Anyone here (on news.eternal-september.org)?

[Lars Poulsen]

From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did everyone
go on
vacation?

[Andy Burns]

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did
everyone go on vacation?

There were no messages from 28th May to 3rd June inclusive (as seen on
individual.net)

[Mike Spencer]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did
everyone go on vacation?

There were no messages from 28th May to 3rd June inclusive (as seen on
individual.net)

And FWIW I'm still here.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Mike Spencer

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did
everyone go on vacation?

There were no messages from 28th May to 3rd June inclusive (as seen on
individual.net)

And FWIW I'm still here.

Me too. Keep banging the rocks together, guys.

[Sarr Blumson]

Me, too.
Sarr Blumson

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Thu, 06 Jun 2024 22:03:23 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Mike Spencer

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did
everyone go on vacation?

There were no messages from 28th May to 3rd June inclusive (as seen on
individual.net)

And FWIW I'm still here.

Me too. Keep banging the rocks together, guys.

Careful now, not those warm ones.

[Nuno Silva]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Thu, 06 Jun 2024 22:03:23 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Mike Spencer

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did
everyone go on vacation?

There were no messages from 28th May to 3rd June inclusive (as seen on
individual.net)

From a quick glance, the gap from my point of view (also motzarella/E-S)
appears to be 24th-3rd, but I didn't check thoroughly; It's possible the
client's threading is hiding some posts.

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Mike Spencer
And FWIW I'm still here.

Me too. Keep banging the rocks together, guys.

Careful now, not those warm ones.

Those warm ones are for pouring water on top of, right?

[Andy Burns]

Post by Nuno Silva
From a quick glance, the gap from my point of view (also motzarella/E-S)
appears to be 24th-3rd, but I didn't check thoroughly; It's possible the
client's threading is hiding some posts.

There were a handful of contributions to the "Control Characters" thread

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Fri, 07 Jun 2024 09:50:03 +0100

Post by Nuno Silva

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Thu, 06 Jun 2024 22:03:23 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
Me too. Keep banging the rocks together, guys.

Careful now, not those warm ones.

Those warm ones are for pouring water on top of, right?

All things in moderation.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
All things in moderation.

“All”? Isn’t that taking moderation to extremes?

[maus]

Post by Mike Spencer

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did
everyone go on vacation?

There were no messages from 28th May to 3rd June inclusive (as seen on
individual.net)

And FWIW I'm still here.

and me

[songbird]

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did everyone
go on
vacation?

yes, i read this group when i see topics of interest but
i often have nothing to add.


songbird

[Peter Flass]

Post by songbird

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did everyone
go on
vacation?

yes, i read this group when i see topics of interest but
i often have nothing to add.

“Folklore” is getting to recent for me. Was the cutoff ten years? That’s
2014.

Post by songbird
songbird

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Fri, 7 Jun 2024 11:51:33 -0700

Post by Peter Flass
“Folklore” is getting to recent for me. Was the cutoff ten years? That’s
2014.

There was a time when it was anything before the PC. ISTR twenty
years being suggested some time back.

[songbird]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Fri, 7 Jun 2024 11:51:33 -0700

Post by Peter Flass
“Folklore” is getting to recent for me. Was the cutoff ten years? That’s
2014.

There was a time when it was anything before the PC. ISTR twenty
years being suggested some time back.

i was coding before there was an internet or PCs so
that is probably ancient enough, but on the whole i've
forgotten most of what i knew back then. :)


songbird

[Dan Espen]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by songbird

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did everyone
go on
vacation?

yes, i read this group when i see topics of interest but
i often have nothing to add.

“Folklore” is getting to recent for me. Was the cutoff ten years? That’s
2014.

I don't remember anyone mentioning a cutoff.
I was programming in the 1960s. Folklore for me goes back a lot further
than the PC.

[Mike Spencer]

Post by songbird

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did everyone
go on
vacation?

yes, i read this group when i see topics of interest but
i often have nothing to add.

“Folklore” is getting to recent for me. Was the cutoff ten years? That’s
2014.

Are you the Iron Spring PF? So, authentic folklore yourself. But
you're using UTF-8 apostrophe and double quotes. Too recent for me.

;-) Sorry, having a grump over having to unpunct email far more
troublesome than yr one-liner.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Mike Spencer

Post by Peter Flass

Post by songbird

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did everyone
go on
vacation?

yes, i read this group when i see topics of interest but
i often have nothing to add.

“Folklore” is getting to recent for me. Was the cutoff ten years? That’s
2014.

Are you the Iron Spring PF? So, authentic folklore yourself.

Thank you!

But

Post by Mike Spencer
you're using UTF-8 apostrophe and double quotes. Too recent for me.

iPad. Wikipedia doesn’t like them either.

Post by Mike Spencer
;-) Sorry, having a grump over having to unpunct email far more
troublesome than yr one-liner.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Mike Spencer

Post by Peter Flass

Post by songbird

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did everyone
go on
vacation?

yes, i read this group when i see topics of interest but
i often have nothing to add.

“Folklore” is getting to recent for me. Was the cutoff ten years? That’s
2014.

Are you the Iron Spring PF? So, authentic folklore yourself.

Thank you!
But

Post by Mike Spencer
you're using UTF-8 apostrophe and double quotes. Too recent for me.

iPad. Wikipedia doesn’t like them either.

Post by Mike Spencer
;-) Sorry, having a grump over having to unpunct email far more
troublesome than yr one-liner.

Just noticed that NewsTap let’s me change the encoding. Changed from UTF-8
to Latin-1. “it’s a test”

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Peter Flass
Just noticed that NewsTap let’s me change the encoding. Changed from
UTF-8 to Latin-1. “it’s a test”
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

[Mike Spencer]

But you're using UTF-8 apostrophe and double quotes. Too recent for me.

iPad. Wikipedia doesn’t like them either.

;-) Sorry, having a grump over having to unpunct email far more
troublesome than yr one-liner.

Just noticed that NewsTap let’s me change the
encoding. Changed from UTF-8 to Latin-1. “it’s a
test”

FWIW, the header still says Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
and |”| and |’| still there.


Odd thing: Gwgle returns URLs for Wikipedia pages with UTF chars in
the URL itself but Wikipedia reports that it has no such page.
Manually changing the offending char(s) to ASCII in the URL causes
Wikipedia to respond with that page.

Gwgle for "'the professional' film" returns:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%83%C2%A9on:_The_Professional

for which Wikipedia says they have no such page. But they respond to
this (manually edited to ASCII):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon:_The_Professional

with the expected movie review.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Mike Spencer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%83%C2%A9on:_The_Professional
for which Wikipedia says they have no such page.

That’s because that’s not UTF-8-encoded. This

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon%3A_The_Professional

is UTF-8-encoded. And that link works.

[Mike Spencer]

Post by Mike Spencer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%83%C2%A9on:_The_Professional
for which Wikipedia says they have no such page.

That's because that's not UTF-8-encoded. This
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon%3A_The_Professional
is UTF-8-encoded. And that link works.

I don't want to start a flame war but you're wrong there. %3A is just
plain URL hex encoding for an ASCII ':'. So yes, that URL works
because a literal ASCII ':' belongs there in the film's title.

I know almost nothing about UTF-8 and the whole charset encoding
morass, don't have at hand easy look-up to verify which encoding
"%C3%83%C2%A9" is from. But it's obviously some encoding for some
variant of 'e' in the name "Leon".

The curiosity is that Google grovels through the web for distinct
pages, encodes and returns to the user a non-working URL including
"%C3%83%C2%A9", apparently having translated that from the URL that
uses only 'e' and which works.

There is this: That replies from Google all begin:

https://www.google.com/url?

so that requesting a page by clicking on one of the returned links
sends your request *back* *first* to Google. Apparently, Google, having
encoded the URL incorrectly for whatever reason, re-converts it back
to the version of the URL that works correctly if you do, in fact
proxy your request back through Google.

As I regularly eschew sending page requests for items returned from
Google search back through the Google proxy, I never noticed before
that this happened and so occasionally end up manually editing such
URLs.


Sorry, this probably belongs on comp.misc or somewhere, not old enough
to be OnTopic. Except that I try to stick with ASCII which accurately
marks me as old enough to be folklore myself. :-)

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Mike Spencer
https://www.google.com/url?
so that requesting a page by clicking on one of the returned links sends
your request *back* *first* to Google. Apparently, Google, having
encoded the URL incorrectly for whatever reason, re-converts it back to
the version of the URL that works correctly if you do, in fact proxy
your request back through Google.
As I regularly eschew sending page requests for items returned from
Google search back through the Google proxy, I never noticed before that
this happened and so occasionally end up manually editing such URLs.

Ah, I see. Yes, I did the search and got the incorrectly-coded URL in the
Google search hit as you described. I didn’t try clicking it directly, to
see if that worked; I put it through a redirect-stripper first.

I thought at first it might have been some consequence of re-encoding
UTF-8 in ISO-8859-1 or Windows-1252 or something stupid like that. In
fact, it is re-encoding UTF-8 as further UTF-8, is what the something
stupid is that is like that. I just tried this in a Jupyter notebook:

b = "Léon".encode()

b, "".join(chr(c) for c in b).encode()

and got this output:

(b'L\xc3\xa9on', b'L\xc3\x83\xc2\xa9on')

You’ll see those hex values in the second item match those in the bad URL
exactly.

[Mike Spencer]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Mike Spencer
https://www.google.com/url?
so that requesting a page by clicking on one of the returned links sends
your request *back* *first* to Google. Apparently, Google, having
encoded the URL incorrectly for whatever reason, re-converts it back to
the version of the URL that works correctly if you do, in fact proxy
your request back through Google.
As I regularly eschew sending page requests for items returned from
Google search back through the Google proxy, I never noticed before that
this happened and so occasionally end up manually editing such URLs.

Ah, I see. Yes, I did the search and got the incorrectly-coded URL in the
Google search hit as you described. I didn't try clicking it directly, to
see if that worked; I put it through a redirect-stripper first.
I thought at first it might have been some consequence of re-encoding
UTF-8 in ISO-8859-1 or Windows-1252 or something stupid like that. In
fact, it is re-encoding UTF-8 as further UTF-8, is what the something
b = "Léon".encode()
b, "".join(chr(c) for c in b).encode()
(b'L\xc3\xa9on', b'L\xc3\x83\xc2\xa9on')
You'll see those hex values in the second item match those in the bad URL
exactly.

I do see.

I don't understand what you did, don't know the language (Python?) and
didn't know about Jupyter Notebooks. I don't even grok what
"re-encoding UTF-8 as further UTF-8" means exactly.

But thank you for taking the trouble to verify that the Google
weirdness is happening for others as I encounter it.

[Jan van den Broek]

Fri, 7 Jun 2024 11:51:33 -0700
Peter Flass <***@yahoo.com> schrieb:

[Schnipp]

???Folklore??? is getting to recent for me. Was the cutoff ten years? That???s
2014.

AFAIK twenty years.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Sat, 08 Jun 2024 10:10:06 CEST

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Fri, 7 Jun 2024 11:51:33 -0700
[Schnipp]

???Folklore??? is getting to recent for me. Was the cutoff ten years? That???s
2014.

AFAIK twenty years.

Also no PCs IIRC.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sat, 08 Jun 2024 10:10:06 CEST

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Fri, 7 Jun 2024 11:51:33 -0700
[Schnipp]

???Folklore??? is getting to recent for me. Was the cutoff ten years? That???s
2014.

AFAIK twenty years.

Also no PCs IIRC.

Perhaps, but that would eliminate those juicy Microsoft war stories.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Sat, 08 Jun 2024 18:49:39 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sat, 08 Jun 2024 10:10:06 CEST

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Fri, 7 Jun 2024 11:51:33 -0700
[Schnipp]

???Folklore??? is getting to recent for me. Was the cutoff ten years? That???s
2014.

AFAIK twenty years.

Also no PCs IIRC.

Perhaps, but that would eliminate those juicy Microsoft war stories.

Well yes, but I do recall the fate of anyone foolish enough to
trouble us with a question about messy-dos, they tended to learn quite a bit
about DOS/VSE.

[Lynn Wheeler]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Well yes, but I do recall the fate of anyone foolish enough to
trouble us with a question about messy-dos, they tended to learn quite a bit
about DOS/VSE.

... and before msdos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS
there was Seattle computer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Computer_Products
before Seattle computer, there was CP/M
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M
before developing CP/M, Kildall worked on IBM CP/67-CMS at npg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Postgraduate_School

Opel's obit ...
https://www.pcworld.com/article/243311/former_ibm_ceo_john_opel_dies.html

According to the New York Times, it was Opel who met with Bill Gates,
CEO of the then-small software firm Microsoft, to discuss the
possibility of using Microsoft PC-DOS OS for IBM's about-to-be-released
PC. Opel set up the meeting at the request of Gates' mother, Mary
Maxwell Gates. The two had both served on the National United Way's
executive committee.

... snip ...

CP-67
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP-67
CP/CMS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/CMS
History of CP/CMS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_CP/CMS
Cambridge Scientific Center
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Scientific_Center
Melinda's history
http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda#VMHist

Note GML
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Generalized_Markup_Language

was invented at the science center in 1969, a decade later it morphs
into ISO Standard SGML and after another decade morphs into HTML at
CERN. First webserver in the US was on Stanford SLACs VM370 (followon to
CP67):
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit

Account by one of the GML inventors "real" job (before inventing GML)
https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm

Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for the
project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my knowledge
of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the staffs of the
various scientific centers to make use of the CP-67-based Wide Area
Network that was centered in Cambridge.

... snip ...

CP67-based wide-area network, was done by another CSC member,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks

In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which paved
the way to the Internet as we know it today.

... snip ...

SJMerc article about Edson (he passed aug2020) and "IBM'S MISSED
OPPORTUNITY WITH THE INTERNET" (gone behind paywall but lives free at
wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed) references from
Ed's website
https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm

his CP67 wide-area network morphs into corporate internal network
... and the technology also used for the corporate sponsored
univ. BITNET:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Well yes, but I do recall the fate of anyone foolish enough to
trouble us with a question about messy-dos, they tended to learn quite a
bit about DOS/VSE.

IBM had no monopoly on OSes called “DOS”, you know ...

[jjm]

Post by Lawrence D'Oliveiro

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Well yes, but I do recall the fate of anyone foolish enough to
trouble us with a question about messy-dos, they tended to learn quite a
bit about DOS/VSE.

IBM had no monopoly on OSes called “DOS”, you know ...

In retro-computing, the MSX folk always get me confused with their
MSX-DOS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSX-DOS

In 1984, "a cross between MS-DOS v1.25 and CP/M-80 v2.2."

With no PC involved.

[Rich Alderson]

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did everyone
go on
vacation?

Joining the chorus, I'm here at least once a day every day. Just not a lot of
action recently.

[Matto Fransen]

Post by Lars Poulsen
From where I sit, there has been a very steep drop-off in activity
since 2024-05-23. Is it just me? Or is it the NNTP server? Did
everyone go on
vacation?

Still here :)

Best regards,

Matto

[Lynn Wheeler]

re: online discussions ... in Aug1976, TYMSHARE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare
provide their (VM370/CMS based) online computer conferencing to (IBM
mainframe user group) SHARE
https://www.share.org/
for free ... archives here
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare

I cut a deal with TYMSHARE to get monthly tape dump of all VMSHARE (and
later PCSHARE) files for putting up on internal network and systems
(biggest problem were lawyers concerned that internal employees would be
contaminated by exposure to unfiltered customer information). I was then
blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network in the
late 70s and early 80s ... which really took off spring of 1981 when I
distributed a trip report to see Jim Gray at Tandem; only about 300
directly participated but claims upwards of 25,000 were reading. We then
printed six copies of 300 pages and along with an executive summary and
summary of the summary, placed in TANDEM 3-ring binders sent to
corporate executive committee (folklore is that 5of6 wanted to fire
me). A related post on linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/john-boyd-ibm-wild-ducks-lynn-wheeler/
from when IBM Jargon was young
https://comlay.net/ibmjarg.pdf
and TANDEM memos was new:

Tandem Memos - n. Something constructive but hard to control; a fresh of
breath air (sic). That's another Tandem Memos. A phrase to worry middle
management. It refers to the computer-based conference (widely
distributed in 1981) in which many technical personnel expressed
dissatisfaction with the tools available to them at that time, and also
constructively criticized the way products were [are] developed. The
memos are required reading for anyone with a serious interest in quality
products. If you have not seen the memos, try reading the November 1981
Datamation summary.

... after leaving IBM in early 90s, became active on usenet and started
archiving posts ... i.e.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html

more recent (alt.folklore.computers) post about early programming in the 60s
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2019b.html#51