On 12/10/22 10:17 PM, Dan Cross wrote: > On Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 9:40 PM Larry McVoy wrote: > > On Sat, Dec 10, 2022 at 07:33:54PM -0700, Warner Losh wrote: > > On Sat, Dec 10, 2022 at 7:32 PM Larry McVoy wrote: > > > > > On Sat, Dec 10, 2022 at 07:26:09PM -0700, Warner Losh wrote: > > > > On Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 7:16 PM Larry McVoy wrote: > > > > > > > > > Wow, Kermit is still around?  I think the last time I used > that was > > > > > around 1985. > > > > > > > > > > Are modems still a thing? > > > > > > > > I used it last year... without a modem. > > > > > > What problem does it solve that is not solved? > > > > Talking to my DEC Rainbow and downloading files to it? It was > the go-to > > protocol of choice. Xmodem is available, but messes up file > sizes. kermit > > just works with this device that's so slow it drops characters > at 2400 baud. > > OK, that is cool, but my question was what problem does it solve that > we face today?  Other than talking to 30-40 year old hardware.  Why is > Kermit still a thing? > > > Aside from talking to legacy systems, the Kermit protocol probably has > little to recommend it (xmodem specifically still gets a bit of a > workout in embedded/firmware spaces because it's dead simple). Kermit > as a communications swiss army knife of a program is probably more useful. > > That said, I could see it for downloading bulk data from scada systems > over a slow link (RF, serial, or maybe some weird 7 bit thing). I tend > to doubt that's happening much with Kermit these days, though. It works, it's not flaky and it will talk to practically anything. I use it for talking with virtual systems running older OSes (Mac, unix, etc) where other stuff doesn't or just sorta works, if you can run kermit and theres a path, it'll prolly work more often than not, and certainly more than more exotic stuff.