[hercules-os380] desperate news reader

[[e-mail] [hercules-os380]]

I have enhanced the MVS news reader with
the following syntax:

C:\devel\pdpnntp>pdpnntp
usage: pdpnntp <IP name/address> <port number> <read/write> <number/file>
e.g. pdpnntp news.openwatcom.org 119 read 35
only reads newsgroup openwatcom.users.assembler


So that you don't need to recompile in order
to read other messages in the group.

I'm currently awaiting confirmation that my
message posting is also working, using a
hand-constructed newsgroup post. Even
the date/time was hand-constructed.

If newsgroups had existed at the time of
card readers, I wonder what lengths people
would have gone to in order to read and
write messages. That's what I guess I'm
finding out now, as I attempt to communicate
with the world via the card reader and
printer.

I think this is a job for a 3270 terminal
though. :-)

BFN. Paul.

[Giuseppe Vitillaro [e-mail] [hercules-os380]]

On Sat, 24 Mar 2018, ***@yahoo.com.au [hercules-os380] wrote:

If newsgroups had existed at the time of
card readers, I wonder what lengths people
would have gone to in order to read and
write messages. That's what I guess I'm
finding out now, as I attempt to communicate
with the world via the card reader and
printer.

---

They had, Paul.

Usenet News Groups, if not NNTP, is a rather
ancient news exchanging system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_newsgroup

Before TCP/IP, in the UNIX environment, UNG were
exchanged using UUCP, but IBM people in Yorktown, at
the IBM Watson Center (I was there around 1990)
were receiving UNG on their VM virtual readers,
of course ;-), using the CMS "NOTE" command
to handle Usenet news as normal IBM internal
VNET message, almost in the same way of internal
mailing list or BITNET mailing lists (which still
exist today, from what I'm reading).

I learnt about Usenet newsgroups in Yorktown,
while spending some months at IBM Watson Center
Voice Group with Prof. Jelinek. They had up and
running a "bridge" between UNG and IBM VNET
(not sure it was "compliant" with IBM policy,
though, my IBM boss at ROMESC screamed like
a crazy when I told him about that ;-) ).

At that time there were a large collection
of "bridges" to allow news to flow, UUCP, Decnet,
RSCS, NNTP. etc., using different protocols,
for different, incompatible network environments.

I remember I setup a "Usenet exchange node"
here in Perugia, under AIX/370 (as a VM/XA virtual
machine, running in a 3090/VEC), named "ipgaix"
(the name ipgaix.unipg.it, 141.250.1.5 still exists),
around the fall of 1991, using NNTP of course, in
one of its latest "incarnation", INN:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterNetNews

TCP/IP was already there at that time and
I didn't resist to connect our new born IP
University nework, unipg.it, to the largest flow
of news available in the world of the beginning
of ninety. By the way, what came next, was just
the same "sound" from different "instruments" ;-),
from the World Wide Web to Facebook ;-), but definitely
a louder sound, a sound played from billions of
people, instead of millions.

You may find one of the messages I exchanged, through
Usenet, here in this archive:

http://securitydigest.org/tcp-ip/archive/1993/01

which date at "6 Jan 93 00:33:23 GMT", not one of the
first, unfortunately they had been lost as "tears in rain" ;-)

As I wrote, NNTP was one of the last "bridge" developed
to "glue together" Usenet exchange nodes, just before
the Internet "exponential explosion" of the latest ninety,
still in the time when Internet nodes were numbered in "millions"
insteand of "billions".

At that time it was not a simple task to keep up and running
a Usenet exchange node under an AIX/370 with very constrained
CPU and storage resources.

But, as I wrote, I came just as one of the latest. In 1991
UNG were already widely diffused around the world, a smallest
digital world, of course.

I don't know the details of the history of UNG, but for what
I remember they may be dated at the beginning of the eighty,
at the time UNIX was starting to spread out through educational
and research organizations and hobbyst BBS was just starting
to build up.

I guess UNG had given a "big contribution" to make the
"digital world", the Net, as it looks today. Of course
this contribution is mostly "ignored", as often happens
in human things.

Peppe.

[[e-mail] [hercules-os380]]

Post by Giuseppe Vitillaro ***@vitillaro.org [hercules-os380]

Post by ***@yahoo.com.au [hercules-os380]
If newsgroups had existed at the time of
card readers,

They had, Paul.
Before TCP/IP, in the UNIX environment, UNG were
exchanged using UUCP, but IBM people in Yorktown, at
the IBM Watson Center (I was there around 1990)
were receiving UNG on their VM virtual readers,
of course ;-), using the CMS "NOTE" command
to handle Usenet news as normal IBM internal
VNET message, almost in the same way of internal
mailing list or BITNET mailing lists (which still
exist today, from what I'm reading).

Hi Peppe. I didn't word that very well. I should
have said "before terminals were available".
You have described people using terminals.
I'm currently posting to newsgroups via the
card reader, ie as a batch job, which is an
interesting exercise.

Can you envisage someone sitting in a room
with a card reader and a printer, and punching
some cards to post to a newsgroup and then
checking the printer for new messages?

But moving forward some years, yes, maybe
we need to revive the use of CMS "NOTE"
or whatever to move our work (ie this
message group) onto the mainframe. I'd
rather write a converter in C90 than a 3270
application. Maybe the news reader could
be incorporated into REVIEW for those who
dislike card punches?

BFN. Paul.

[Gerhard Postpischil [e-mail] [hercules-os380]]

Post by ***@yahoo.com.au [hercules-os380]
Can you envisage someone sitting in a room
with a card reader and a printer, and punching
some cards to post to a newsgroup and then
checking the printer for new messages?

Terminals have been around longer than mainframes (e.g., AT&T model 33
Teletype). I worked at an installation that hardwired a
Stromberg-Carlson 1090 display (similar to the "radar" screens you see
in 1950s movies) to the 7094 switch bank, and used that to control
programs.

IBM 270n controllers were contemporaneous with card equipment, and could
support ASCII and 1050 and 274n terminals. The only flaky thing we used
card readers for was as consoles when we needed multi-punched replies to
a WTOR (a security measure).

Gerhard Postpischil
Bradford, VT

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

['Bill Turner, WB4ALM' [e-mail] [hercules-os380]]

Post by ***@yahoo.com.au [hercules-os380]

Post by Giuseppe Vitillaro ***@vitillaro.org [hercules-os380]

Post by ***@yahoo.com.au [hercules-os380]
If newsgroups had existed at the time of
card readers,

They had, Paul.
Before TCP/IP, in the UNIX environment, UNG were
exchanged using UUCP, but IBM people in Yorktown, at
the IBM Watson Center (I was there around 1990)
were receiving UNG on their VM virtual readers,
of course ;-), using the CMS "NOTE" command
to handle Usenet news as normal IBM internal
VNET message, almost in the same way of internal
mailing list or BITNET mailing lists (which still
exist today, from what I'm reading).

Hi Peppe. I didn't word that very well. I should
have said "before terminals were available".
You have described people using terminals.

*ARPANET was one of the first networks that interconnected computers.

University of California (and some others) linked a number of their
"non-mainframe" computers together about the same time to "test"
messaging systems between University Professors and their staffs.

This was the age of terminals.

Model 15, 19, and 28 BAUDOT Teletypes and Paper Tape.   Followed by
Model 33, 35, and 37 ASCII Teletypes.

I don't know of ANYBODY trying to use a keypunch and line printer to
replace the Teletypes (and the "other" teleprinters) that were used in
the TWX networks of the 50's and 60's...  Or the private line networks
of the 30's thru the 60's.

/s/ Bill Turner, wb4alm*

Post by ***@yahoo.com.au [hercules-os380]
I'm currently posting to newsgroups via the
card reader, ie as a batch job, which is an
interesting exercise.
Can you envisage someone sitting in a room
with a card reader and a printer, and punching
some cards to post to a newsgroup and then
checking the printer for new messages?
But moving forward some years, yes, maybe
we need to revive the use of CMS "NOTE"
or whatever to move our work (ie this
message group) onto the mainframe. I'd
rather write a converter in C90 than a 3270
application. Maybe the news reader could
be incorporated into REVIEW for those who
dislike card punches?
BFN. Paul.

[Giuseppe Vitillaro [e-mail] [hercules-os380]]

Post by Giuseppe Vitillaro ***@vitillaro.org [hercules-os380]

Post by ***@yahoo.com.au [hercules-os380]
If newsgroups had existed at the time of
card readers,

They had, Paul.
Before TCP/IP, in the UNIX environment, UNG were
exchanged using UUCP, but IBM people in Yorktown, at
the IBM Watson Center (I was there around 1990)
were receiving UNG on their VM virtual readers,
of course ;-), using the CMS "NOTE" command
to handle Usenet news as normal IBM internal
VNET message, almost in the same way of internal
mailing list or BITNET mailing lists (which still
exist today, from what I'm reading).

Hi Peppe. I didn't word that very well. I should
have said "before terminals were available".
You have described people using terminals.
I'm currently posting to newsgroups via the
card reader, ie as a batch job, which is an
interesting exercise.

Can you envisage someone sitting in a room
with a card reader and a printer, and punching
some cards to post to a newsgroup and then
checking the printer for new messages?

---

Yes, I can.

It was exactly what people were doing at
Watson Center in 1990.

Their interaction with the virtual reader and
punch was mediated by the REXX "NOTE" command,
but an experienced VM/CMS users may quite
have easily done the same operations using
CMS native reader/punch commands.

Well, they used a terminal for doing that,
from the CMS command prompt, but nothing
may have prevented them to use a physical
reader, a physical punch and a physical
printer or console.

Beside the fact, at that time, 1991,
physical reader and punch were already
out of businness from a loooong time ;-)

But I doubt an MVS/TSO user, in the same
years, would have used a reader/punch.

MVS/TSO users have a way to exchange data using
SEND and RECEIVE (the reason why RECV370/XMIT370
have been written I guess), even between
different mainframes in different sites.

I never used TSO for doing that, but, I guess,
sending or receiving an email message under TSO
doesn't involve using a reader or a punch.

Am I wrong?

Peppe.

['Dave Wade' [e-mail] [hercules-os380]]

Hi Peppe. I didn't word that very well. I should have said "before

terminals

were available".

"Terminals" have been available longer than computers. Whilst they were not
used by "Newsgroups" mechanically generated messages, called "Telegrams"
were sent over communications lines from the 1930's..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphy#Teleprinters

many early computers used teleprinters, or flexowriters as consoles.

You have described people using terminals.
I'm currently posting to newsgroups via the card reader, ie as a batch

job,

which is an interesting exercise.
Can you envisage someone sitting in a room with a card reader and a

printer,

and punching some cards to post to a newsgroup and then checking the
printer for new messages?

Not really. Although Alan Turing is reported to have typed letters on the
Manchester Mk1 teleprinter and Christopher Strachey wrote a program to
generate "love letters" and print them on the teleprinter.

The UK Janet X.25 Network had a "red book" protocol that allowed jobs to be
submitted over the network

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloured_Book_protocols

but it wasn't limited to cards, and generally by this time the jobs were
entered on terminals

I guess in reality, if you had a communications link, you probably had a
terminal...

Dave

Yes, I can.
It was exactly what people were doing at Watson Center in 1990.
Their interaction with the virtual reader and punch was mediated by the
REXX "NOTE" command, but an experienced VM/CMS users may quite have
easily done the same operations using CMS native reader/punch commands.
Well, they used a terminal for doing that, from the CMS command prompt,
but nothing may have prevented them to use a physical reader, a physical
punch and a physical printer or console.
Beside the fact, at that time, 1991,
physical reader and punch were already
out of businness from a loooong time ;-)
But I doubt an MVS/TSO user, in the same years, would have used a
reader/punch.
MVS/TSO users have a way to exchange data using SEND and RECEIVE (the
reason why RECV370/XMIT370 have been written I guess), even between
different mainframes in different sites.
I never used TSO for doing that, but, I guess, sending or receiving an

email

message under TSO doesn't involve using a reader or a punch.
Am I wrong?
Peppe.
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