On 09/28/2016 03:31 AM, mark lewis -> rick christian wrote:
 ml> yeah, we had SIO with telnet and vmodem protocols before win95 came
 ml> out... likely you just don't remember or didn't know about the vmodem
 ml> protocol at that time :)

If it wasn't in DOS at the time.. I was pretty good at sticking my head in
the sand and ignoring it..

I only used wfwg for 2 reasons

1) My ICLID program forced it... there really was no good ICLID program for
DOS which would forward to a pager

2) LAN, I used 10Base2 longer than probably any one on the planet! :)

So I was dragged kicking and screaming to it.. but spent most of the time
in a DOS console.


 ml> yep, that explains it :lol: i went from DOS/DESQview to OS/2 and never
 ml> looked back at anything else for that system... yeah, i ran the various
 ml> winwhatevers but not for mission critical stuff...

DOS -> wfwg -> 98 -> xp -> Linux

Linux was running along side things for a long time as I was used to it
from my VAX, VMS, and other main frame stuff, and we had a XENIX (yeah I
know where it came from! :( ) at work for stuff...

I was really more preoccupied with uucp and FTN stuff to look too far outside it..

And I never had OS2 capable hardware.

 ml> it really doesn't matter since you can forward your WAN side port 23 to
 ml> any other port internally so set your BBS up on 2023 for instance and
 ml> forward port 23 to that... the BBS doesn't have to know that it isn't
 ml> talking to port 23 all the way...

Yeah, it can... but I've run across a few places of wifi and VPN's that
hork up non standard ports...

I can VPN into my own server to eliminate things most times...


 ml> sadly that's because developers code and don't always remember the
 ml> individual steps or additional requirements...

That, and theres a lot of stuff that they don't notate... in ONE, and ONLY
ONE instance have I seen instructions that work... that is to compile
Darkice on Raspian, since I need MP3 support and Debians DFSG removes it!
:( urrrrgghhh...

About the only other thing I've seen work as well is the VMWare Player
installer which if you let them catch up to the release of *Buntu &
Kernel, you just chmod +x the installer, sudo sh installit.sh and it
compiles the kernel stuff it needs...

If you get too bleeding edge with it.. prepare for the pain! :) ;)


 ml> screw that shite :lol:

I was more rogue like that.. I learned my lesson the HARD WAY by screwing
up some stuff!  No more!

Nope... Read, read, read, compare notes... ok... read, read... put it in a
VM.. success?? OK... COPIOUS AND RUTHLESS NOTES via TEE and by hand....

That lead to my VM Guru'ness! :)

 ml> agree there... for me, that goes for most anything, though... not just
 ml> DEB...

When I can repeat my 99.9% success rate with DEBS and/or apt-get via
regular repos' or PPA's... then I will change my opinion of RPM... and it
is unlikely that will ever, EVER happen!

Same package of stuff for CentOS.. FAIL, FAIL, FAIL.. I think the first
time I did it on my own it took 2-3 hours over 2 days to find the various
EXACT versions of other RPM's it needed to get it to compile/install from
that RPM

versus

sudo apt-get install mystuff

Setup up, and moved on in less than 30 minutes.

When its my own time it even still not going to devote that kind to that
kind of hunt... When its company time.. well then... I ain't paying for
that kind of nonsense.

 ml> sometimes it is too much busy work, too...

It is/can be... but SAFETY is a key portion of my job.  Myself and my team
have become quite good at turning up VM's playing with them, getting what
we need to install setup and go...

I always take a base image for each ESR release that is the standard image for

Server
Desktop
LTSP Server
Thin clients

Outside my direct department they use nothing by LTSP thin setups... The
little cubites just point and clickey on things.. they can't really screw
it up, too much! :) ;)

When the distro doesn't include basic things like nslookup in the ISO's
something is wrong... We/I have some other personal things....

Like the pile of dead ones I have to try to:

purge systemd
install upstart
install lightdm or KDM to get an XDMCP capable DM...

All die! 16.04 just won't revert.. or well I should say they revert back to
upstart, but with out an XDMCP capable DM,... useless. so 16.04 is
banned... and Devuan well is fouled due to DFSG.. and it really is not got
a lot of steam to get things going.. last I looked it didn't have anything
to even install.. but the fact I would need to do huge amounts of compiling
of stuff... no thanks...I am not sure what my plan is yet for post 2019...
but things look bleak. systemd, mir/wayland... all solutions to problems
which, well don't exist. And BREAK in MAJOR WAYS things I do, daily, like
XDMCP!

 ml> i was thinking that DOXBOX was the virtual machine and you could use
 ml> your own DOS on it...

DOSBox sort of takes it all on... there is some HOWTO's about putting DRDOS
etc in...the docu sucks for this, and it seems aimed more at a group,
gamers, which is another area I am not inline with, and alot of emphasis on
putting junky software into things. :) ;)

DOSemu needs installs of full DOSetc..

 ml> i've never heard of TLB...

You probably had to be big into shareware and the various chipsets out
there..TLB took advantage of advanced features that alot of the other
memory managers didn't. Based on going the OS2 route I doubt there was a
need for some of the shenanigans of TLB etc.. Don't know, never looked at
OS2 as more than, oh great, another GUI thingy...

Since I've built all my own boxes since.. well a long time... I was into
all the various tricks that some MB's incorporated to get more RAM for DOS.

I also got HUGE PILES of disks each month with shareware on them, plus I
was connected to various FDN's to get stuff, and DL'd tons of stuff too.

 ml> i am/was a frontdoor beta tester so i had access to additional
 ml> capabilities that were not available to the mainstream users ;)

So??? I take it this never made it into a "release" version that
us mere mortals saw? Ie: V2.25SL or something???

If not I guess I won't bother playing with it...if it did, which one?

That way I grab the right one to play with... or stop if that feature never
made it to the public.

 ml> not really... just a matter of creating a slightly older format of
 ml> nodelist and moving the domain from the INA flag or the system name
 ml> field to the phone field and prefixing it with 000- BUT only doing this

I figure I can use Python or PHP to do the conversions.. I deal with those daily.

 ml> the script that creates the distributed binkd.txt is written in perl...

Yeah.. never was into PERL...


 ml> yeah, we've split "PVT" and "-Unpublished-"
from each other... one does
 ml> not require the other these days... this because some could not agree
 ml> that the "phone number field" is really a "contact
field" and allow IP
 ml> numbers and/or domains to be listed there... frontdoor, if it had been
 ml> able to remain in development would have helped to force that option and


Yeah I figured that that whole thing was a mess from the various iterations
it appears things went through.


 rc>> That clue probably saved me from dropping the experiment when it
 rc>> barfed on the node list...

 ml> TBH, i really don't even need to be running FD any more... very rarely
 ml> do i get any mailer connections over telnet... tobias (from fastecho)
 ml> still polls me on telnet but he's using some winwhatever mailer instead

I have a couple of reasons for trying this...

1) Pet project
2) Nostalgia
3) Another idea for something, I don't want to blurt out just yet..

1 & 2 really more for my own fun... So I am amused by simple things! :) ;)

I honestly would be quite amused to just see FD run under Linux! I know its
not really natively running, but I can live with the DOSbox shim whereas I
can't the mono virus and its cousin WINE. BLECH! PWETTTW!

To be honest I really would have thought that this Fido stuff would have
been more ported to Linux to begin with since its more like "DOS"
but with out some of the hassles. Yes it might have few different hassles
say X if you want GUI. And binaries can be distributed if you just package
up things in DEB, and you don't have to give the source out... Yeah the
whiner wieners will whine, but I ignore them... I could care less about the
source! 95% of the users could care less. They are like me install it get
things done, move on in life!

 rc>> And honestly does EVERYTHING on the planet need an IP???? ;)

 ml> that's my thing, too... it is no one's business how many machines i have
 ml> on my network and you're surely not going to charge me for each one that
 ml> uses the internet... we won't even mention that 640k is enough for
 ml> anyone and the number of available IPs is no more or less shortsighted
 ml> than IPv4 is/was... available IPv6 numbers will run out one day...

My gripe with IP6 is the total stupid, and STUPID interface!


HEX v. 127.0.0.1  so we need more.. come up with IPvX and just add more
like 127.0.0.0.0.1 or something... or 0.0.0.127.0.0.1 . Then add in all the
nonsesne on how IPv6 can be shrunk for repeating stuff... OH PUHLEASE! That
is the kind of crap that happens when engineers are left unsupervised and
some one who doesn't understand it ratifies it via rubber stamp as a
"standard."

Then I like all the schmucks who are just going to start running around
connecting any and everything to the net because it has v6 and they think
it makes them more secure v. a proper firewall.... and the railing against
NAT.. Meh... I don't see the big deal.. I've yet to see a situation where
being directly on the internet behind a firewall versus NAT really made
that big a difference except when you want tons of apache servers running
on port 80...Myabe I jusst have not found the right prickly
hardware/software... but I really don't want to be hosting httpd servers
locally for my stuff that the public is traversing into my network.. I'd
rather they be out there in a DC where there is no connection to my network
in a way they could access things they don't need... Backups yeah.. I can
spin up some in an emergency... but the routine stuff is in DC's elsewhere.

Much like being dragged into windumber, I will go kicking and screaming
into IPv6 only when forced... I just don't see the need... The world has
not come to an end.. servers come online all the time with IP4 without a
big deal...