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ZMODEM

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Re: ZMODEM

#81

Post by wott »

wvenable wrote: post #46
hilop wrote: post #28

Looking b ack at stuff like Zmodem, it's instructive to compare the computing culture then and now. Back then, everything was so cryptic . Documentation was hard to find printed books, code and config was extremely abbreviated ( sometimes for legitimate technical reasons of storage capacity). It was all very off-putting unless you put w lot of effort into research, or ran in the social circles that already had data a…

The most striking thing to me was there was a huge amount of free-as-in-beer software powering the entire BBS "network" and lots of helpful communities but almost nothing was open source.

You would have needed to get hold of a compiler then. Of the specific compiler that was used to compile that source, probably. A few hundred $ here and there, and hope it would compile on your machine.

Re: ZMODEM

#82

Post by nsxwolf »

codezero wrote: post #23

This immediately reminded me of GIFLink. It was a layer over protocols like zmodem that rendered images as they downloaded. Think of that for a second. Modems were so slow that you could watch the image line by line render to decide if you wanted to continue on with the download. Yes they were porn images.

And if you were too overeager you'd be "finished" before the image got down to the first nipple...

Re: ZMODEM

#83

Post by nsxwolf »

logotype wrote: post #22

Ah, the good old days. I ran a BBS in Sweden with ProBoard. Anyone else used that for BBS'es here?

Telegard and Renegade for me in Chicago (wwiv descendants)

Re: ZMODEM

#85

Post by DanBC »

codezero wrote: post #23

This immediately reminded me of GIFLink. It was a layer over protocols like zmodem that rendered images as they downloaded. Think of that for a second. Modems were so slow that you could watch the image line by line render to decide if you wanted to continue on with the download. Yes they were porn images.

Gif89 had interlacing, so people might not understand what GIFLink does.

Here's the spec for gif89: https://www.w3.org/Graphics/GIF/spec-gif89a.txt

Here's an example BBS file list (or CD Rom dump) with some utilities, including GIFLink (and others). http://www.terminate.com/download/factory.txt

GIFLK112.ZIP 198.803 19-10-93 GIFLink v1.12 - View transmitting GIF images while downloading

What people might not know is that GIFLink cost money. $30! But that would easily be saved if it reduced the amount of images being downloaded.

ftp://ftp.retronn.de/dos/dfue/TER500/DOCS/PROTOCOL.DOC

    GifLink                                   Filename: GIFLK112.ZIP  Price: $30

    A Zmodem that allows you to view GIF images while you download. Maybe a nice
    feature if you really spend hours and hours downloading GIFs.
I'm not sure when that price was active. (That text has a copyright of 1994 to 1997).

Maybe the file is available here? http://cd.textfiles.com/expandin/BBSUTIL1/

Re: ZMODEM

#86

Post by rhizome »

wvenable wrote: post #46
hilop wrote: post #28

Looking b ack at stuff like Zmodem, it's instructive to compare the computing culture then and now. Back then, everything was so cryptic . Documentation was hard to find printed books, code and config was extremely abbreviated ( sometimes for legitimate technical reasons of storage capacity). It was all very off-putting unless you put w lot of effort into research, or ran in the social circles that already had data a…

The most striking thing to me was there was a huge amount of free-as-in-beer software powering the entire BBS "network" and lots of helpful communities but almost nothing was open source.

RBBS-PC was a dominant server program (package? so weird) throughout the 80s that was open-source and written entirely in BASIC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBBS-PC

Re: ZMODEM

#87

Post by spc476 »

dmd wrote: post #45

My impression of zmodem and kermit, from 13 years ago (remembering then from a decade prior's use): http://dmd.3e.org/2003/12/zmodem-vs-kermit/

My impression? Kermit worked (if slowly) when other protocols wouldn't. Back in college, when I dialed into the University and attempted to download files, Kermit was the only one that would work across the insane university network (you dialed into a DEC terminal server, then you would issue a connect command to the actual computer you wanted. You could attempt to get an 8-bit clean path by sending a break character to get back to the terminal server, issue another command, then resume the connection, but for some reason, that almost never worked in my case).

Re: ZMODEM

#88

Post by housel »

Grishnakh wrote: post #55
rsync wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree ... I forget to do this these days but in relatively modern days I used to use sz/rz all the time ... circa 2000-2004 I guess ...

I still use sz/rz on an almost daily basis, for doing embedded system development. The system I work with is only accessible over UART, so rz/sz is the only way to transfer files to the host PC (well, the only convenient way; the other way is through JTAG, which is a PITA, and only useful for imaging, not just transferring some small data file from the running system).

Same here. UART isn't always the only option on my platforms, but if Ethernet, WiFi, or USB gadget is unavailable for whatever reason, sz/rz (from Linux) or loady (ymodem, from U-Boot) is usually the next best choice. Minicom makes using these fairly convenient.

Re: ZMODEM

#89

Post by ucs »

logotype wrote: post #22

Ah, the good old days. I ran a BBS in Sweden with ProBoard. Anyone else used that for BBS'es here?

I ran TriBBS for years as a kid in the Maryland/DC metro area (301).

My OS of choice was OS/2 Warp. It could handle a full-time, two-node BBS and still allow me to do other tasks without skipping a beat -- all on a 486 with 8 MB of RAM!

I also remember being rather envious of how cool Renegade, WWIV and company looked. Not to mention the more exotic software powering the, er, rather more questionable boards: software with ominous names like ViSiON-X or Oblivion/2... But after trying them all, I eventually switched from TriBBS to PCBoard.

It was the right choice: I loved the flexibility of PCBoard's scripting language and C SDK. Adding functionality to my BBS is what prompted me to pony up for Borland's Turbo C++ and get serious about programming.

Re: ZMODEM

#90

Post by anexprogrammer »

sllabres wrote: post #62
anexprogrammer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The resume was the clincher. You'd spent over an hour getting 3/4 the way through downloading an enormous 1M file to drop to line noise. OK, start again... Saving 400+ for a Courier HST to go an insanely fast 12k (very rarely). They beat everything else at holding a line though.

Saving for a Zyxel and get 16800 :) Lots of good memories for the Elite 2864ID (ISDN) and U-1496E. I had a project ~15 years ago with several thousand FAX Clients, and interestingly we had problems with every hardware card or modem we used except the (even then quite old) U-1496E which worked without flaw, whatever customer send data.

As soon as you saved and bought, they announced 56k! Fun times. :p

Talking of modems, a place I worked around '90 had racks full of modems for customer dial-in. What never occurred to me until I saw it was each one needed a phone line - half the back wall was covered with phone points!

Some years later a project was trying to do caller ID to computer. Simple idea, ridiculous number of issues. We found one modem that actually talked UK CLI of the dozens that claimed to. UK Cable spoke US CLI.

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