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Message Digest 
Volume 28 : Issue 246 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:
  Re: Dr. James Marsters, TTY deaf service developer 
  Re: Dr. James Marsters, TTY deaf service developer 
  Whatever happened to Tymnet? 
  Re: Whatever happened to Tymnet? 
  Re: Whatever happened to Tymnet? 
  Re: Whatever happened to Tymnet? 
  Re: Where Have You Gone, Bell Labs? 
  Re: Tymnet  
  Re: Tymnet  
  Re: Texting (and cell phone usage) while driving movie: the consequences 
  Re: Texting (and cell phone usage) while driving movie: the consequences 
  Re: Texting (and cell phone usage) while driving movie: the consequences 
  Re: Texting (and cell phone usage) while driving movie: the consequences 
  Re: Texting (and cell phone usage) while driving movie: the consequences 


====== 27 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Sep 2009 05:09:52 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Dr. James Marsters, TTY deaf service developer Message-ID: <20090905050952.9680.qmail@simone.iecc.com> >> Who invented modems that could automatically dial .... > >The 'Bell 801 automatic calling unit' handled that, _external_ to the >modem itself. Existed more than a decade before Hayes. It did, but the control of the dialer was separate from the data path. Hayes' important innovation was to combine the data and control channel so any old crummy microcomputer with a minimal serial port could autodial. R's, John ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:09:55 -0500 From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Dr. James Marsters, TTY deaf service developer Message-ID: <T5KdnXJaMvzOED_XnZ2dnUVZ_i2dnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications> In article <20090905050952.9680.qmail@simone.iecc.com>, John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote: >>> Who invented modems that could automatically dial .... >> >>The 'Bell 801 automatic calling unit' handled that, _external_ to the >>modem itself. Existed more than a decade before Hayes. > >It did, but the control of the dialer was separate from the data path. Yup. And that separation is a 'big win', in terms of security and access controls. :) It was also possible to 'share' one 801 across multiple modems on multiple lines -- where you had multiple 'dial-out' lines, that is. >Hayes' important innovation was to combine the data and control >channel so any old crummy microcomputer with a minimal serial port >could autodial. Hayes "contribution" was to do it *without* using any of the so-called 'modem control' signals present in a full RS-232 interface. With the _big_ cost differential between a minimal 3-wire terminal port, and a 'full RS-232' port, one could successfully sell a modem that needed only a 3-wire port for a significantly higher price than a 'full RS-232' modem sold for, and still *SAVE* the customer money, overall. (combined cost of modem and the serial port for the computer) Other people, before Hayes, had used 'in-band' signalling (and still do) for conveying dialing instructions to the modem. However they require manipulation of some of the additional signals in a 'full' RS-232 interface to switch between the mode where commands are sent and one where all data is passed through 'transparently'. Hayes' _key_ innovation, and the one for which they got a patent -- the only patentable feature of their basic system -- was the means of escaping from "_transparent_ data transmission" back to "command mode". i.e., the mandatory 'guard time' surrounding the magic character sequence ('+++', by default). ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 10:26:47 -0400 From: Telecom digest moderator <redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Whatever happened to Tymnet? Message-ID: <20090905142647.GA10891@telecom.csail.mit.edu> During the recent thread about TDD and Dr. Marsters, Tymnet came up for discussion. I'm interested in opinions about why Tymnet went under. They were in service, had code/speed conversion down to a science, and had access numbers everywhere. What happened? ISTR that Tymnet/Telenet morphed into the companies that carry credit-card verification traffic, but Wikipedia says Tymnet died and Telenet was absorbed into Sprintnet, so I don't know which company carries credit-card data, or how. -- Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:21:37 -0500 From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Whatever happened to Tymnet? Message-ID: <Z_GdnewbzPuMDT_XnZ2dnUVZ_h-dnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications> In article <20090905142647.GA10891@telecom.csail.mit.edu>, Telecom digest moderator <redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu> wrote: >During the recent thread about TDD and Dr. Marsters, Tymnet came up >for discussion. > >I'm interested in opinions about why Tymnet went under. They were in >service, had code/speed conversion down to a science, and had access >numbers everywhere. What happened? Not necessarily in order -- (A) *lots* of competitors sprang up -- it became a 'commodity' market, with 'lowest price' being "the" decision criteria (in the early 80s one service bureau I used changed network carriers _three_times_ in less than a 2 year period. Simply because the new carrier offered a better rate package. (B) Long distance rates _plummeted_. (C) long distance 'voice' call quality improved, _radically_. (B) and (C) resulted in a situation where one could make a cross-country voice call for -less- than the connect rate that one of the 'packet' services charged, *and* get a higher-speed connection. For a while, one could 'move bits' for lower cost over the voice network (using state-of-the-art modems) than one could over dedicated "data" circuits. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:49:28 -0700 From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Whatever happened to Tymnet? Message-ID: <4AA2B2B8.8060507@thadlabs.com> On 9/5/2009 7:27 AM, Telecom digest moderator wrote: > During the recent thread about TDD and Dr. Marsters, Tymnet came up > for discussion. > > I'm interested in opinions about why Tymnet went under. They were in > service, had code/speed conversion down to a science, and had access > numbers everywhere. What happened? > > ISTR that Tymnet/Telenet morphed into the companies that carry > credit-card verification traffic, but Wikipedia says Tymnet died and > Telenet was absorbed into Sprintnet, so I don't know which company > carries credit-card data, or how. Competition, price and the Internet all contributed to Tymnet's demise. Even PacBell's PPS*NET was a major competitor, charging only 50 cents per hour for their public packet-switched network at the same time Tymnet was charging $2.50 per hour. I used PPS*NET to connect to, for example, The Well; 50 cents an hour over PPS*NET was considerably cheaper than the toll charges for 50 miles calling The Well directly. Tymnet cried "Foul!" to the California PUC claiming PacBell's pricing for PPS*NET was predatory. Uh, users thought Tymnet's pricing was predatory at 5 times PacBell's. It took several years to resolve this, and sadly PPS*NET was forced to shut down (early 1990s). I've included some additional info about Tymnet in another article in this thread. The info at Wikipedia is not definitive. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:04:53 -0700 From: Steven <diespammers@killspammers.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Whatever happened to Tymnet? Message-ID: <h7ujpo$l00$1@news.eternal-september.org> Thad Floryan wrote: > On 9/5/2009 7:27 AM, Telecom digest moderator wrote: >> During the recent thread about TDD and Dr. Marsters, Tymnet came up >> for discussion. >> >> I'm interested in opinions about why Tymnet went under. They were in >> service, had code/speed conversion down to a science, and had access >> numbers everywhere. What happened? >> >> ISTR that Tymnet/Telenet morphed into the companies that carry >> credit-card verification traffic, but Wikipedia says Tymnet died and >> Telenet was absorbed into Sprintnet, so I don't know which company >> carries credit-card data, or how. > > Competition, price and the Internet all contributed to Tymnet's demise. > > Even PacBell's PPS*NET was a major competitor, charging only 50 cents > per hour for their public packet-switched network at the same time > Tymnet was charging $2.50 per hour. I used PPS*NET to connect to, for > example, The Well; 50 cents an hour over PPS*NET was considerably > cheaper than the toll charges for 50 miles calling The Well directly. > > Tymnet cried "Foul!" to the California PUC claiming PacBell's pricing > for PPS*NET was predatory. Uh, users thought Tymnet's pricing was > predatory at 5 times PacBell's. It took several years to resolve this, > and sadly PPS*NET was forced to shut down (early 1990s). > > I've included some additional info about Tymnet in another article > in this thread. The info at Wikipedia is not definitive. > I used PC Pursuit for some years for our Apple II BBS network, their people helped with system problems, little did we know is that we were their testers for the fiber network until they turned it off. We used it for GTE telemail for a few more years. -- The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2009 I Kill Spammers, inc, A Rot in Hell. Co. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 11:16:02 -0400 From: "Geoffrey Welsh" <gwelsh@spamcop.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Where Have You Gone, Bell Labs? Message-ID: <3df83$4aa280e6$cf701429$29428@PRIMUS.CA> T wrote: > I'm curious on why local services are so expensive for the companies? At my previous residence, as with my current residence, I maintain a land line with only very basic service, the kind that costs about twenty dollars a month (I'd have to pay about a third of that to run DSL over a dry line, anyway.) However, at my previous residence, I had to call repair at least once a year (my favorites were when the call center agent could barely hear me over the noise) and the problems were usually solved by rolling a truck, whether to juggle connections at the pedestal (which was on my next door neighbour's lawn) or to replace the line from there to my home (which they did twice: once by stringing it through trees and again later when they buried it.) Rolling a truck is very expensive compared to $20/month and is usualy avoided if at all possible. This continued for years, and I can't help but wonder how many others in my area - at least those served by the same pedestal - might have been similarly affected. There is no doubt in my mind that Bell Canada lost money just maintaining the last dozen yards of my local loop, before we even think about the cost of installing and maintaining the rest of the local loop, the switch, the trunks, the CO building, power, administration, etc. -- Geoffrey Welsh . ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 08:42:56 -0700 From: Steven <diespammers@killspammers.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Tymnet Message-ID: <h7u0u2$299$1@news.eternal-september.org> This might be it. I used it with BofA and I remember it changed names before the bank moved to Web site. I still have the users guide with the information on Western Union EasyLink. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare -- The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2009 I Kill Spammers, inc, A Rot in Hell. Co. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:38:49 -0700 From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Tymnet Message-ID: <4AA2B039.9040009@thadlabs.com> On 9/5/2009 8:58 AM, Steven wrote: > This might be it. I used it with BofA and I remember it changed names > before the bank moved to Web site. I still have the users guide with > the information on Western Union EasyLink. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare There are numerous errors in that wikipedia article and also in the one about Tymnet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymnet. I know some local (Silicon Valley) people who should edit the Tymnet aspects, and perhaps I should edit the Tymshare aspects. Some better info about the origins of Tymnet are in the following interviews of its creator, LaRoy Tymes: http://www.computer-history.info/Page1.dir/pages/Tymes.html This one is definitive: http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/Tymes_LaRoy/Tymes_LaRoy_1.oral_history.2004.102657988.pdf This one is interesting: http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Tymnet And here's a short story by LaRoy Tymes at the Computer History Museum's site http://corphist.computerhistory.org/: " I wrote all of the original code for TYMNET from 1968 " through 1971 in assembly for the SPC-12 (which lasted for " only a year or so), the SDS-940(which ran the network " supervisor, access control, and accounting package), and the " Varian 620-I (the network nodes). Norman Hardy contributed " ideas, a few of which were taken from the Octopus network " (1966-1968) at Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Livermore, " which networked the IBM 7030 Stretch, the CDC 6600, and some " other machines and peripherals. Ann Hardy and David Gardner " made helpful modifications to the SDS-940 operating system. " " After 1972 significant contributors to TYMNET included Joe " Rinde (Supervisor on the TYMNET engine), Carl Holmberg " (further development on Supervisor after Rinde), John Kopf " (operating system for the TYMNET engine), Art Caisse " (interfacing TYMNET to various mainframes), and June " Nishimoto (PDP-10 base enhancements). Guy Blood and Verne " Van Vlear did not work on the network itself, but took care " of accounting and access control databases. " " On the hardware side, I designed and microcoded the CPU of " the TYMNET engine. Other hardware engineers on the engine " project were Barry Burnsides, Ron Graves, and Larry " Pizzella. " " The last major contributors to the TYMNET technology made " the conversion to SPARC workstations in 1996. They included " Romulo Raffo, Bill Soley, and myself. " " Bill Combs was the first and major sales person for TYMNET. " " In a project of such a size, many other people were " involved, but the above list is a fairly complete list of " the major innovators and contributors. " " Incidentally, I booted the network in its complete form in " November of 1971. It ran without a single system crash or " reboot until March of 2003, when it was shut down. It " survived many hardware and software upgrades during that " time without a single system wide failure. Also, I wrote " three versions of the routing function that determined the " optimum path through the network, one in assembly for the " SDS-940 in 1971, one in assembly and microcode for the " TYMNET engine in 1974, and the last one in C for the SPARC " in 1996. The one I wrote in 1974 ran 24/7 for 22 years " without being touched or "maintained". I think that might be " some sort of industry record for mission critical software. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 12:01:42 -0400 From: "Geoffrey Welsh" <gwelsh@spamcop.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Texting (and cell phone usage) while driving movie: the consequences Message-ID: <87d6c$4aa28b9a$cf701429$22726@PRIMUS.CA> T wrote: > This is why I'm an advocated of ITS Phase 3. That's where the cars > drive themselves. Humans are the last variable in motor vehicle > safety. Remove that variable and let the machine do the driving. As much as I cringe at some humans driving, I cringe more at the thought of commoditized computers driving. I'm sure we've all heard the joke about how the computer executive bragged that the if the auto industry had advanced like the computer industry then all cars would get a thousand miles per gallon, perform like Formula 1 race cars, and cost pocket change... and an auto industry exective replied that if automobiles had followed in computers' footsteps then every car would for no apparent reason blow up about once a week, killing everyone inside. And another one: there are two kinds of people: those who don't trust computers because they don't understand how they work, and those who don't trust computers precisely because they understand exactly how they work. I just fixed a friend's computer: the fan in the power supply stopped working, causing it to overheat and put the computer into fits of blue screens and reboots. I don't want that happening to the computer driving my car (or the one in the dump truck approaching me going the other way.) That's just the hardware side; I don't think it's a good idea to put a vehicle under the control of a program which was written by a human who, no matter how sober, focused, and well-intentioned, isn't going to be there with me when I encounter the obscure bug that wasn't found because the low-bidding supplier he works for reduced the resources dedicated to code review in order to avoid losing money on the contract. Doesn't the military hold an annual competition to find the first vehicle that can complete a course under its own guidance, and the best effort so far made it a few hundred yards before getting stuck? To be fair, the military course is off-road, but wouldn't real-life conditions (e.g. weather, traffic) be just as challenging? -- Geoffrey Welsh . ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:06:36 -0700 From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Texting (and cell phone usage) while driving movie: the consequences Message-ID: <4AA2A8AC.8060409@thadlabs.com> On 9/5/2009 10:41 AM, Geoffrey Welsh wrote: > [...] > Doesn't the military hold an annual competition to find the first vehicle > that can complete a course under its own guidance, and the best effort so > far made it a few hundred yards before getting stuck? To be fair, the > military course is off-road, but wouldn't real-life conditions (e.g. > weather, traffic) be just as challenging? That was the first year's contest. Two years ago, for example, was a 55-mile urban challenge, and 6 vehicles successfully completed the tour. http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/index.asp http://www.darpa.mil/GRANDCHALLENGE/overview.asp http://www.darpagrandchallenge.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 16:39:17 -0400 From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Texting (and cell phone usage) while driving movie: the consequences Message-ID: <MPG.250c9678c01c9c4e989b79@news.eternal-september.org> In article <87d6c$4aa28b9a$cf701429$22726@PRIMUS.CA>, gwelsh@spamcop.net says... > I just fixed a friend's computer: the fan in the power supply stopped > working, causing it to overheat and put the computer into fits of blue > screens and reboots. I don't want that happening to the computer driving my > car (or the one in the dump truck approaching me going the other way.) > That's just the hardware side; I don't think it's a good idea to put a > vehicle under the control of a program which was written by a human who, no > matter how sober, focused, and well-intentioned, isn't going to be there > with me when I encounter the obscure bug that wasn't found because the > low-bidding supplier he works for reduced the resources dedicated to code > review in order to avoid losing money on the contract. > > Doesn't the military hold an annual competition to find the first vehicle > that can complete a course under its own guidance, and the best effort so > far made it a few hundred yards before getting stuck? To be fair, the > military course is off-road, but wouldn't real-life conditions (e.g. > weather, traffic) be just as challenging? > > And some of us who work with computers all the time trust them fairly well. Put it this way I keep all my updates on this machine, I do maintenance etc. In fact I recently had to replace the LCD on this machine (laptop). It's easy to do. That said the systems for vehicles will obviously be hardened a bit. They won't be full blown operating systems that do everything from control the radio to drive the car. They're be dedicated systems with full diagnostics. ***** Moderator's Note ***** We're getting away from telecom. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 10:21:23 +1000 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Texting (and cell phone usage) while driving movie: the consequences Message-ID: <pan.2009.09.06.00.21.22.19938@myrealbox.com> On Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:41:15 -0400, T wrote: ........ > And some of us who work with computers all the time trust them fairly > well. Put it this way I keep all my updates on this machine, I do > maintenance etc. In fact I recently had to replace the LCD on this > machine (laptop). It's easy to do. ...... > > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > > We're getting away from telecom. Yep, but modern phone handsets are basically computers and computers make up the vast majority of the telephone network these days - and people already rely on them for potentially life saving situations (whether they realise it or not). If people don't want to "rely" on computers then they can give up all technology, otherwise accept that they already rely on them for so many things now and having vehicles controlled by them is just another extension of that. -- Regards, David. David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 2009 21:34:48 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Texting (and cell phone usage) while driving movie: the consequences Message-ID: <20090905213448.51698.qmail@simone.iecc.com> >As much as I cringe at some humans driving, I cringe more at the thought of >commoditized computers driving. Nobody's suggesting commoditized computers in control of your car. Your experience with the unreliability of Windows-based PCs is unsurprising, but those are about the least reliable computers in the world. I run servers built out of ordinary PC hardware that routinely run unattended for months at a time. (I visit them a few times a years to change the backup disks.) Computers built from the ground up to be reliable are way better than that. I believe that every car sold in the US in recent years has electronic fuel injection, which means that a programmable computer is dynamically controlling when and how much air and fuel is injected into each cylinder on each cycle, and that is far from the only computer controlled subsystem. Modern commercial airplanes are "fly by wire" with the only path from the controls to the engines and airfoils being via computers, which are if anything more reliable than the mechanical and pneumatic systems that preceded them. ObTelecom (Hi, Bill!): Phone switches have been controled by computers since the 1970s, and they are to put it mildly, rather reliable. They do this by a combination of conservative hardware design, software designed to be reliable (as opposed to designed by marketers' wish lists), and redundancy. These techniques are all equally applicable to automated vehicle controls. R's, John ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom- munications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to Usenet, where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. The Telecom Digest is currently being moderated by Bill Horne while Pat Townson recovers from a stroke. Contact information: Bill Horne Telecom Digest 43 Deerfield Road Sharon MA 02067-2301 781-784-7287 bill at horne dot net Subscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe telecom Unsubscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=unsubscribe telecom This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Copyright (C) 2009 TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of The Telecom digest (14 messages) ******************************

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