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Columbia University Ending the Kermit Project
An anonymous reader writes "Columbia University has announced that the Kermit Project will be ended in July 2011, after more than 30 years in existence. Open Kermit (C-Kermit) will remain available, but without any support or ongoing development. Kermit-95, which cannot be open-sourced, will remain available for license purchases but without support or maintenance."
Although I really only ever used kermit so i could download zmodem...
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
Did a lot of kermit scripting in my early years, mainly using it to script uploads of inventory to mainframes. I only know of one guy who still uses it in my area now, though.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's not easy needing green...
(bows head)
Used Kermit from a 286 running MS-DOS 3.3, dialing 300 baud to our college's VAX. Ahhh, memories.
Poor Kermit. He was never the same after he got laid off from that theater group. He didnt like the managment choices. Said it was a puppet regime.
------
beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
Being more of an Amiga BBS guy, I never got into Kermit over Zmodem and other similar protocols. I mean, I know Kermit is more than just a protocol, but in practice that's how I saw it used 99% of the time. I've only used Kermit once - uploading machine language to a 68HC11 in the 90s - and was genuinely surprised to see that it was still officially a live project until now.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Condolences to Miss Piggy. I bet she will be devastated by the news.
Sad news indeed. Kermit has finally croaked.
The hours that Kermit saved me. I was able to hook up my modem and connect to the university mainframe from many different location. I did not have to go the computer lab or be inconvenienced when it was closed on holidays or all the terminals were taken. It was one of those things that had an incalculable effect on productivity, positive that is, unlike trade wars.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Kermit was and may still be useful when your connection is terrible. I am willing to bet that today it is used more than zmodem or xmodem.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
More than Duke Nukem or anything else I've heard referenced recently, none have blasted me back to my youth more than hearing the words "kermit" and "zmodem". Right around the same time that you could go down to the local Hacker Shack (later renamed, due to conflicts with Radio Shack) and thumb through thousands of 5.25" floppies organized like mini-albums and you'd pay a buck just for a floppy with a looping black and white video you could watch on your grainy CGA.
God damn, I miss those days. I'm glad the internet is widespread and aiding tens of millions of people in their life on a daily basis, but there was something delightful about being part of a tiny group of weirdos connecting to each other with ATA commands and some guy's hobby board.
I remember I got the C-Kermit source code from college back in 1988. I had to do crazy things to upload the code to a Dual S100 Unix computer at work. I had dial into work via modem and upload each source file using "cat filename" on the remote system and doing ASCII uploads from home. It took me several days but the code compiled and worked so I had Kermit at work now.
Wow, in my college and post college days I used that protocol in so many places and so many ways I can't even begin to count. That was a very conservative protocol that was able to go through almost anything. One time I had it go from a portable computer over a modem connection to an Equinox data switch to an AT&T 3b5 Unix, to a cu back to the Equinox (to change the speed from 300 baud to 9600 baud) to an IBM 7171 protocol converter to an IBM 4361. And it could actually transfer files. Another time I had to stress test a DECNET terminal simulator on a Sun (the old version would fail in the middle of the day on the busiest of days) So I used kermit to connect to host1, then to host 2, back to host 1, back to host 2, I think something like 40 times. Then I did a file transfer through all the connections. It worked.
The company where I worked in college (Digital Techniques Inc. who made a line of touchscreen computers in the early 80s) had an MS-DOS machine that ran on STD-Bus, non-PC compatible... and with the source-code from Columbia (on 9-track tape!) I was able to write a communication driver for the 2661 DUART (same as in the Zenith Z-100, and as compared to the IBM-PC's 8250 UART). Finally we could zap files up to the VAX at a blazing 19,200 baud! Never could iron out all the interrupt issues for even-higher speeds.
A few years later when this Linux thing came along I said, Aha! ... thanks Kermit for being Open before Open was cool.
Stinky puns...wonderful...but, still stinky all the same.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
From the Columbia's web site
"On or before June 30, 2011, there will be Open Source versions of C-Kermit, E-Kermit, and Kermit 95. "
Unless the anonymous reader has some inside information...
Yes, it is used a lot in the embedded world. One of the few tools available to recover a bricked RS232-only based device. Used on things like the gumstix, beagleboard, and lots of other SBC like ARM based embedded devices. If you make/order custom versions or your own shipping product does not contain alternatives like MMC/SD card boot capabilities, c-kermit is one of the few things out there to allow you to boot, load code, and then go to console all from one tool on such devices. Saved my (and my employers) ass many times on bricked or buggy embedded devices.
It one of the methods of uploading a revision of software into a Cisco router. Used it once to get a router back that I could not get a network interface to come up on.
Man i feel old now.. And it sad to see part of our history 'die'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I miss Kermit like I miss my old Kreidler motobike, found memories but I'd probable wouldn't really like it if I would need it again...
But what I would really appreciate from columbia would be a clear and detailled explanation of what parts or "kind of parts" of kermit-95 and why ? cannot be open sourced ? :-) .. ....
Are there pieces of code written by Open Source adverse copyright holders ?
Or "lost coypright holders" that have rights but cannot be located
Or legally "challenged" copyright holders (childs who are too young to "agree" to anything but are the sole heir of some copyrights ? for example ?)
Backdoors mandated by some three letters authority that cannot be released under an open source licences
code that implement something patented and the patent holders do not authorise the inclusion in open source code
Or contracts with former clients prohibiting "unfair compétition"...
or, or,
I know that the value of an Open Source Kermit-95 would be very law, it might be better on Windows than C-Kermit for some values of "better"...
but it's unlikelly that any futur use would be better served with an update of K95 rather than a modificiation of CK.
But the lesson on "freeing" code would be very interesting, and after all Columbia as a quite proheminent law school... so it would be interesting...
I see (thanks google) that in 1985 I contributed c64boot to the Kermit project to get files onto a Commodore 64 ... and at the other end of the scale I was wondering about C-Kermit for UTS (Amdahl's port of Unix to 370-architecture mainframes.) There was actually a connection (uh, sorry) there, both related to the project I was working on at the time.
(And when was the last time you saw an email addy like "ACDMAYER%UOGUELPH.BITNET@WISCVM" ?)
(ob. "All you kids get off my lawn!")
-- Alastair
I use it all the time talking out a serial port. Minicom blows dog.
hmm, the embedded devices I worked on the "debricking" procedure was to use JTAG to rewire the flash (AIUI the programmer software uses JTAG to take control of the CPUs address/data lines and uses those address/data lines to program the flash). It was a bit slow but it didn't rely on any functional code being on the device at all.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
It's also much more tolerant of non-8bit-clean links, like Telnet by default.
That and my speedy VIC-Modem (yes, the one you had to dial using the telephone, slide the switch to data and hang up the receiver)
I'm pretty sure it wasn't even 300 baud
Funny thing, I still have that thing...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
First, the story about Commodore trying to revive the 64 line, and now this. It was the two of them together, that enabled me to wreck my last year of college beyond all hope of repair.
I had gotten a 300 baud modem for my C=64, but to get something "real" I had to type in a Kermit transfer program in Commodore BASIC, then use that program to download a Kermit program with built-in VT52 emulation. That transfer took over 3 hours, but oh boy was it worth it. I wasted many nights, dialed in to the campus VAX/11-750, chatting and emailing on Bitnet, trying hacks in Pascal, and generally being a kid in a candy store, all from my dorm room.
The good ol' days weren't really that good, but they were exciting, in that it was a thrill to see what dedicated hacking could get a machine to do.
The ISS and the Arkansas Primary & Secondary Computing Network still use kermit, today.
In what ways is kermit superior to minicom? I use minicom a lot, but only for file transfer to my various retro computers. Should I be using kermit, or is it superior in ways that I wouldn't benefit from?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Depends if the box is completely bricked or "bootloader bricked".
If you can't even get a bootloader prompt then JTAG is the only game in town. You use JTAG to flash a bootloader and erase the rest of the flash ROM so the bootloader drops into a command prompt instead of trying to boot a kernel. Once you have a working bootloader, you typically use XMODEM to transfer the kernel and rootfs binaries across. Alternatively you use Ethernet or some other high-speed interface (USB, anyone?)
If you have a working bootloader, then you interrupt it on boot, drop to the command prompt and upload a new, (hopefully) working kernel and rootfs.
JTAG is only really necessary if your bootloader is totally screwed.
Looking over my Mom's shoulder, Kermit gave me my first glimpse of email, my first experience with vi (her preferred email editor), and indirectly I guess, put me on the engineering career path to where I am today... Curse you Kermit!
hum that must be the reason somebody wrote the Emacs Doctor, I wonder what is the option to automatically speak to your emacs kermit mode buffer....
I actually wrote an implementation of the Kermit protocol in Basic Plus for the DEC PDP 11/70 back in about 1983. Used to bring the whole system to its knees transferring a file.
Story from 2003
http://science.slashdot.org/story/03/12/10/1957244/Kermit-Alive-and-Well-on-the-Space-Station
I used minicom with sz to upload images over zmodem, however being Linux-based, device had sufficient resources to run another copy of rz. I did not need it after firmware got full Ethernet support, however then it was a nice way of updating chunks of flash without slow JTAG.
I guess, devices with serial-only bootloader would rather implement xmodem with the same software on the "terminal" side. C-Kermit in this way is worse than minicom -- it still requires external sz/rz but does not automatically start them when it sees a signature coming from the serial line. Kermit-95 apparently has built-in support for xmodem and zmodem, however I don't know how convenient it is. I have never seen actual Kermit protocol (built-in) used for anything other than testing between two boxes running Kermit.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Notice that those posting their memories have UID's under 10000. You could probably filter out anyone who even knows that Kermit exists by their UID's alone. /. account the first day.
And yes my UID is in the 20k's but only because I forgot to get a
The frog is dead. Long live the frog.
Back in ~1994 the place I was working had a mail system for PCs and servers that the IT department had cobbled together out of Kermit and airplane glue. If you had more than 200KB of mail it would crash your computer and die in ugly ways. It was really annoying, after having been on Unix mail systems since the late 70s, and having used Kermit successfully to do real work as well. Worse than IBM PROFS, worse than Prodigy over 300 baud, much less capable than Fidonet or most 1980s BBS systems. And the IT department always worked in their offices with PCs that were on a LAN, while out in the field we used laptops and dialup.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sometime last year I was working on a router or maybe a firewall at some remote site that I could only access by dialup modem, because the WAN hadn't been installed yet. It was very nice to notice that it supported xmodem, as did my terminal program, so I was able to back up the configuration files instead of cutting and pasting them all from the screen. Dragged up a lot of old memories...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I still use Zmodem with sz and rz commands in Linux and SecureCRT and PuTTY's Zmodem (rz.exe and sz.exe; http://leputty.sourceforge.net/ ). Much faster and easier than scp and sftp IMO.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Screen works fine for me.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I wrote the computervision cgos kermit many moons ago.
Just wondering.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
One of the programmers on the original Kermit project at Columbia University was a grad student who had a 2 yro daughter. We lived on the same street and also had a 2 yro daughter. The two girls played together a lot at the neighborhood playground in Riverside Park near Columbia, and we got to know the family pretty well.
The grad student's daughter loved the Muppets and especially Kermit. He named the program he was working on for her favorite Muppet.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
I remember an old Perkin Elmer minicomputer that was used at a laboratory testing oil samples.
The only way to get anything in or out of the thing was kermit over async serial line.
At the time I wasn't quite as UNIX headed .. I thought it very funny that the day that we installed brand new HP high volume / high capacity laser printers was the day I was asked if it had a serial interface available (why they didn't just do LPD I'll never know).
Ahh, Kermit.
Kermit was more or less the swiss-army knife of terminal and file transfer. You could move pretty much any file over any link between any two systems with it. If the link was questionable, just use the native kermit file transfer protocol. It was slow, but if you needed a file moved over a link that had unknown escape characters, noise, and so on, it was the way to go.
Heck, we used it on the DOS/Windows 3.1 based computers at the FIU computer lab to telnet into the VAX and UNIX systems from DOS.
It's ironic, because I used it so much in computer labs, but never actually used it personally. Under DOS I used Telemate, in Linux I used Minicom, and these days on most UNIX systems I used "screen", because all I need is a text terminal and rarely need to transfer files via serial anymore.
Those were the days. Fun to reminisce about, but I honestly wouldn't want to live through them again. I find "scp remotehost:/path/to/file ." a lot less painful. ;)
The first try was with uucp, but they couldn't handle its operations on the Bucharest side. Phone lines weren't stable enough, then. So, for the 1st 6 months, email was sent to Bucharest by Kermit file transfer, triggered by a hodge-podge of MDA scripts, invoked by sendmail. Kermit was way more robust than any other file transfer protocol at this time, we believed eventually it could handle bit transfers over wet clothes lines.
After 6 months, we got uucp going, after getting more help with the network connection from government and EU. Some more months later, we got IP going. Those of you who take always-online for granted don't know at all what effort it takes to make that work.
Ah, I think I'm getting old. Get off my lawn... :-) :-) :-)
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
And yes I used it for file transfer too. Not as fast as Z-modem, but Z-modem for some platforms was had to find. later I maintained one of the Kermit platform ports for a while (what in the world was it for, Pr1me, HP, ???)
If you've got RS232, why not use X-Modem or something more commonly used? Are you saying manufacturers are shipping embedded components with only Kermit protocol support in their firmware?
Many go on and on about the nostalgia, but for me C-Kermit is software I use every damn day! I have yet to see a better serial terminal for embedded Linux development. And though many will speak of Minicom, go ahead try and log data to a file. You'll find that you're missing data, your transfers may fail and it generally cannot compete with the experience that C-Kermit provides.
I don't miss those days at all. Sure Kermit was useful in its day - but for almost all of us that day is long gone. FWIW I don't miss Gopher, modem initialization strings, nor any of the arcana we used to have to invoke to accomplish what now are simple, mindless tasks.
Feel free to mourn Kermit, but I'll be happily dancing at its wake. The world has moved on.
#DeleteChrome
I worked at a computer manufacturer once, and their process for supplying components to manufacturers was:
1 - print out stock list from the VAX
2 - type all of it into a spreadsheet (2 people working for a week)
3 - prepare stock despatch orders
As stock levels changed in the week they were entered (not to mention that traditional "1 in 300 keystrokes is an error" problem) it was a never ending battle - every month. That's when I wandered in after having fixed a problem with Paradox elsewhere. Management wasn't receptive to new ideas (mostly because they were stuck up "not invented here" types) so I skunkworked it.
The guy who ran the VAX installed a kermit server and changed the report so it had a standard filename. I hacked a few things together in Turbo Pascal (cleaning out headers) and Paradox PAL (easiest to integrate with other stuff) and the whole 2 manweeks exercise became a 15 minute batch file - and accurate.
Thank you Kermit :-).
What? A raise? Hahaha, no, it wasn't that type of company - its management was saturated with "not invented here" types which is what eventually wrecked the company. I resigned a month later for a much better job.
Insert
As well as the Kermit protocol, Kermit has included support for FTP/TLS for a while now. It's the most scriptable FTP/TLS I know, so I hope its new life as an Open Source project keeps it healthy.
Back when I was doing freelance contracting in the early 90s I relied on it. Unix, Xenix, DOS, compiled it on a bunch of things. I could use it to talk to anything, I reckon with the right parameters it could talk to a broken toaster. It may not have been the fastest protocol around but it WORKED. I was sorry to see it closed up, and I'm sorry to see it go.
Zmodem is superior to Kermit over a modem in every way when you are talking about transferring files and not trying to chat while transferring files or something. It will crank its window size down very, very far and thus still work on noisy lines. In my long history as a BBSer I used basically every transfer protocol invented including xmodem, ymodem, ymodem-z, zmodem, biturbo, hyperprotocol, and yes, kermit. Kermit's only real advantage today is that, as others have pointed out, it is tolerant of 7bit connections.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
For downloading a file from a BBS to a computer you are correct. But Kermit is still being used on things like floating sensors and was used on the space station. It has to do with use cases.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I don't think it's being used because it's the best tool for transferring files, though. It's because it's a communications swiss army knife that covers all use cases for the given problem. If you want a single simple channel over which you can do both interactive communications and file transfers then there is probably no single package which will work in nearly all use cases which is simpler than kermit. What's the next step up, a complete Unixlike?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But in those cases it becomes the best tool for the job and that is why it is being used to this day. Zmodem is a very optimized tool for doing one thing and it does it well. The problem is that problem that it solved is now extremely rare. Very few people use dial up modems to transfer files to and from BBSs and or from PC to PC. Now we use TCP/IP and SCP, sftp, maybe ftp, dropbox, NFS, and a number of other tools. Kermit solves a number of problems so it is still being used. But even those problems are getting rare. It isn't about which is the better file transfer protocol it is which is still in use.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"I didn't particularly want to understand it. I just wanted to use it to download."
"And free services have found new and interesting ways to slow down downloads by splitting them up, imposing time limits and restrictions and trying to get you to pay for the privilege of having those restrictions removed."
Based on your commentary above, you appear to be what we old-timey SysOps would call a "leech". You just want files for free. All this equipment and bandwidth costs money. That's where there are things like download limits, upload ratios, pay avenues, etc.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
"Did people even use Kermit after Zmodem was available?"
Kermit was designed and useful for incompatible systems and bad links. Think 7-bit links, mainframes, less-common minicomputers, non-ASCII systems, repurposed long-distance telecom data lines, odd filename restrictions or formats, OS-imposed file formats, brain damaged terminal systems, limited C compiler support, limited system libraries, etc. Kermit wasn't trying to be fast or sophisticated, it was trying to be portable and universal. Different goals.
ZModem was tuned for the 8-bit microcomputer world, where everything was 8N1 and relatively intelligent. There are gains to be had by limiting your scope.
Of course, YModem-G was preferred by those of us with ARQ modems, since omitting error correction from the file transfer protocol gave it a speed boost.
And IIRC, C-Kermit was also a terminal emulator, not just a file transfer protocol. I remember running it (or something like C-Kermit) on a DOS-ish voice mail system that had some dislike of most "fancier" software. It let me talk to the phone switch without having to lug a terminal into the phone closet.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.