From bjones@weber.ucsd.edu Wed Oct 17 11:02 PDT 1990

From [email protected] Wed Oct 17 11:02 PDT 1990
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 10:51:56 pdt
From: [email protected] (Bruce Jones)
To: [email protected]
Subject: More info
X-IMAPbase: 1230225501 11
Status: RO
X-Status:
X-Keywords:
X-UID: 1

Gene Spafford made a couple of files of old mail available to
the list. One file is a set of mail messages from a mailist
on UsenetII from 1985. They make for interesting reading in
light of the changes that have happened since the discussion
took place.

Gene's intro message has also given rise to some thought about
what this mailist is all about as well. More on that later.

The other file is called "rename" and it shows some of the very
early discussions about The Great Renaming, a subject near and dear
to all of us around here at present.

The files are in the ftp login directory I mentioned yesterday. Drop
by and take a look.

bj
-

From [email protected] Wed Oct 17 13:45 PDT 1990
To: [email protected]
Subject: research/vax135
Date: 17 Oct 90 16:17:11 EDT (Wed)
From: [email protected] (Mark Horton)
Status: RO
X-Status:
X-Keywords:
X-UID: 2

vax135 was definitely an early player (there were very good relations
between the vax135 folks who put out UNIX/32V and the ucbvax folks who
got the first beta tape) and I could believe that the Netnews link was
duke<->vax135<->ucbvax. But the email link was definitely via research.

Somewhere I have on magtape a map or two from the spring of 1981,
back when there were only 30 or so machines on the net.

The oldest map I have (paper, 1/1/82) shows research as a leaf, vax135
as a minor hub (links to cornell, ihnss and harpo.) This map shows every
machine that got Netnews one one sheet and was only photo-reduced from
about 11x17.

I do have a 9/21/81 map made by Phil Karn, Mr. ihnss (forerunner of ihnp4),
which is not entirely accurate for the time. It shows chico, ihnss, and
mhtsa as the major hubs, with chico migrating into harpo.

The backbone is first mentioned in the
July 1983 map - it was not mentioned on the Jan 1983 map.
In July 1983 there were both logical maps (showing all hosts) and
geographic maps (showing the biggest host in each city on a US map.)

We did a geographic map only in 1/84, and in 6/84 the only map was a
machine-readable 4 page logical map done by Bill and Karen Shannon -
I had given up on trying to show it on paper, and did the last geographic
map in 6/84. Bill and Karen continued to put out their machine readable
one on the net periodically. Now, of course, Brian Reid puts out his
Postscript stuff.

The first links to Canada appeared on the 1/1/82 map (watmath, utzoo,
and 2 machines behind each.) In 1/83 philabs bridged the atlantic
to connect to mcvax, dutesta, and ukc. By 7/83 a second link from
ukc to vax135 (non-backbone) existed, and a link from sdchema in San
Diego to basservax in Australia (by magtape once a week!) appeared.

I have this stuff on paper, and can send it to one person who is the
keeper of all this.

Mark

From [email protected] Wed Oct 17 14:10 PDT 1990
To: [email protected]
Subject: Usenet backbone
Organization: SERC, Department of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ.
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 16:04:11 EST
From: Gene Spafford <[email protected]>
Status: RO
X-Status:
X-Keywords:
X-UID: 3

There were two "backbones" -- the physical backbone, and the
"political" backbone. Mark was indeed the ancestor of the physical
backbone, and I was the originator of the "political" (i.e.,
decision-making) backbone. I guess my earlier mail didn't make that
distinction clear.

Enclosed are some machine-readable maps I got from either Mark or
Steve Bellovin. Once, when my life was considerably simpler than it
is now, I volunteered to help write a definitive history paper on the
Usenet. Mark & Steve had both started this paper, but had other
things come up. I started revisions, lost them in a machine crash,
redid some of them, then had the tide of events sweep away whatever
free time I had available to work on it. I may get back to it
someday, but not this week. :-)

Anyhow:

This is labelled as April 5, 1981

reed phs
\ / \
decvax---duke----unc
| / \
| mhtsa--research mh135a
ucbopt---+ | | \ |
| | | eagle ihnss vax135
ucbcory--\ | | | / /
>----ucbvax------+-------+-------------\
ucbarpa--/ | | | \
| sdcarl sdcsvax menlo70--hao ucsfcgl
ucbonyx--+ \ / |
phonlab sytek

This is labelled as April 15, 1981:

pdp
|
decvax sii reed phs--unc--grumpy duke34
| | | | | | |
| +--+----+-----+-+--+-------------+
| |
| duke
| |
| +------+---+----------------+------+-------+
| | | | | |
ucbopt | mhtsa research mh135a hocsr chico---harpo
| | | | |
ucbcory | | eagle ihnss vax135 (Bell Labs Sites)
| | | | | |
ucbvax---+----------+--+--+-----+--+------+--------+
| | | |
ucbarpa sdcsvax | menlo70--hao
| sdcattb-----+ | |
ucbonyx +-----ucsfcgl sytek
phonlab-----+
sdcarl

And this labelled as June 1, 1981

!- Uucp links
: Berknet links
@ Arpanet links

pdp
(Misc) ! (NC) (Misc)
decvax sii reed phs--unc--grumpy duke34 utzoo cincy teklabs
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
! +--+----+-----+-+--+-------------+-------+------+ !
! ! !
! duke !
! ! !
! +------+---+-----------------------+--------+ !
! ! ! ! ! !
ucbopt ! hocsr--mhtsa----research mh135a harpo-----chico
: ! ! ! !
ucbcory ! ! eagle ihnss vax135 (Bell Labs)
(UCB) : ! ! ! ! !
ucbvax--++----------+--+--+-----+--+------+--------+
: @ ! ! ! (Silicon Valley)
ucbarpa @ (UCSD) sdcsvax ! menlo70--hao
: @ sdcattb-----+ ! ! !
ucbonyx @ +-----ucsfcgl sytek sri-unix
@ phonlab-----+
cca-unix sdcarl

From [email protected] Wed Oct 17 14:20 PDT 1990
To: [email protected]
Subject: More from the archives...
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 16:07:49 EST
From: Gene Spafford <[email protected]>
Status: RO
X-Status:
X-Keywords:
X-UID: 4

>From ulysses!smb Mon Oct 26 17:20:45 1987
From: ulysses!smb
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 87 15:42:21 EST
To: cbosgd!mark, [email protected]
Subject: early netnews

>From moss!rutgers!mcnc!rti!trt Mon Oct 26 15:39:01 1987
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 87 13:52:51 EST
>From: Thomas Truscott <rutgers!mcnc!rti!trt>
To: cbpavo!mark, moss!ulysses!smb
Subject: Early Usenet info

Cyrus Rahman, Duke physics grad student,
recently sent me some early Usenet data
on the disks of the old Duke CS PDP 11/70.
(Physics dept. -- where old computers go to die.)

I am including two interesting files.
The first describes the 'duke' site on Mar 11 1981,
the other is a collection of interesting early net articles.
Amongst the articles is the announcement of decvax.
One interesting thing about those articles is their brevity--
some are only two lines long.
Of course, this was probably a sample of only
the most interesting/useful articles.

Also on the tape was a Usenet Invitation paper,
not the original but fairly old (Mar 1981) .
You have probably seen this excerpt, but in case you haven't:
QUESTIONS ANSWERED
IP 1.
Isn't this expensive?
br
Not at all.
Night time phone costs are about $0.50/3 minutes,
in which time uucp can transfer about 3000 bytes of data (300 baud).
Daily polling then costs $15/Month, which is half what Duke pays
just for an office phone.
IP 2.
Can Duke really handle all the phone calls?
br
Sure. We have two call-out lines: at five minutes/call,
we can handle 24 calls/hour.
Other systems can also perform the call-out function.
Remember this when reading the decvax article.

DUKE.INFO
>From swd Wed Mar 11 12:30:45 1981 remote from duke
Here is the current state of the duke system.
contact: Steve Danial (swd), 919-684-3048
CPS Dept, Duke University, Durham, NC 27706
path: we reach ucbvax both through decvax and mhtsa
news: 147 local users of which 24 subscribe to NET news
about: We are a research machine for the Computer Science
Department. Current research includes natural language
processing, VLSI design, and operating systems simulation.
calling:
a) Anyone can call us.
We give systems individual logins for accounting,
so we don't publish a uucp name and password.
Interested nodes should contact swd.
b) Typically we will call other sites if they reimburse us
for the phone charges. This is cleared through swd.
uucp connections:
Local nodes:
phs - 11/44 and 11/60
cleps - 11/23
duke34 - 11/34
BTL nodes:
research, vax135, epsvax, topes, chico, mhtsa
Universities:
unc - U of North Carolina
uok - U of Oklahoma
reed - Reed College
Others:
nybca - Ny Blood Center
decvax - DEC

news.articles
>From jte Sat Apr 26 22:02:50 1980
at-bugs : NET.general
"at" cannot schedule execution on March 1 during leap years.
Fix: />59/s//>=59/

"at" cannot schedule an event during the following year
if requested by month and date.
Fix: Unknown

If the shell script produced by "at" includes the assignment
of exported variables with special characters (e.g. $IFS)
the script can fail.
Fix: A fairly good fix is
/fprintf(file, "%s.n", .ep++);/c
++ix;
fprintf(file, "%.*s'%s'\n", ix-*ep, *ep, ix);
*ep++;
.
A better fix would scan *ep to take care of single
qoute marks in a shell variable.

>From jte Mon Apr 28 23:16:57 1980
ac-bugs : NET.general
"ac" as distributed with V7 has several problems.
1) General terminal names are not supported. All terminals
except the console must be named "ttynn". This causes
serious accounting problems as logins on all other terminals
are mapped into the console.
2) Ac looks for "}" to indicate a new date instead of the
correct "{".
3) "Midnight" (-d option) is not always computed correctly.
4) Diagnostic messages are incomplete.

Duke has rewritten ac and fixed these problems.
The new version is available from "duke!~uucp/duke/cmd/ac.c".

>From swd Sun May 4 20:47:16 1980
look bugs : NET.general
look(1) expects /usr/dict/words to be sorted with -d and -f
options. As distributed (on version 7) the wordlist is
not correctly sorted. As a result, "look ba" yields nothing.
Fix: sort -d -f /usr/dict/words -o /usr/dict/words

>From research!dmr Tue May 13 03:27:25 1980
Floating-point bug in V7 Unix: NET.general
J. W. Stevenson of Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam has
discovered and diagnosed a most interesting bug in
V7 Unix. The problem is that the floating-point registers and
status are sometimes not saved across memory expansion via
sbreak() or stack growth or (less importantly) forks.
The problem only occurs when a swap is needed to
accomplish the expansion.

What happens is that the swap output IO is begun,
and then the registers are saved when the process
calls swtch() from sleep().
It is possible for the image to be written out before
the saving of the registers.

For reasons I do not fully understand situations can
occur in which the bug manifests itself consistently.
It seems to me that the register-saving should be finished
within a few hundred microseconds at most after initiation of IO
while the actual transfer (with ordinary moving-head disks)
will not begin for several milliseconds at least.
Nevertheless we have demonstrated the bug quite consistently;
by the usual sort of coincidence,
one of our machines began showing floating-point problems
the very same week that Stevenson's letter arrived.
(If the controller prefetches a significant amount of
data or if the disk is very fast then the consistency is not
surprising.)

At any rate, as suggested by Stevenson, the problem can be
fixed by adding the following code

if (u.u_fpsaved == 0) {
savfp(&u.u_fps);
u.u_fpsaved = 1;
}

to the following places in sys/slp.c:

before original line 507, "a2 = malloc(coremap, n);", in newproc();

and, after original line 564, "if(a2 == NULL) {", in expand().

>From vax135!ucbvax!mark Tue May 27 23:39:00 1980
uux bug : NET.v7bugs
A bug in uux prevents the - option from working with binary files.
To fix it, in uux.c, search for "fputs". (It's in an if (pipein) {.)
replace the fgets/fputs loop by
while ((c = getc(stdin)) != EOF)
putc(c, fpd);
and declare c somewhere to be an int. (I put the line
register int c;
right after the if (pipein).)

Fixing this bug will allow the new uusend program, which will be released
shortly, to work, allowing the transfer of binary files across indirect
uucp links.

>From unc!smb Thu May 29 19:44:57 1980
at bug : NET.general
The 'at' command insists on creating the spool file in mode 644, regardless
of your umask setting. Thus one is unable to create confidential requests.

>From swd Thu Jun 26 10:58:16 1980
uucp bug : NET.general
In distributed v7 uucp, if the USERFILE grows
to over 15 lines, uucico will die.
Fix: in chkpth.c chg line 14 from
struct userpath Upt[15];
to
struct userpath Upt[MAXUSERS];
As distributed, MAXUSERS is 20. Chkpth will check
and complain if USERFILE has more lines than MAXUSERS.

>From swd Thu Jul 10 10:42:51 1980
mkconf bug : NET.v7bugs
Some time ago a bug was reported in scanf relating to
scanning the format string "%d%c". (This bug is fixed
in the duke version of stdio.)
It seems that mkconf.c REQUIRES this bug in order to work.
Thus we suggest the following fix to mkconf.c:

diff mkconf.c.good mkconf.c.original
107c107
< " trap; br7+10. / 11/70 parity\n",
> " trap; br7+7. / 11/70 parity\n",
739,740d738
< if (n == 0)
< n = sscanf(line, "%s%s%ld", keyw, dev, &num);

>From sid!cf Thu Jul 10 22:33:51 1980
Unix alive on P-E 3240: NET.general
Wollongong Unix has just been installed on a Perkin Elmer 3240
at the University of Melbourne. It is alive and well running
two users. Those tired of VAX delivery times or Unibus Adapter
troubles can take heart.

More info later.

>From vax135!ucbvax!cory:optvax:horton Fri Jul 11 01:11:04 1980
ucbopt lives : NET.general
The optvax at UCB, on the Berknet, has been added to the news network.
This vax is a private vax with a few research projects going on on it.
It is connected off the ucbcory machine, corresponding to the
physical configuration of the Berknet.
Mark Horton

>From trt Wed Aug 13 09:48:33 1980
col : NET.v7bugs
The buffer-flush bug in col(1) that was mentioned in previous news
is due to using an automatic (local) variable for buffering stdout:
char fbuff[BUFSIZ];
should be changed to
static char fbuff[BUFSIZ];
(exit() also works since main() will not return before flushing.)
Col(1) is just one of several V7 programs with this flaw.

In the Duke version of stdio one can bypass the problem with
setbuf(stdout, SYSBUF);
where SYSBUF is a flag indicating buffering is desired.

>From vax135!ucbvax!cory:optvax:jimbo Mon Sep 29 20:40:00 1980
Spice & Splice mail aliases: NET.general
We are creating mail aliases for distribution of occasional messages of
interest and reporting of bugs for both the Spice and Splice circuit
simulation programs. This is not really for user consulting but to
make it easier to report bugs or find out what has been fixed already.
Interested parties who would like to put a name on one or both should
send a note to:

esvax.spice@berkeley (over ARPA-Net)
ucbopt!spice (over "uucp")
or
esvax.splice@berkeley (over ARPA-Net)
ucbopt!splice (over "uucp")

These aliases should be used for all incoming messages.

Jim

>From decvax!shannon Tue Nov 11 17:26:58 1980
DEC on Usenet : NET.general

DEC now has a Unix system on the Usenet uucp network.
Anyone with questions about or problems with DEC hardware
and it's relationship (interaction) with Unix, feel free
to contact us. We are members of the Telecommunications
Industry Group (TIG or Telco) of DEC and are actively
involved with Unix on current and new DEC hardware.

Currently, we are routing all Usenet traffic through duke.
If necessary or desirable, we could poll other systems as
well. For now, mail duke!decvax!person. Our network
names, etc. are below, feel free to contact us.

decvax!shannon - Bill Shannon (formerly of Case Western Reserve Univ.)
decvax!aps - Armando Stettner

From [email protected] Thu Oct 18 08:43 PDT 1990
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Usenet backbone
Date: 18 Oct 90 11:05:51 EDT (Thu)
From: [email protected] (Mark Horton)
Status: RO
X-Status:
X-Keywords:
X-UID: 5

> There were two "backbones" -- the physical backbone, and the
> "political" backbone. Mark was indeed the ancestor of the physical
> backbone, and I was the originator of the "political" (i.e.,
> decision-making) backbone. I guess my earlier mail didn't make that
> distinction clear.

This is news to me. At some point I handed off the backbone to Spaf
to keep an official list and ceased to worry about it myself. I don't
think there were ever two separate backbones. (Of course, the proposals
I made for a jawbone and funnybone notwithstanding.)

Mark

From [email protected] Thu Oct 18 10:50 PDT 1990
To: [email protected] (Mark Horton)
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Usenet backbone
<[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 12:43:49 EST
From: Gene Spafford <[email protected]>
Status: RO
X-Status:
X-Keywords:
X-UID: 6

The two backbones were the same, after a while, but I was the one who
started using the the "backbone" as a group to talk about naming,
directions, etc.

I guess I'm not explaining this very well....or maybe our
recollections are really different....

--spaf

From [email protected] Thu Oct 18 12:48 PDT 1990
Posted-Date: Thu, 18 Oct 1990 14:14:05 CDT
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 1990 14:14:05 CDT
From: Werner Uhrig <[email protected]>
To: Gene Spafford <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected] (Mark Horton), [email protected]
Mailer: MM v0.88
Subject: Re: Usenet backbone
Status: RO
X-Status:
X-Keywords:
X-UID: 7

> I don't think there were ever two separate backbones.

Gene did not say "2 separate" ... I guess what it all means is
that wereas you were "physical" (had a spine? banged your head
against the wall? :-) Gene turned it into a political exercise
(no backbone?)... thus 2 "kind of" backbones existed, one after
the other ... today? bone-meal ....

:-)

From [email protected] Sat Oct 20 21:03 PDT 1990
From: [email protected]
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 90 23:55:51 EDT
To: Usenet history list <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Usenet History
Status: RO
X-Status:
X-Keywords:
X-UID: 8

Bruce Jones suggested I might want to join this, and pointed me at the
list archives. Herewith some brief comments on random points...

> (BT) Net goes international (Canada) (Spencer, Templeton)

Actually, if we are being picky, the first (I think) international Usenet
site was a machine whose name I can't even remember: the Unix system that
Ron Gomes ran at BNR Ottawa. The reason you've never heard of it is that
I don't think anything was ever posted from it; it was a read-only system
for all practical purposes. It faded and died later, when Ron left BNR.
Utzoo was second by a couple of months. I can date that quite precisely
if people are interested: I've still got our archive tapes.

> idea originally at our "backbone" meeting at the Atlanta Usenix.
> (Present were Horton, Pleasant, Adams, Auton, Heiby, Fair, Woods,
> Beals, Spencer?, Jackson (Curtis), and me...

Yup, I was there, although I don't think I said much.

> Here is some old mail about renaming the mod groups to mainstream.

Incidentally, a major reason offered at the time for merging the "mod"
and mainstream name spaces was that it would make it easier for other
groups to "go moderated", something that was expected to be frequent.
I was against the merger and predicted that "going moderated" would
essentially never happen. I think I can claim victory on this one.

> ... Talk was the only top-level domain
> added specifically to allow admins to not carry groups -- the pariah groups.
> This was done (if I remember correctly) because it was a lot easier than
> simply trying to make them go away.

An interesting side note on this is that almost everyone agreed that
talk.suicide -- whatever it was called in its previous life -- was dumb
and should go away during the renaming... but it was known to be the
plaything of people who were considered dangerous if hassled, so leaving
it in was the better part of valor.

> ...to do this on a Friday night before leaving for San Francisco
> Usenix 2 days later, so I didn't even know I had all that mail until
> I'd been gone a week.

Actually, this is a good example of Natalie's Law, which Ron N. enunciated
for us in Atlanta when we were scheduling the Great Renaming: "never set
major cutover dates on or near major holidays". You want to make big
changes when everybody's at work, ready to deal with the consequences.
So the original schedule, which proposed change days on July 1 (Canadian
holiday, and too close to the US holiday) and Sept 1 (right in the middle
of the World Science Fiction Convention) was delayed two weeks.

> Yes - I remember Armando's announcement of $250k/yr but can't recall
> which conference it was...

San Diego, 1983. Here's what my old notes say about it:

Speaking of Usenet bills, \fIdecvax\fR's phone bill last year
was $250\|000!
They average 13 hours a day of long-distance calls.
The main problem was characterized as ``Armando is too soft-hearted
about letting new sites connect...''.

I can't complain too much, since we were among said sites... initially
with manual dialing at 300 baud! These soft youngsters :-) have no
concept of the joy with which we greeted our first 1200-baud modem --
it had an **AUTODIALER**. By common consent, getting it installed and
working took priority over everything else...

Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
[email protected] utzoo!henry

From [email protected] Sun Oct 21 19:54 PDT 1990
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Usenet History
Date: 21 Oct 90 22:35:13 EDT (Sun)
From: [email protected] (Mark Horton)
Status: RO
X-Status:
X-Keywords:
X-UID: 9

> > (BT) Net goes international (Canada) (Spencer, Templeton)

> Actually, if we are being picky, the first (I think) international Usenet
> site was a machine whose name I can't even remember: the Unix system that

I can't remember this either. utzoo appears on the 1/1/82 map along with
watmath and both look well established, but they aren't on the 6/81 map.

By the way, the 7/82 map does indeed show the backbone (with heavy lines),
I just missed it before.

It's certainly possible that Spaf and I had different ideas about what was
going on with the backbone. Perhaps he felt he was creating something
else from scratch. I remember telling people who asked what the
responsibilities of a backbone host were, and I gave them the usual set
about 2-3 links to other backbone sites (if possible), responsive SA,
latest software, able to fund the link, etc. Then I remember Spaf adding
people to the list who met these criterea, and feeling surprised. Perhaps
he considered it a separate backbone, but I thought it was the same one.
In any case, I didn't see any problem and I considered the backbone to
be in his hands from then on.

Mark

From [email protected] Sun Oct 21 22:07 PDT 1990
From: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 90 01:01:32 EDT
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Usenet History
Status: RO
X-Status:
X-Keywords:
X-UID: 10

> ... utzoo appears on the 1/1/82 map along with
> watmath and both look well established, but they aren't on the 6/81 map.

Look more closely: utzoo is on the 1 June 1981 map. (Copy on request.)
My records say we joined the net on 13 May 1981. I think that is the date
of our new-site posting, although I'd have to dig in the archive tapes
to be sure of that. The oldest article I have handy -- my report on the
V7 ldiv/lrem bug -- is dated 21 May.

I'm certainly willing to have utzoo considered the first international
site; just thought I'd mention that the BNR site has a weak claim on
the title. Its feed, like our initial one, was from duke. If anyone
cares, I can probably dig up date and site name. Given that it never
announced itself and never posted anything, one could argue about whether
it really counts.

Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
[email protected] utzoo!henry

From [email protected] Mon Oct 22 06:40 PDT 1990
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Usenet History
Date: 22 Oct 90 09:28:34 EDT (Mon)
From: [email protected] (Mark Horton)
Status: RO
X-Status:
X-Keywords:
X-UID: 11

> > ... utzoo appears on the 1/1/82 map along with
> > watmath and both look well established, but they aren't on the 6/81 map.
>
> Look more closely: utzoo is on the 1 June 1981 map. (Copy on request.)

So it is - connected to duke, not decvax as I'd originally thought.
My mistake.

Mark