ZMODEM • Hacker News Board

Re: ZMODEM

#71

Post by timthorn » Sat, Oct 22, 2016, 9:38 PM UTC

lokedhs wrote: post #27

tyingq wrote: post #9

Kermit was in the same space as Zmodem. I remember it fondly, as they were very progressive around "open source" way back in the early 90's, and probably earlier. They accepted what was essentially a "pull request" over USENET discussions forums from me to add a feature. http://www.kermitproject.org/ckfaq.html

Except they were never open. You could download the code, but you were not allowed to distribute modifications to it. The project was cancelled in 2011, and according to the web page it's open source now, and I think that the open sourcing didn't happen until then.

They were for the definition of "open" which was current then - ie that the source or specification was available.

Re: ZMODEM

#72

Post by duaneb » Sat, Oct 22, 2016, 10:14 PM UTC

lokedhs wrote: post #27

tyingq wrote: post #9

Kermit was in the same space as Zmodem. I remember it fondly, as they were very progressive around "open source" way back in the early 90's, and probably earlier. They accepted what was essentially a "pull request" over USENET discussions forums from me to add a feature. http://www.kermitproject.org/ckfaq.html

Except they were never open. You could download the code, but you were not allowed to distribute modifications to it. The project was cancelled in 2011, and according to the web page it's open source now, and I think that the open sourcing didn't happen until then.

This is open source but not free software. Open source is still better than closed.

Re: ZMODEM

#73

Post by ceautery » Sat, Oct 22, 2016, 10:27 PM UTC

Fun times. My first experience with modem file downloads was the ASCII Express protocol on my old Apple //. Cutting my teeth on modem init strings, and keeping current with file protocols helped me break into IT despite not having a degree in it.

For example: "What, your Xmodem transfer always fails on the same block... oh, you most have xon/xoff flow control turned on. Try swapping that &K4 with an &K3 instead."

At one wacky point in my career, I ended up supporting a program "SPC" (software protocol converter), that flipped zmodem over an X.25 network to SNA to a mainframe. It ran on an OS2/Warp box. I wish I was making that up. I really do.

Re: ZMODEM

#74

Post by emmelaich » Sat, Oct 22, 2016, 10:32 PM UTC

chrisfinne wrote: post #12

This submission is a ploy by the NSA and advertisers to further refine their demographic slot of "old hackers". Kermit, zmodem, bbs, baud. South Park's Member Berries are in full force here. CoCo forever!

:-)

I think my mention of zmodem in the audio tcp/ip post the other day gave rise to this post.

Which means I'm double marked ;-(

Re: ZMODEM

#75

Post by FigBug » Sat, Oct 22, 2016, 10:34 PM UTC

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 used SuperBBS and Remote Access.

Re: ZMODEM

#76

Post by raingrove » Sat, Oct 22, 2016, 10:41 PM UTC

nchelluri wrote: post #16

Who remembers IceZmodem? A backwards compatible protocol that allowed you to play Tetris or listen to .MOD files while downloading... and if you were downloading from an IceZmodem capable host, you'd even get increased download speeds! http://textfiles.com/computers/DOCUMENTATION/izm-q&a.txt

Wasn't IceZModem fairly late to the game? I remember Texas ZModem was my primary ZModem software for a long time.

Re: ZMODEM

#77

Post by dmd » Sat, Oct 22, 2016, 10:41 PM UTC

jejones3141 wrote: post #66

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/

Kermit's design accommodated connections that zmodem couldn't (half-duplex, connections that don't let one send some control characters. seven bit connections, or connections between systems using ASCII and systems using EBCDIC), and the basic protocol was easy to write. You could use Kermit to send data between your C-64 and a Cray 1 or Burroughs Large system--and it was used to send data from the International Spac…

Well, yeah, exactly. Kermit was slow and careful and pretty well guaranteed to get your data across correctly, eventually.

Zmodem was more of a fast motorcycle. Your data might not always make it there alive in a rainstorm, but it was quick and and had fun doing it.

Re: ZMODEM

#78

Post by notlisted » Sat, Oct 22, 2016, 10:50 PM UTC

Surprised nobody mentioned BiModem in the comments (popular at least in Europe). Simultaneous up- and downloads, which was great to get keep those up/down ratios at their proper levels.

Re: ZMODEM

#79

Post by teh_klev » Sat, Oct 22, 2016, 11:18 PM UTC

Just to add to the nostalgia, back in the day we used to use a protocol/app called BLAST[0] to grab data off of Data General mini-computers onto PC's back in the 80's. Hugely simple to use and damned reliable.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLAST_(protocol)

Re: ZMODEM

#80

Post by nsxwolf » Sat, Oct 22, 2016, 11:19 PM UTC

Grishnakh wrote: post #57

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.

I remember the "porn" images from the BBS days. They were pretty laughable really, usually just pictures of naked women, frequently showing only their bare breasts and obscuring the rest. I think they were frequently just scans from Playboy, which was rather tame. Compare to these days, where there's all kinds of crazy hard-core stuff available for free with a quick Bing search, in both still-photo and video.

No disrespect but you weren't calling the right BBSs.