Interest in UUCP?

From: Ethan Dicks <ethan_dicks_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Wed Jun 13 17:29:02 2001

--- Ken Seefried <ken_at_seefried.com> wrote:
>
> The source code for uucp is availible any number of places; that's probably
> the best existing doco. I occasionally have to dust off my ancient UUCP
> sk1llz to get files on and off some antique for a client.

When I was a system admin for Lucent (1997-1999), I was amazed at how much
they depend on UUCP for internal file transfer. I cut my teeth on Ultrix
on a VAX-11/730 (for Usenet, before the Great Renaming) and put that knowledge
to practical use to attach my Amiga 1000 to Ohio State (helping to debug the
Amiga UUCP package to be compatible with HDB UUCP). I never expected to
_use_ that knowledge more than 10 years later, let alone be paid for it.

> BTW...If one wanted to create an out-of-band network, I dunno if I'd pick
> UUCP. There are a number of other approaches to doing this out there that
> are more functional, more covert and less baroque.

I don't know... UUCP has the advantage of working with just about everything
that can take a hard disk but doesn't have Ethernet (Amigas, AT&T 3B1/Unix-PCs,
PDP-11s, etc.). In the case of classic hardware, baroque software is a good
thing - it means you don't have to roll your own. About the only thing that
is more universal than UUCP is Kermit.
 
> I can almost remember when I was "...!ucbvax!gatech!weasel!ken".

I was "...!ihnp4!cbosgd!osu-eddie!giza!kumiss!erd", among other names. I just
did a web search and I can't find anything posted with my old bang path in it,
but I did find a couple references to "erd_at_kumiss.cmhnet.org", our old
local Ham Radio/Computer club UUCP domain. I went grubbing through Deja.com
in the group comp.mail.maps and found this...

#N osu-mps, zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu
#S Sparcstation 2; SunOS 4.1.2
#O Department of Mathematics, The Ohio State University
#C David Alden
#E osu-mps!postmaster, osu-mps!alden
#T +1 614 292 4962
#P 231 W 18th Ave, Columbus, OH, USA 43210
#L 39 59 N / 83 03 W city
#R
#U cambria coral n8emr
#W alden_at_mps.ohio-state.edu (David J Alden); Mon Aug 24 09:04:31 EDT 1992
#
# This machine's sysname (for news) is actually "zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu".
# It has ~35 nntp neighbors and is the major news gateway into Columbus, Ohio.
#
osu-mps= zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu
#
osu-mps cambria(DIRECT+HIGH), coral(DIRECT+HIGH),
        kumiss(DIRECT), n8emr(DIRECT+HIGH)

And this (once I lost my direct OSU connection...

#N kumiss
#S Commodore-AMIGA 1000; Amiga-DOS V1.3 & Amiga-UUCP V1.15D
#O
#C Ethan Dicks
#E kumiss!erd, kumiss!postmaster
#T +1 614 *** ****
#P **** ** **** ********* ** ******
#L 40 01 00 N / 82 59 40 W
#R This site recieves mail and a partial News feed
#U
#W kumiss!erd (Ethan Dicks); Mon Nov 25 19:07:26 EST 1991
#
kumiss jcnpc(DIRECT)

(I removed the phone and address info because it's still valid and I'd rather
not see it archived yet again in yet another place).

> Weasel was
> a i386sx/20 running SCO Unix in my apartment, and with a 2400 baud dialin, I
> was *way* kewler than those BBS weenies.

I didn't upgrade to 2400 baud until modems fell to $99. Still got that one,
a Goldstar. Haven't powered it on in nearly 10 years.

> Mail, USENET News and file transfer...all you really needed.

I would have liked ftp back in those days, but Kermit did the trick for
most of that sort of thing.

-ethan


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Received on Wed Jun 13 2001 - 17:29:02 BST

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