From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 31618 invoked from network); 31 May 2020 17:15:45 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 31 May 2020 17:15:45 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id EB4B19CA2C; Mon, 1 Jun 2020 03:15:43 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 562319C932; Mon, 1 Jun 2020 03:15:11 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id F09F29C932; Mon, 1 Jun 2020 03:15:07 +1000 (AEST) X-Greylist: delayed 340 seconds by postgrey-1.36 at minnie.tuhs.org; Mon, 01 Jun 2020 03:15:06 AEST Received: from relay05.pair.com (relay05.pair.com [216.92.24.67]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D86899C92D for ; Mon, 1 Jun 2020 03:15:06 +1000 (AEST) Received: from orac.inputplus.co.uk (unknown [84.93.38.236]) by relay05.pair.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7CE031A2F29; Sun, 31 May 2020 13:09:25 -0400 (EDT) Received: from orac.inputplus.co.uk (orac.inputplus.co.uk [IPv6:::1]) by orac.inputplus.co.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0609821F85; Sun, 31 May 2020 18:09:24 +0100 (BST) To: Clem Cole From: Ralph Corderoy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-reply-to: References: <1jeHk5-5LM-00@marmaro.de> <1jfNb2-7JV-00@marmaro.de> Date: Sun, 31 May 2020 18:09:24 +0100 Message-Id: <20200531170924.0609821F85@orac.inputplus.co.uk> Subject: Re: [TUHS] mh/hm, mmh (was: fmt(1): history, POSIX, -t, -c) X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Hi Clem, > I believe it was Bruce Borden and team developed the original Rand > Message Handler or MH. I do not know who was the primary author, we > need to ask Bruce or one of the old Rand folks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH_Message_Handling_System#History says MH was proposed by R. Stockton Gaines and Norman Shapiro and developed by Bruce S. Borden and others at RAND Corporation. and cites https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/notes/2009/N3017.pdf Norman Shapiro, or Norm, is still using nmh well into his eighties, nmh is a descendant of MH, and pops up on the nmh-workers mailing list to either fill in bits of history or ask for installation advice as the Linux distro shifts under his feet. He did visit Bell Labs, though in '54. :-) Details at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Shapiro > The new format, used a line a control-As followed by a nl, before and > after the message. MH's mts.conf(5) had the ability to set mmdelim{1,2} to something other than \ca\ca\ca\ca\n; no idea why. And that magic marker would be escaped if it occurred in the middle of a message, to \cb\ca\ca\ca\n. > Note the part of the story I left out was when Rand MH spun out to one > of the other Universities, UCI I think. Wikipedia again: Subsequently development was taken over by Marshall T. Rose and John L. Romine working at University of California, Irvine. nmh... was forked [from that] by Richard Coleman while working at the Georgia Institute of Technology. It incorporates the "LBL changes" made to MH in the late 80s by Van Jacobson, Mike Karels and Craig Leres. MH also had support for UCI's bulletin boards called ‘BBoards’, including on ZOTnet. They were optionally available over POP3 and NNTP, but only one or the other. :-) There was an MH shell of some kind called msh, and a visual mh, vmh. ZOTnet was a LAN for mail by Marshall Rose at UCI with gateways for CSnet and ARPAnet. https://escholarship.org/content/qt4bm4k2vh/qt4bm4k2vh.pdf The ZOTnet: a local area mailing network, 1983 (I still use nmh and I'm using it for this reply.) -- Cheers, Ralph.