[TUHS] BSD talk program?

[TUHS] BSD talk program?

[Dan Cross]

I'm curious if anyone has any history they can share about the BSD
"talk" program.

I was fond of this back when it was still (relatively) common, but
given the way it's architected I definitely see why it fell out of use
as the Internet grew. Still, does anybody know what the history behind
it is?  Initially, I thought it was written by Mike Karels, but that
was just my speculation from SCCS spelunking, and looking at the
sources from 4.2, I see RCS header strings that indicate it was
written by "moore" (Peter Moore?).  talk.c says, "Written by Kipp
Hickman".

It seems to have arrived pretty early on with respect to the
introduction of TCP/IP in BSD: the README alludes to some things
coming up in 4.1c. Clem, you seem to have had a hand in it, and are
credited (along with Peter Moore) for making it work on 4.1a.

So I guess the question is, what was the motivation? Was it just to
have a more pleasing user-to-user communications experience, or was
discussion across the network an explicit goal? There's a note in
talk.c ("Modified to run between hosts by Peter Moore, 8/19/82") that
suggests this wasn't the original intent. Who thought up the
character-at-a-time display mode?

Thanks for any insights.

        - Dan C.

[TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

[Clem Cole]

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Yes -- I can give this history.
Kipp wrote an early version for 4.1BSD - but it is not the version in the
releases. It ran on Ernie and did not do as much.
I had used a different program on the PDP-10's and the ARPANET and I
started over when Joy added sockets for 4.1A. I also made the infamous use
of vax integers instead of network integers (and I knew better - but really
did not think about until a few years later when I was at Masscomp and
compiled it for the 68000 -- ugh).  That version still had a couple of bugs
in it (i.e. hung in the 4.1A networking code occasionally), but worked well
enough on the CAD systems.  I went away to a USENIX conference and while I
was gone, my officemate  Peter (Moore) took my code and fixed the problem,
plus he put it into  RCS.  I gave that to Sam and that's the version that
went out in 4.1C and beyond.

Clem


ᐧ
ᐧ

On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 9:29 AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm curious if anyone has any history they can share about the BSD
> "talk" program.
>
> I was fond of this back when it was still (relatively) common, but
> given the way it's architected I definitely see why it fell out of use
> as the Internet grew. Still, does anybody know what the history behind
> it is?  Initially, I thought it was written by Mike Karels, but that
> was just my speculation from SCCS spelunking, and looking at the
> sources from 4.2, I see RCS header strings that indicate it was
> written by "moore" (Peter Moore?).  talk.c says, "Written by Kipp
> Hickman".
>
> It seems to have arrived pretty early on with respect to the
> introduction of TCP/IP in BSD: the README alludes to some things
> coming up in 4.1c. Clem, you seem to have had a hand in it, and are
> credited (along with Peter Moore) for making it work on 4.1a.
>
> So I guess the question is, what was the motivation? Was it just to
> have a more pleasing user-to-user communications experience, or was
> discussion across the network an explicit goal? There's a note in
> talk.c ("Modified to run between hosts by Peter Moore, 8/19/82") that
> suggests this wasn't the original intent. Who thought up the
> character-at-a-time display mode?
>
> Thanks for any insights.
>
>         - Dan C.
>

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[TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

[Clem Cole]

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As for the motivation -- it was simple.  UCB is on a hill.  I lived at the
base of hill and I only wanted to walk up it once a day.   Our office was a
big pool of about 20 of us next to the CAD machine room on the second floor
of Cory Hall.  Somebody was usually in the office most nights, but not
everyone.   We all had modems and terminals at home, but only one phone
line.  We had 3 Vaxes in the CAD group, plus my Array Processor.   So I
wanted to be able to ask someone like Peter or TQ to reset the AP for me if
I hosed it when I was working from home when I was debugging it. Plus
the obvious social aspects -- "hey you want go get a Pizza/Beer etc..."
But since we might be working on a different system, Kipps' hack was
useless.
ᐧ
ᐧ
ᐧ
ᐧ

On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:14 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> Yes -- I can give this history.
> Kipp wrote an early version for 4.1BSD - but it is not the version in the
> releases. It ran on Ernie and did not do as much.
> I had used a different program on the PDP-10's and the ARPANET and I
> started over when Joy added sockets for 4.1A. I also made the infamous use
> of vax integers instead of network integers (and I knew better - but really
> did not think about until a few years later when I was at Masscomp and
> compiled it for the 68000 -- ugh).  That version still had a couple of bugs
> in it (i.e. hung in the 4.1A networking code occasionally), but worked well
> enough on the CAD systems.  I went away to a USENIX conference and while I
> was gone, my officemate  Peter (Moore) took my code and fixed the problem,
> plus he put it into  RCS.  I gave that to Sam and that's the version that
> went out in 4.1C and beyond.
>
> Clem
>
>
> ᐧ
> ᐧ
>
> On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 9:29 AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm curious if anyone has any history they can share about the BSD
>> "talk" program.
>>
>> I was fond of this back when it was still (relatively) common, but
>> given the way it's architected I definitely see why it fell out of use
>> as the Internet grew. Still, does anybody know what the history behind
>> it is?  Initially, I thought it was written by Mike Karels, but that
>> was just my speculation from SCCS spelunking, and looking at the
>> sources from 4.2, I see RCS header strings that indicate it was
>> written by "moore" (Peter Moore?).  talk.c says, "Written by Kipp
>> Hickman".
>>
>> It seems to have arrived pretty early on with respect to the
>> introduction of TCP/IP in BSD: the README alludes to some things
>> coming up in 4.1c. Clem, you seem to have had a hand in it, and are
>> credited (along with Peter Moore) for making it work on 4.1a.
>>
>> So I guess the question is, what was the motivation? Was it just to
>> have a more pleasing user-to-user communications experience, or was
>> discussion across the network an explicit goal? There's a note in
>> talk.c ("Modified to run between hosts by Peter Moore, 8/19/82") that
>> suggests this wasn't the original intent. Who thought up the
>> character-at-a-time display mode?
>>
>> Thanks for any insights.
>>
>>         - Dan C.
>>
>

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[TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

[Larry McVoy]

I loved talk when CS was running BSD on a VAX.  You could see who was on
and talk them.  Very handy and it was sort of social.

It's crazy how things were back then, open ports listening for all sorts
of things.  I think we were pretty unaware of how nasty the internet would
get.

On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:22:22AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> As for the motivation -- it was simple.  UCB is on a hill.  I lived at the
> base of hill and I only wanted to walk up it once a day.   Our office was a
> big pool of about 20 of us next to the CAD machine room on the second floor
> of Cory Hall.  Somebody was usually in the office most nights, but not
> everyone.   We all had modems and terminals at home, but only one phone
> line.  We had 3 Vaxes in the CAD group, plus my Array Processor.   So I
> wanted to be able to ask someone like Peter or TQ to reset the AP for me if
> I hosed it when I was working from home when I was debugging it. Plus
> the obvious social aspects -- "hey you want go get a Pizza/Beer etc..."
> But since we might be working on a different system, Kipps' hack was
> useless.
> ???
> ???
> ???
> ???
> 
> On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:14???AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> > Yes -- I can give this history.
> > Kipp wrote an early version for 4.1BSD - but it is not the version in the
> > releases. It ran on Ernie and did not do as much.
> > I had used a different program on the PDP-10's and the ARPANET and I
> > started over when Joy added sockets for 4.1A. I also made the infamous use
> > of vax integers instead of network integers (and I knew better - but really
> > did not think about until a few years later when I was at Masscomp and
> > compiled it for the 68000 -- ugh).  That version still had a couple of bugs
> > in it (i.e. hung in the 4.1A networking code occasionally), but worked well
> > enough on the CAD systems.  I went away to a USENIX conference and while I
> > was gone, my officemate  Peter (Moore) took my code and fixed the problem,
> > plus he put it into  RCS.  I gave that to Sam and that's the version that
> > went out in 4.1C and beyond.
> >
> > Clem
> >
> >
> > ???
> > ???
> >
> > On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 9:29???AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I'm curious if anyone has any history they can share about the BSD
> >> "talk" program.
> >>
> >> I was fond of this back when it was still (relatively) common, but
> >> given the way it's architected I definitely see why it fell out of use
> >> as the Internet grew. Still, does anybody know what the history behind
> >> it is?  Initially, I thought it was written by Mike Karels, but that
> >> was just my speculation from SCCS spelunking, and looking at the
> >> sources from 4.2, I see RCS header strings that indicate it was
> >> written by "moore" (Peter Moore?).  talk.c says, "Written by Kipp
> >> Hickman".
> >>
> >> It seems to have arrived pretty early on with respect to the
> >> introduction of TCP/IP in BSD: the README alludes to some things
> >> coming up in 4.1c. Clem, you seem to have had a hand in it, and are
> >> credited (along with Peter Moore) for making it work on 4.1a.
> >>
> >> So I guess the question is, what was the motivation? Was it just to
> >> have a more pleasing user-to-user communications experience, or was
> >> discussion across the network an explicit goal? There's a note in
> >> talk.c ("Modified to run between hosts by Peter Moore, 8/19/82") that
> >> suggests this wasn't the original intent. Who thought up the
> >> character-at-a-time display mode?
> >>
> >> Thanks for any insights.
> >>
> >>         - Dan C.
> >>
> >

-- 
---
Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

[TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

[Warner Losh]

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On Fri, Dec 13, 2024, 8:53 AM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:

> I loved talk when CS was running BSD on a VAX.  You could see who was on
> and talk them.  Very handy and it was sort of social.
>
> It's crazy how things were back then, open ports listening for all sorts
> of things.  I think we were pretty unaware of how nasty the internet would
> get.


And the talk protocol just passed random addresses around in binary format
to make the connection and the client and server just trusted each other.
Also, finger could see who you were talking to, like privacy didn't matter.
Ah, Simpler times.

Warner

On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:22:22AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> > As for the motivation -- it was simple.  UCB is on a hill.  I lived at
> the
> > base of hill and I only wanted to walk up it once a day.   Our office
> was a
> > big pool of about 20 of us next to the CAD machine room on the second
> floor
> > of Cory Hall.  Somebody was usually in the office most nights, but not
> > everyone.   We all had modems and terminals at home, but only one phone
> > line.  We had 3 Vaxes in the CAD group, plus my Array Processor.   So I
> > wanted to be able to ask someone like Peter or TQ to reset the AP for me
> if
> > I hosed it when I was working from home when I was debugging it. Plus
> > the obvious social aspects -- "hey you want go get a Pizza/Beer etc..."
> > But since we might be working on a different system, Kipps' hack was
> > useless.
> > ???
> > ???
> > ???
> > ???
> >
> > On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:14???AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Yes -- I can give this history.
> > > Kipp wrote an early version for 4.1BSD - but it is not the version in
> the
> > > releases. It ran on Ernie and did not do as much.
> > > I had used a different program on the PDP-10's and the ARPANET and I
> > > started over when Joy added sockets for 4.1A. I also made the infamous
> use
> > > of vax integers instead of network integers (and I knew better - but
> really
> > > did not think about until a few years later when I was at Masscomp and
> > > compiled it for the 68000 -- ugh).  That version still had a couple of
> bugs
> > > in it (i.e. hung in the 4.1A networking code occasionally), but worked
> well
> > > enough on the CAD systems.  I went away to a USENIX conference and
> while I
> > > was gone, my officemate  Peter (Moore) took my code and fixed the
> problem,
> > > plus he put it into  RCS.  I gave that to Sam and that's the version
> that
> > > went out in 4.1C and beyond.
> > >
> > > Clem
> > >
> > >
> > > ???
> > > ???
> > >
> > > On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 9:29???AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> I'm curious if anyone has any history they can share about the BSD
> > >> "talk" program.
> > >>
> > >> I was fond of this back when it was still (relatively) common, but
> > >> given the way it's architected I definitely see why it fell out of use
> > >> as the Internet grew. Still, does anybody know what the history behind
> > >> it is?  Initially, I thought it was written by Mike Karels, but that
> > >> was just my speculation from SCCS spelunking, and looking at the
> > >> sources from 4.2, I see RCS header strings that indicate it was
> > >> written by "moore" (Peter Moore?).  talk.c says, "Written by Kipp
> > >> Hickman".
> > >>
> > >> It seems to have arrived pretty early on with respect to the
> > >> introduction of TCP/IP in BSD: the README alludes to some things
> > >> coming up in 4.1c. Clem, you seem to have had a hand in it, and are
> > >> credited (along with Peter Moore) for making it work on 4.1a.
> > >>
> > >> So I guess the question is, what was the motivation? Was it just to
> > >> have a more pleasing user-to-user communications experience, or was
> > >> discussion across the network an explicit goal? There's a note in
> > >> talk.c ("Modified to run between hosts by Peter Moore, 8/19/82") that
> > >> suggests this wasn't the original intent. Who thought up the
> > >> character-at-a-time display mode?
> > >>
> > >> Thanks for any insights.
> > >>
> > >>         - Dan C.
> > >>
> > >
>
> --
> ---
> Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing
> http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat
>

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[TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

[Rich Salz]

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On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 11:03 AM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:

> I loved talk when CS was running BSD on a VAX.  You could see who was on
> and talk them.  Very handy and it was sort of social.
>

Talk was okay, but hunt was great! :)

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[TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

[Ronald Natalie]

Anybody remember jtalk?   It was a hacked version of talk that ran your 
input through the “jive filter”.

Slap ma fro!



------ Original Message ------
From "Larry McVoy" <lm@mcvoy.com>
To "Clem Cole" <clemc@ccc.com>
Cc "TUHS" <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Date 12/13/2024 10:53:36 AM
Subject [TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

>I loved talk when CS was running BSD on a VAX.  You could see who was on
>and talk them.  Very handy and it was sort of social.
>
>It's crazy how things were back then, open ports listening for all sorts
>of things.  I think we were pretty unaware of how nasty the internet would
>get.
>
>On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:22:22AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
>>  As for the motivation -- it was simple.  UCB is on a hill.  I lived at the
>>  base of hill and I only wanted to walk up it once a day.   Our office was a
>>  big pool of about 20 of us next to the CAD machine room on the second floor
>>  of Cory Hall.  Somebody was usually in the office most nights, but not
>>  everyone.   We all had modems and terminals at home, but only one phone
>>  line.  We had 3 Vaxes in the CAD group, plus my Array Processor.   So I
>>  wanted to be able to ask someone like Peter or TQ to reset the AP for me if
>>  I hosed it when I was working from home when I was debugging it. Plus
>>  the obvious social aspects -- "hey you want go get a Pizza/Beer etc..."
>>  But since we might be working on a different system, Kipps' hack was
>>  useless.
>>  ???
>>  ???
>>  ???
>>  ???
>>
>>  On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:14???AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
>>
>>  > Yes -- I can give this history.
>>  > Kipp wrote an early version for 4.1BSD - but it is not the version in the
>>  > releases. It ran on Ernie and did not do as much.
>>  > I had used a different program on the PDP-10's and the ARPANET and I
>>  > started over when Joy added sockets for 4.1A. I also made the infamous use
>>  > of vax integers instead of network integers (and I knew better - but really
>>  > did not think about until a few years later when I was at Masscomp and
>>  > compiled it for the 68000 -- ugh).  That version still had a couple of bugs
>>  > in it (i.e. hung in the 4.1A networking code occasionally), but worked well
>>  > enough on the CAD systems.  I went away to a USENIX conference and while I
>>  > was gone, my officemate  Peter (Moore) took my code and fixed the problem,
>>  > plus he put it into  RCS.  I gave that to Sam and that's the version that
>>  > went out in 4.1C and beyond.
>>  >
>>  > Clem
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > ???
>>  > ???
>>  >
>>  > On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 9:29???AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
>>  >
>>  >> I'm curious if anyone has any history they can share about the BSD
>>  >> "talk" program.
>>  >>
>>  >> I was fond of this back when it was still (relatively) common, but
>>  >> given the way it's architected I definitely see why it fell out of use
>>  >> as the Internet grew. Still, does anybody know what the history behind
>>  >> it is?  Initially, I thought it was written by Mike Karels, but that
>>  >> was just my speculation from SCCS spelunking, and looking at the
>>  >> sources from 4.2, I see RCS header strings that indicate it was
>>  >> written by "moore" (Peter Moore?).  talk.c says, "Written by Kipp
>>  >> Hickman".
>>  >>
>>  >> It seems to have arrived pretty early on with respect to the
>>  >> introduction of TCP/IP in BSD: the README alludes to some things
>>  >> coming up in 4.1c. Clem, you seem to have had a hand in it, and are
>>  >> credited (along with Peter Moore) for making it work on 4.1a.
>>  >>
>>  >> So I guess the question is, what was the motivation? Was it just to
>>  >> have a more pleasing user-to-user communications experience, or was
>>  >> discussion across the network an explicit goal? There's a note in
>>  >> talk.c ("Modified to run between hosts by Peter Moore, 8/19/82") that
>>  >> suggests this wasn't the original intent. Who thought up the
>>  >> character-at-a-time display mode?
>>  >>
>>  >> Thanks for any insights.
>>  >>
>>  >>         - Dan C.
>>  >>
>>  >
>
>--
>---
>Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

[TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Dan Cross wrote:
> I'm curious if anyone has any history they can share about the BSD
> "talk" program.

Allow me to interject for a moment.  Apparently there's a ttylinkd
program that "is a simple daemon that allows incoming ttylink calls to
be routed through to Linux's normal talkd(8) system".  It's TCP port 87
in RFC 1060 "Assigned Numbers", but seems to have been dropped since.
Maybe someone can expand on this.

Apparently this protocol was known at MIT, because there's a Chaosnet
servic called TTYLINK.  The client side is implemented by the MINITS
Chaosnet router/terminal concentrator/etc.

[TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

[Dan Cross]

On Sat, Dec 14, 2024 at 2:21 AM Lars Brinkhoff <lars@nocrew.org> wrote:
> Dan Cross wrote:
> > I'm curious if anyone has any history they can share about the BSD
> > "talk" program.
>
> Allow me to interject for a moment.  Apparently there's a ttylinkd
> program that "is a simple daemon that allows incoming ttylink calls to
> be routed through to Linux's normal talkd(8) system".

The only `ttylinkd` that I'm aware of is the one that's part of the
Linux AX.25/NETROM/Rose suite. This lets a ham set up a service for
one of those protocols; I set this up for connected-mode AX.25 at my
QTH (`KZ2X-2` on 144.09 MHz in the Boston area).

In a nutshell, if someone uses AX.25 and connects to that SSID, the
system invokes the ttylinkd daemon, which knows enough about the
`talk` protocol to connect to a talk daemon and send an invitation to
a (fixed) user. That user can use any normal `talk` client to talk to
the user on the radio end, allowing keyboard-to-keyboard
communication. It's not character-by-character the way that normal
"talk" is because AX.25 is in the way and generally wants to batch up
keystrokes into lines/packets (it's slow), but it's kinda cool. Of
course, no one around here uses it. :-(

> It's TCP port 87
> in RFC 1060 "Assigned Numbers", but seems to have been dropped since.
> Maybe someone can expand on this.
>
> Apparently this protocol was known at MIT, because there's a Chaosnet
> servic called TTYLINK.  The client side is implemented by the MINITS
> Chaosnet router/terminal concentrator/etc.

I suspect this is something different, and the name collision is just
an unfortunate coincidence.

        - Dan C.

[TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

[arnold]

When my wife and I were dating, she was at U Penn in Philadelphia
and I was at Emory in Atlanta. We occasionally used talk to
chat in real time. :-) This was in 1989.

Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:

> I loved talk when CS was running BSD on a VAX.  You could see who was on
> and talk them.  Very handy and it was sort of social.
>
> It's crazy how things were back then, open ports listening for all sorts
> of things.  I think we were pretty unaware of how nasty the internet would
> get.
>
> On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:22:22AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> > As for the motivation -- it was simple.  UCB is on a hill.  I lived at the
> > base of hill and I only wanted to walk up it once a day.   Our office was a
> > big pool of about 20 of us next to the CAD machine room on the second floor
> > of Cory Hall.  Somebody was usually in the office most nights, but not
> > everyone.   We all had modems and terminals at home, but only one phone
> > line.  We had 3 Vaxes in the CAD group, plus my Array Processor.   So I
> > wanted to be able to ask someone like Peter or TQ to reset the AP for me if
> > I hosed it when I was working from home when I was debugging it. Plus
> > the obvious social aspects -- "hey you want go get a Pizza/Beer etc..."
> > But since we might be working on a different system, Kipps' hack was
> > useless.
> > ???
> > ???
> > ???
> > ???
> > 
> > On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:14???AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > Yes -- I can give this history.
> > > Kipp wrote an early version for 4.1BSD - but it is not the version in the
> > > releases. It ran on Ernie and did not do as much.
> > > I had used a different program on the PDP-10's and the ARPANET and I
> > > started over when Joy added sockets for 4.1A. I also made the infamous use
> > > of vax integers instead of network integers (and I knew better - but really
> > > did not think about until a few years later when I was at Masscomp and
> > > compiled it for the 68000 -- ugh).  That version still had a couple of bugs
> > > in it (i.e. hung in the 4.1A networking code occasionally), but worked well
> > > enough on the CAD systems.  I went away to a USENIX conference and while I
> > > was gone, my officemate  Peter (Moore) took my code and fixed the problem,
> > > plus he put it into  RCS.  I gave that to Sam and that's the version that
> > > went out in 4.1C and beyond.
> > >
> > > Clem
> > >
> > >
> > > ???
> > > ???
> > >
> > > On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 9:29???AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> I'm curious if anyone has any history they can share about the BSD
> > >> "talk" program.
> > >>
> > >> I was fond of this back when it was still (relatively) common, but
> > >> given the way it's architected I definitely see why it fell out of use
> > >> as the Internet grew. Still, does anybody know what the history behind
> > >> it is?  Initially, I thought it was written by Mike Karels, but that
> > >> was just my speculation from SCCS spelunking, and looking at the
> > >> sources from 4.2, I see RCS header strings that indicate it was
> > >> written by "moore" (Peter Moore?).  talk.c says, "Written by Kipp
> > >> Hickman".
> > >>
> > >> It seems to have arrived pretty early on with respect to the
> > >> introduction of TCP/IP in BSD: the README alludes to some things
> > >> coming up in 4.1c. Clem, you seem to have had a hand in it, and are
> > >> credited (along with Peter Moore) for making it work on 4.1a.
> > >>
> > >> So I guess the question is, what was the motivation? Was it just to
> > >> have a more pleasing user-to-user communications experience, or was
> > >> discussion across the network an explicit goal? There's a note in
> > >> talk.c ("Modified to run between hosts by Peter Moore, 8/19/82") that
> > >> suggests this wasn't the original intent. Who thought up the
> > >> character-at-a-time display mode?
> > >>
> > >> Thanks for any insights.
> > >>
> > >>         - Dan C.
> > >>
> > >
>
> -- 
> ---
> Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

[TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

[Marc Donner]

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Egad!  Back in the day all of the /dev/tty entries were world writable.

I used to troll CMU CS Rogue players (when I wasn't playing) from time to
time by sending a string to their tty that grabbed the cursor, moved it to
where the messages appeared (upper left corner?) and typing "The dangling
modifier struck!"

That's all it did.  I got a lot of pleasure when I overheard two faculty
members comparing notes on their experiences with the dangling modifier.

Best,

Marc
=====
nygeek.net
mindthegapdialogs.com/home <https://www.mindthegapdialogs.com/home>


On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:53 AM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:

> I loved talk when CS was running BSD on a VAX.  You could see who was on
> and talk them.  Very handy and it was sort of social.
>
> It's crazy how things were back then, open ports listening for all sorts
> of things.  I think we were pretty unaware of how nasty the internet would
> get.
>
> On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:22:22AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> > As for the motivation -- it was simple.  UCB is on a hill.  I lived at
> the
> > base of hill and I only wanted to walk up it once a day.   Our office
> was a
> > big pool of about 20 of us next to the CAD machine room on the second
> floor
> > of Cory Hall.  Somebody was usually in the office most nights, but not
> > everyone.   We all had modems and terminals at home, but only one phone
> > line.  We had 3 Vaxes in the CAD group, plus my Array Processor.   So I
> > wanted to be able to ask someone like Peter or TQ to reset the AP for me
> if
> > I hosed it when I was working from home when I was debugging it. Plus
> > the obvious social aspects -- "hey you want go get a Pizza/Beer etc..."
> > But since we might be working on a different system, Kipps' hack was
> > useless.
> > ???
> > ???
> > ???
> > ???
> >
> > On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:14???AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Yes -- I can give this history.
> > > Kipp wrote an early version for 4.1BSD - but it is not the version in
> the
> > > releases. It ran on Ernie and did not do as much.
> > > I had used a different program on the PDP-10's and the ARPANET and I
> > > started over when Joy added sockets for 4.1A. I also made the infamous
> use
> > > of vax integers instead of network integers (and I knew better - but
> really
> > > did not think about until a few years later when I was at Masscomp and
> > > compiled it for the 68000 -- ugh).  That version still had a couple of
> bugs
> > > in it (i.e. hung in the 4.1A networking code occasionally), but worked
> well
> > > enough on the CAD systems.  I went away to a USENIX conference and
> while I
> > > was gone, my officemate  Peter (Moore) took my code and fixed the
> problem,
> > > plus he put it into  RCS.  I gave that to Sam and that's the version
> that
> > > went out in 4.1C and beyond.
> > >
> > > Clem
> > >
> > >
> > > ???
> > > ???
> > >
> > > On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 9:29???AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> I'm curious if anyone has any history they can share about the BSD
> > >> "talk" program.
> > >>
> > >> I was fond of this back when it was still (relatively) common, but
> > >> given the way it's architected I definitely see why it fell out of use
> > >> as the Internet grew. Still, does anybody know what the history behind
> > >> it is?  Initially, I thought it was written by Mike Karels, but that
> > >> was just my speculation from SCCS spelunking, and looking at the
> > >> sources from 4.2, I see RCS header strings that indicate it was
> > >> written by "moore" (Peter Moore?).  talk.c says, "Written by Kipp
> > >> Hickman".
> > >>
> > >> It seems to have arrived pretty early on with respect to the
> > >> introduction of TCP/IP in BSD: the README alludes to some things
> > >> coming up in 4.1c. Clem, you seem to have had a hand in it, and are
> > >> credited (along with Peter Moore) for making it work on 4.1a.
> > >>
> > >> So I guess the question is, what was the motivation? Was it just to
> > >> have a more pleasing user-to-user communications experience, or was
> > >> discussion across the network an explicit goal? There's a note in
> > >> talk.c ("Modified to run between hosts by Peter Moore, 8/19/82") that
> > >> suggests this wasn't the original intent. Who thought up the
> > >> character-at-a-time display mode?
> > >>
> > >> Thanks for any insights.
> > >>
> > >>         - Dan C.
> > >>
> > >
>
> --
> ---
> Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing
> http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat
>

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[TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

[Warner Losh]

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I tried to talk to my friends at New Mexico Tech when I was working at the
Wollongong Group in Palo Alto in 89. It sucked too bad to do since TWG had
a badle congested 9600 baud line...

Warner

On Sat, Dec 14, 2024, 11:04 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:

> When my wife and I were dating, she was at U Penn in Philadelphia
> and I was at Emory in Atlanta. We occasionally used talk to
> chat in real time. :-) This was in 1989.
>
> Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
>
> > I loved talk when CS was running BSD on a VAX.  You could see who was on
> > and talk them.  Very handy and it was sort of social.
> >
> > It's crazy how things were back then, open ports listening for all sorts
> > of things.  I think we were pretty unaware of how nasty the internet
> would
> > get.
> >
> > On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:22:22AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> > > As for the motivation -- it was simple.  UCB is on a hill.  I lived at
> the
> > > base of hill and I only wanted to walk up it once a day.   Our office
> was a
> > > big pool of about 20 of us next to the CAD machine room on the second
> floor
> > > of Cory Hall.  Somebody was usually in the office most nights, but not
> > > everyone.   We all had modems and terminals at home, but only one phone
> > > line.  We had 3 Vaxes in the CAD group, plus my Array Processor.   So I
> > > wanted to be able to ask someone like Peter or TQ to reset the AP for
> me if
> > > I hosed it when I was working from home when I was debugging it. Plus
> > > the obvious social aspects -- "hey you want go get a Pizza/Beer etc..."
> > > But since we might be working on a different system, Kipps' hack was
> > > useless.
> > > ???
> > > ???
> > > ???
> > > ???
> > >
> > > On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 10:14???AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Yes -- I can give this history.
> > > > Kipp wrote an early version for 4.1BSD - but it is not the version
> in the
> > > > releases. It ran on Ernie and did not do as much.
> > > > I had used a different program on the PDP-10's and the ARPANET and I
> > > > started over when Joy added sockets for 4.1A. I also made the
> infamous use
> > > > of vax integers instead of network integers (and I knew better - but
> really
> > > > did not think about until a few years later when I was at Masscomp
> and
> > > > compiled it for the 68000 -- ugh).  That version still had a couple
> of bugs
> > > > in it (i.e. hung in the 4.1A networking code occasionally), but
> worked well
> > > > enough on the CAD systems.  I went away to a USENIX conference and
> while I
> > > > was gone, my officemate  Peter (Moore) took my code and fixed the
> problem,
> > > > plus he put it into  RCS.  I gave that to Sam and that's the version
> that
> > > > went out in 4.1C and beyond.
> > > >
> > > > Clem
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ???
> > > > ???
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 9:29???AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> I'm curious if anyone has any history they can share about the BSD
> > > >> "talk" program.
> > > >>
> > > >> I was fond of this back when it was still (relatively) common, but
> > > >> given the way it's architected I definitely see why it fell out of
> use
> > > >> as the Internet grew. Still, does anybody know what the history
> behind
> > > >> it is?  Initially, I thought it was written by Mike Karels, but that
> > > >> was just my speculation from SCCS spelunking, and looking at the
> > > >> sources from 4.2, I see RCS header strings that indicate it was
> > > >> written by "moore" (Peter Moore?).  talk.c says, "Written by Kipp
> > > >> Hickman".
> > > >>
> > > >> It seems to have arrived pretty early on with respect to the
> > > >> introduction of TCP/IP in BSD: the README alludes to some things
> > > >> coming up in 4.1c. Clem, you seem to have had a hand in it, and are
> > > >> credited (along with Peter Moore) for making it work on 4.1a.
> > > >>
> > > >> So I guess the question is, what was the motivation? Was it just to
> > > >> have a more pleasing user-to-user communications experience, or was
> > > >> discussion across the network an explicit goal? There's a note in
> > > >> talk.c ("Modified to run between hosts by Peter Moore, 8/19/82")
> that
> > > >> suggests this wasn't the original intent. Who thought up the
> > > >> character-at-a-time display mode?
> > > >>
> > > >> Thanks for any insights.
> > > >>
> > > >>         - Dan C.
> > > >>
> > > >
> >
> > --
> > ---
> > Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing
> http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat
>

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[TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?

[Lars Brinkhoff]

> It's TCP port 87 in RFC 1060 "Assigned Numbers", but seems to have
> been dropped since.

Checking closer, I see it was first defined as "any terminal link"
in RFC 770 from 1980.  It was updated to "any private terminal link"
in 1984.  TTYLINK is actually a "Unix port" in RFC 1060.  RFC 1340
dropped TTYLINK but retains "any private terminal link", and it's still
there in RFC 1700 from 1994, and in the IANA database today.

https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xhtml?search=87&page=1