On Fri, 6 Nov 2026 05:59:51 -0000 (UTC), Beej Jorgensen wrote:

We had one 9-track when I worked as a computer operator in 1992. It
was used to send financial records to the bank. That was the first
and last one I saw in use.

A decade earlier, it was a slightly different story.

Also, back then, it was still the fashion in movies and TV to portray
a computer as having lots of tape drives with the reels spinning
busily, as though such heavy tape usage was characteristic of normal
computer operation. That would have been true a decade before that,
but by the time the 1980s came along, tapes were primarily used for
backup and data interchange between installations.

Furthermore, back then, there was real difficulty in getting data
between different brands of personal computers, because of
incompatible floppy disk formats, and many machines not even having
floppy drives. But there was this open protocol called ?Kermit?, which
ran on serial lines (or modem connections), for which implementations
were available for just about every kind of computer under the sun,
big and small.

And you could get copies free, just by sending a blank reel of tape to
the University of Columbia; they would put all the latest versions of
all the releases on that, and send it back.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 11/6/2026 2:18 PM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

On Fri, 6 Nov 2026 05:59:51 -0000 (UTC), Beej Jorgensen wrote:

We had one 9-track when I worked as a computer operator in 1992. It
was used to send financial records to the bank. That was the first
and last one I saw in use.

A decade earlier, it was a slightly different story.

Also, back then, it was still the fashion in movies and TV to portray
a computer as having lots of tape drives with the reels spinning
busily, as though such heavy tape usage was characteristic of normal
computer operation. That would have been true a decade before that,
but by the time the 1980s came along, tapes were primarily used for
backup and data interchange between installations.

Furthermore, back then, there was real difficulty in getting data
between different brands of personal computers, because of
incompatible floppy disk formats, and many machines not even having
floppy drives. But there was this open protocol called ?Kermit?, which
ran on serial lines (or modem connections), for which implementations
were available for just about every kind of computer under the sun,
big and small.

And you could get copies free, just by sending a blank reel of tape to
the University of Columbia; they would put all the latest versions of
all the releases on that, and send it back.

Now now Lawrence, don't act like it's all gone. You can still get it,
and use it, at

https://www.kermitproject.org/index.html

and

https://davidrg.github.io/ckwin/

to transfer files with all kinds of protocols. I used it in recent
years to transfer files between FreeDOS computer and Windows 10, so
it's definitely still useful.

Information and download links for MS-DOS Kermit can be found here,

https://www.kermitproject.org/mskermit.html

and you can even download and read the book /Using MS-DOS Kermit/, 2nd
edition from that website.

I'm sure someone in the retrocomputing hobby at alt.folklore.computers
can make use of these software packages, perhaps after two hundred
years; so it's definitely worth mentioning.


Best wishes and happy Kermit!
--
Johann | email: invalid -> com | http://www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | via Easynews.com https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social | for ( ;; ) _:;
Federated at https://fed.brid.gy/bsky/myrkraverk.bsky.social

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 11/7/26 03:40, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:

Now now Lawrence, don't act like it's all gone.ÿ You can still get it,
and use it, at

ÿ https://www.kermitproject.org/index.html

and

ÿ https://davidrg.github.io/ckwin/

to transfer files with all kinds of protocols.ÿ I used it in recent
years to transfer files between FreeDOS computer and Windows 10, so
it's definitely still useful.

I just used it the other day to transfer files from my Multics system to Linux.


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 11/7/26 09:33, Peter Flass wrote:

On 11/7/26 03:40, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:

Now now Lawrence, don't act like it's all gone.ÿ You can still get it,
and use it, at

ÿÿ https://www.kermitproject.org/index.html

and

ÿÿ https://davidrg.github.io/ckwin/

to transfer files with all kinds of protocols.ÿ I used it in recent
years to transfer files between FreeDOS computer and Windows 10, so
it's definitely still useful.

I just used it the other day to transfer files from my Multics system to Linux.

Still rockin' Multics ???

Thought that had totally faded away.


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)