From tsw@3do.com Sat Sep 30 10:44:41 CDT 1995 Article: 117470 of alt.folklore.computers Xref: uchinews alt.folklore.computers:117470 Path: uchinews!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news.uoregon.edu!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.ultranet.com!news.sprintlink.net!in2.uu.net!news.3do.com!cypher.3do.com!user From: tsw@3do.com (Tom Watson) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Illiac II & 7094 music Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 17:20:10 -0700 Organization: The 3DO Corporation Lines: 19 Distribution: na Message-ID: References: <44blce$dco@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <44c0pd$55s@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: cypher.3do.com Status: R In article <44c0pd$55s@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>, jebright@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (James R Ebright) wrote: > > Another trivia/folklore question -- was CTSS running on the 7094 at MIT > the first machine to support e-mail? (Convention had a directory > into which you placed text files named with the name of the person who should > read the mail. Crude by today's standards, but e-mail in a sense.) > I don't know about CTSS email, but Tymshare's SDS 940's had e-mail back in the mid 60's. The commands really moved from one user to another. The length of mail was limited, but you could reference a publically readable file. Interesting times... -- Tom Watson tsw@3do.com (Home: tsw@johana.com) From tom_van_vleck@taligent.com Sat Sep 30 10:45:20 CDT 1995 Article: 117497 of alt.folklore.computers Xref: uchinews alt.folklore.computers:117497 Path: uchinews!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!sdd.hp.com!swrinde!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!btnet!uunet!in1.uu.net!taligent!kip-2.taligent.com!user From: tom_van_vleck@taligent.com (Tom Van Vleck) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Electronic mail was: Illiac II & 7094 music Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 22:19:21 -0700 Organization: Multicians Lines: 22 Distribution: na Message-ID: References: <44blce$dco@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <44c0pd$55s@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: kip-2.taligent.com Status: R I implemented Louis Pouzin's suggestion for a MAIL command for CTSS in 1965. It did exactly what Tom Watson says 940 mail used to do; the MAIL command was a "privileged" command that could do things normal users couldn't. It called ATTACH. to switch to the target user's file directory and opened a file called MAIL BOX. I went to a lot of trouble to insert new mail at the top of the file, so that the most recent message was first. Regretted this after some experience, and when I wrote the initial unsecure Multics mail command, I just appended new messages to the bottom. The CTSS MAIL command took pairs of arguments, the problem and programmer numbers of the recpients: MAIL M1416 2962 would start sending a message to me. (I forget the rest of the args.) You couldn't send mail to * * unless your programmer number was canned into the program; daemons could send to a file called URGENT MAIL; and when you logged in, the system would print YOU HAVE MAIL BOX (or URGENT MAIL, or a few other fixed names), if these files were nonzero length. Jim Ebright's recollection is correct; before that, on the old CTSS file system, people used to pass mail to each other by creating files and putting them in "common file" directories, e.g. M1416 CMFL03, using file names like TO JOHN. As I mentioned yesterday, http://www.best.com/~thvv/7094.html has more on CTSS and the 7094. From X Thu May 6 18:50:41 CDT 1993 Article: 39618 of alt.folklore.computers Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Path: uchinews!linac!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!ames!taligent!tom-vanvleck.taligent.com!user From: tom_van_vleck@taligent.com (Tom Van Vleck) Subject: First email message Message-ID: Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers Sender: usenet@taligent.com (More Bytes Than You Can Read) Organization: Taligent, Inc. Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 21:10:04 GMT Lines: 15 Status: R Wilson Alfonso's FAQ is inconclusive on the first email message. He says "probably 1963 or 1964." Noel Morris and I wrote the CTSS command MAIL about 1965. This program allowed users of the MIT Compatible Time-Sharing System to send messages to each other; messages were stored in a file called MAIL BOX in the user's directory. There were methods for sending messages between active terminals before that, but they were not store-and-forward. I don't claim this was a first... it's just a current lower bound. If you know of an earlier email program, post details. tom_van_vleck@taligent.com From uchinews!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!nigel.msen.com!math.fu-berlin.de!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!uknf Thu Nov 11 15:51:01 CST 1993 Article: 52062 of alt.folklore.computers Xref: uchinews alt.irc.recovery:525 alt.folklore.computers:52062 Path: uchinews!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!nigel.msen.com!math.fu-berlin.de!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!uknf From: uknf@rzstud1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Olaf Titz) Newsgroups: alt.irc.recovery,alt.folklore.computers Subject: [alt.dreams] Re: Tetris Nightmares Followup-To: alt.irc.recovery Date: 11 Nov 1993 17:43:06 GMT Organization: Fachschaft math/inf, Uni Karlsruhe, FRG Lines: 104 Message-ID: <2bttja$aq3@nz12.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> References: <1993Nov8.020305.21366@csus.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: rzstud1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Keywords: interface dreams, addiction, nostalgia Status: R Just picked this up from the net. Looks like IRC addiction isn't new at all :-) Olaf ---start forwarded message--- Newsgroups: alt.fan.mike-jittlov,alt.dreams From: Gharlane of Eddore In <2bih39$8mc@gap.cco.caltech.edu> jittlov@gumby.cs.caltech.edu (Mike Jittlov) writes: > >Same thing happened to me. Up until Tetris, the only nightmares >I'd ever had were forgetting my school locker combination, or where >I parked the dream car. But after my "friend"* gave me the Gift of >Tetris and I surpassed 27,000, I had falling-block dreams for a >night and a half. Most boring dreams in my life. (which is really >pathetic, if I usually dream of hallways and parking lots...) > >>What I would like 2 know is, whether there is any other game that >>creates a similar effect. Anyone, who knows something about it-- > >Please post it here, and warn us all. > >-- Mike >(* You know who you are.) (And i'm still waiting for the > return of my Monkey Island II, Talin...;) Mike: In the early 1970's, a sharp programmer named Mike Van Essen wrote a communication program for the CYBER mainframes. This program, called $TALK, was a multi-port "intercom" program, much like the later, somewhat imitative, "CB Simulator" on a certain expen$ive time$haring network. Unlike modern "chat" or "TALK" programs, MUDs, MOOs, IRCs, or ICBs, it had a tremendously flexible user interface that allowed all sorts of configuration commands, and alteration of your personal access interface. It was fast, clean, spartan, and tremendously handy. The default command character was "$" ..... and the most common command was $FLASH,USER or $FL,# (where # was the number of the port the user was on.) ... the command to send a private message. Simply typing in a line, with no command, sent it to all who were logged in. (At least, depending on your individual flag settings; it was possible to create private groups for separate conversations, akin to the private topics on a modern IRC...) When a hot-shot COMPASS ("COMPASS" was the assembly language used by the CYBER mainframes) programmer named Alan Stepakoff rewrote Van Essen's program with added features (and decreased system impact, so it could be left running in the background without slowing down the computer TOO much ) and installed it on the California State University's Central Cyber, (around 1975-76) it became a Virtual Meeting Place for a couple of generations of topnotch hackers and experimenters; the creative cream of the student crop effectively lived on the program. Other folks, like me, also gravitated there, and the long-term degradation of the program's clientele began, since more and more non-programmer, non-techie, non-creative types began to hang out on it. The program was eventually officially phased out, and replaced by a batch of similar "pirate" programs run by clever kids who invented ways to do end-runs around the operating system's constraints and limitations. But during its heyday, the $TALK addicts were unable to function without at least one terminal nearby hooked into the party line, to ask or give help on any subject that arose. Which leads us inevitably to the final point: Yes. ALL of us $TALK addicts tended to dream in $TALK command syntax. $TALK even contained an $ALARM,