dotcom burst : 2001

These is the real creators of the Internet technology. Not Unix hackers.)
It was the realization of www (CERN) that spawned the movement toward the
Internet.
So the year in question is about 1987.

In 1987 the Internet wasn't even commercial. You had to apply to get in.
We fought a bitter fight to break this open in 1990-1991.

It was official policy of governements to stay with ITU (then CCITT)
protocols and OSI/whatever until the web was well deployed. This even
goes for the US government.

-- mrr

 

[jmfbahciv]

On Thursday, in article
<[email protected]> (e-mail address removed)
wrote:
VMS was too early, and was made too politically correct.

TCP/IP was NOT politically correct until around 1996 or so.
TPTB wanted OSI, GOSIP/Decnet Phase 5 and all that crud, until we
Internet people hammered them.

Indeed, it took many years before DEC [sorry, by then it was already
d|i|g|i|t|a|l] had a TCP/IP stack available for VMS --- the dreaded heap
of quivering jelly created by the Eunice idiots.

Before that, people who needed TCP/IP on a Vax used various third-party
solutions, such as the implementations from Carnegie-Mellon (CMU)

Sigh! If CMU had it, I would have assumed it got hornshoed into
VMS.

Wrong mindset. TCP/IP was never a DEC invention, much less a D I G I T A L
one.

It didn't have to be a DEC invention. If it was CMU, we got it
shoved down our throats and up our asses. However, I see
that the dates explain why TCP/IP didn't get into VMS.
Apparently the protocol got good after Gordon Bell left DEC.

1995 was the year everyone and Bill Gates discovered the Internet
existed; and wanted in on the deal. Suddenly everyone needed Internet
solutions.

I knew the Internet existed when I started reading the ads in the
WSJ and they had this strange arrangement of characters that
began with www. At first, there were only a few. _One_ year
later there were lot. Less than two years later, everybody had
one. I watch ads to foretell trends.

TCP/IP was launched in 1982, and the Internet (or the Arpanet, rather)
converted Jan 1st 1983; with final NCP service turned off everywhere
by mid march 1983.

Aha! Whew! Then my memory isn't completely gone. If it was
launched in 1982, then they had to have been yakking about it
in 1980 and 1981.

Tops20 has an IP package; but it was pretty rudimentary in version 4,
and not quite complete even by those standards even in version 7.

Version 4 and version 7 were way after 1980.

/BAH

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

 

[jmfbahciv]

Internet was discovered long before this.

WTF do you mean "discovered". There was a hell of alot of
work done to make the damned thing work, let along wire
things together.

(In 1965 a research project, by the Rand cooperation, for a network that
could survive a nuclear attack. Sponsored by DARPA.
These is the real creators of the Internet technology. Not Unix hackers.)

You need to learn that there is a big difference between a research
project and selling the product for the sole purpose of making
a profit.

It was the realization of www (CERN) that spawned
the movement toward the >Internet.
So the year in question is about 1987.

How strange that is. JMF worked on a project a ORNL to make
all kinds of computers talk to each other. The year was 1970.
My first meeting with a PDP-10 involved calling up the comuputer
and, when it answered, hurriedly shoving the phone into the
acoustic coupler before the computer hung up. That year was
1969.

The internet was around for me in the 60s.

/BAH


Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

Or rather the history of Tim Berners-Lee.

Try http://www.w3.org/History.html

I'm sorry - I didn't really mean to trap anyone into trying to
teach Great-Uncle Alan how to suck eggs.

It's just that those of us who had /some/ contact with the original
developments (and mine was fairly tenuous, I confess) would have told
the story of the development of the /Internet/ quite differently. But
I leave that to other "old farts" who are already posting their
versions ;-)

I've no disagreement that the availability of a graphical web browser
was -one- of the driving forces towards wider access to and
commercialisation of the Internet. But that didn't emerge on any kind
of scale until 1994-ish and later.

"Eternal September" dates from 1993. To toss just another data point
into the ring.

 

[Brian Inglis]

On Mon, 06 Sep 04 11:23:17 GMT in alt.folklore.computers,

On Thursday, in article
<[email protected]> (e-mail address removed)
wrote:

MS has been borrowing code from Unix to create a real OS: TCP/IP;
NTFS<-ffs; memory mapped files<-mmap.

All right. Now I'm mystified. Why did they have to borrow code
from Unix? They already had VMS. ISTM, VMS had all of the
above.

VMS (originally) most decidedly did NOT have either TCP/IP or NFS.

I thought VMS did get TCP/IP into it. I don't know anything about
NFS.

VMS was too early, and was made too politically correct.

TCP/IP was NOT politically correct until around 1996 or so.
TPTB wanted OSI, GOSIP/Decnet Phase 5 and all that crud, until we
Internet people hammered them.

Indeed, it took many years before DEC [sorry, by then it was already
d|i|g|i|t|a|l] had a TCP/IP stack available for VMS --- the dreaded heap
of quivering jelly created by the Eunice idiots.

I was never aware that DEC offered TCP/IP.

The commercialized product from T[he]W[ollongong]G[roup] and TGV
MultiNet seemed to be ubiquitous.
Both products seemed to operate application level protocols very much
in leaf node store and forward mode, rather than supporting routing or
passthru, on VMS.

IIRC there was a majority of PDP-10s running on ARPAnet (1982 and
earlier) and later TCP/IP (1983 on), but most may have been running
Tenex, as BBN was running the network.

It didn't have to be a DEC invention. If it was CMU, we got it
shoved down our throats and up our asses. However, I see
that the dates explain why TCP/IP didn't get into VMS.

Politics and not timing was why TCP/IP didn't get into VMS:
d|i|g|i|t|a|l backed the European horse that never ran as it fitted
better with their network hardware capabilities and DECnet plans.
It also meant they did not have to deal with those BBN guys that had
developed a competing OS and network.
They had whole suites of products layered on top of DECnet that were
sold to European governments and contractors.
They bet that the ISO and governments couldn't be wrong and they
wouldn't lose out, but they did, as did IBM with SNA networks.

Apparently the protocol got good after Gordon Bell left DEC.

TCP/IP didn't get better, but the implementations of OSI networking
performed badly and did not interoperate, so TCP/IP swept the
networking competition off the board, and that may have had an
influence on his departure.

Since TCP/IP was in the 90s, I couldn't have heard about it
over the wall (I think I stopped working in 1987). I could
swear that cybercurd meant something.

WWW was in the 90s, as was allowing commercial access to and
competition to operate the Internet backbone, so it became a must have
for the previously clueless, like digital and MS.

ISTR, the -20 types yakking about it.

BBN and Tenex heritage probably.

 

[Kåre Olai Lindbach]

Try http://www.w3.org/History.html

I'm sorry - I didn't really mean to trap anyone into trying to
teach Great-Uncle Alan how to suck eggs.

I wasn't! I know you have been along for a long time. It was merely a
link to the above www/CERN thing.

I must admit I got a bit uncertain with your "Eh?". I should have done
my original first reply: "Eh? to what?" ;-)

It's just that those of us who had /some/ contact with the original
developments (and mine was fairly tenuous, I confess) would have told
the story of the development of the /Internet/ quite differently. But
I leave that to other "old farts" who are already posting their
versions ;-)

But can you please give some brief points. I would like to hear some
more about this...

I've no disagreement that the availability of a graphical web browser
was -one- of the driving forces towards wider access to and
commercialisation of the Internet. But that didn't emerge on any kind
of scale until 1994-ish and later.

I also did connections through X.25 back in late 80ties, so I know
about pre-GUI stuff.

"Eternal September" dates from 1993. To toss just another data point
into the ring.

Yes, I remember when we got ordinary connection at work, using
GUI-browsers and stuff!

 

[Morten Reistad]

I knew the Internet existed when I started reading the ads in the
WSJ and they had this strange arrangement of characters that
began with www. At first, there were only a few. _One_ year
later there were lot. Less than two years later, everybody had
one. I watch ads to foretell trends.

I knew we had succeeded in making the Internet mainstream when
I saw that the plane I was about to board had the URL I made for
them written along the entire plane in 2 meter high letters.

And we had to do a hard sell for the Internet bit. 2 years later more
than 50% of their tickets were sold over the Internet.

Aha! Whew! Then my memory isn't completely gone. If it was
launched in 1982, then they had to have been yakking about it
in 1980 and 1981.

The period 1978-1982 was the intense design phase of the infrastructure
of the modern Internet. It would have been on the mind of IT engineers
worldwide.

Version 4 and version 7 were way after 1980.

Yep, but it was in version 4 there was real TCP/IP support. ISTR there
was a retrofit to a late version 3; but that was made after V4 was out.
This version more or less depended on other boxes, just like a PC does
today. "Real" TCP/IP came out in V7 (or possibly late V6. I more or
less skipped the entire V6 of Tops20).

... mrr