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From: Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>
To: Arnold Robbins <arnold@skeeve.com>
Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: [TUHS] Re: BSD talk program?
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2024 12:26:43 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CANCZdfowworo1RP6oMypOX0iOx6p6pEbkvpdUE2bCX81Ycm4VA@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <202412141804.4BEI4K5c1726899@freefriends.org>

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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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  reply	other threads:[~2024-12-14 19:27 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 13+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2024-12-13 14:28 [TUHS] " Dan Cross
2024-12-13 15:14 ` [TUHS] " Clem Cole
2024-12-13 15:22   ` Clem Cole
2024-12-13 15:53     ` Larry McVoy
2024-12-13 16:00       ` Warner Losh
2024-12-13 16:04       ` Rich Salz
2024-12-13 16:58       ` Ronald Natalie
2024-12-14 18:04       ` arnold
2024-12-14 19:26         ` Warner Losh [this message]
2024-12-14 19:16       ` Marc Donner
2024-12-14  7:20 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2024-12-14 16:46   ` Dan Cross
2024-12-14 20:41   ` Lars Brinkhoff

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