Ted
I have been reading my copy of (the first issue of) "Linux Voice". Page 17 of that magazine has an article about the founding of Sheffield LUG by Richard Ibbotson.
That article says:
"I remember back in the 1990s helping Manchester LUG to come into existence. Dr Owen Le Blanc, David Clarke, Dr Dave Gilbert, Professor Ted Harding and some other notables used to get together on Saturday afternoons to create the first LUG meeeting in the UK."
ISTR that you had a manchester.ac.uk email address before you used your own domain. So I assume said notable is you.
Care to tell us about it?
Best
Mick
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net
---------------------------------------------------------------------
On 22-Feb-2014 14:19:40 mick wrote:
Ted
I have been reading my copy of (the first issue of) "Linux Voice". Page 17 of that magazine has an article about the founding of Sheffield LUG by Richard Ibbotson.
That article says:
"I remember back in the 1990s helping Manchester LUG to come into existence. Dr Owen Le Blanc, David Clarke, Dr Dave Gilbert, Professor Ted Harding and some other notables used to get together on Saturday afternoons to create the first LUG meeeting in the UK."
ISTR that you had a manchester.ac.uk email address before you used your own domain. So I assume said notable is you.
Care to tell us about it?
Best Mick
Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net
Hi Mick, Good memory! Happy to tell about it, though the story could get long!
My personal pathway is interesting. While working in the Statistical Laboratory (sub-Dept of the Pure Maths Dept) at Cambridge, prior to moving to Manchester in 1989-1990, I had taken on the admin of a UNIX system which the Dept wanted to install, following the lead of the Applied Maths Dept who already had one -- and in particular especially used it to prepare lecture notes, etc., which Pure Maths were envious of (all done using troff). This was installed in Pure Maths in 1984, and I initially learned how to administer it from the Applied Maths Computer Officer who (Robert Harding) was coincidentally my namesake.
The version of troff was an enhancement of AT&T's Documenter's Workbench by the firm SoftQuad, which they called sqtroff (and which our irreverent secretaries rapidly christened "squitroff").
Tha machine it was installed on had 1MB RAM and a 20MB hard drive, with a serial board on the back which had 24 ports on it, from which cables ran to people's offices around the Dept. Each office had a CRT teletype to communicate with the nachine.
With up to 6 or 7 logged on simultaneously, you would hardly notice that anyone else was there. With 8 or 9 logged on, you noticed it starting to limp; and above 10 or so it pretty well ground to a halt. But not bad for 1 MB RAM plus 20MB hard drive!
Getting to grips with looking after it taught me a lot about UNIX as a multi-user muilti-tasking system, and to appreciate its clean overall design (pipes and stuff ... ). Also, the printer was an Apple laser printer which worked with PostScript, which was also valuable education.
In the late 1980s, as well as the central UNIX system, we were also supplied with DOS desktop machines in our offices. Such a machine also had 1MB RAM and a 20MB hard drive -- and you can imagine the comparison between the performance of that compared with our UNIX machine!
I moved to Manchester University (UMIST) in 1989-1990 and stayed there till 2001. Being much involved with statistical consultancy there, as well as other academic work, I needed to produce many technical documents so needed my beloved troff. At about 1990, GNU troff was developed (by James Clark) and was available for DOS as well as UNIX. So that kept me going. By that time I had a DOS desktop with 4MB RAM and a 40MB hard drive, so was well aware that I should be able to comfortably run a UNIX system on it! (Compare the specs of that Cambridge UNIX machine).
But commercially available UNIX systems were very expensive: over £1,000 (in 1990 money) just for the basic OS, plus extra for any applications. So I gritted my teeth and plodded along with DOS.
Then -- Miracle! The Manchester Computing Centre issued a regular newsletter, and Issue 35, April 1992 (which I have preserved) carried an announcement by Owen Leblanc (UNIX admin at MCC, and file-system developer):
Free PC Unixes available There are now two free Unix operating systems available for PCs: Linux and 386BSD.
The description of Linux led me to see it as preferable to 386BSD (in particular being able to co-exist with DOS via dual-boot), so next day I was round there with a couple of boxes of floppies, onto which Owen helped me to copy Linux (kernel version 0.96) in a local version called MCC Linux, and gave me complete and detailed instructions about installing it alongside DOS.
So I took these back home, partitioned my 40MB hard drive to allow 20MB for Linux, and installed it. Then I booted up and, Lo and Behold, the magic "# " root prompt in the command line! I then installed myself as a user, and never looked back!
At that time there were few people (outside MCC) interested in UNIX/Linux, though some Depts were major UNIX users. The main interest in Linux was a small core of people: Owen Leblanc, David (Nobby) Clark, Ian Pallfreeman, John Heaton, and a few others (to whom I quickly made myself known).
After some months, Ian Pallfreeman contacted me about setting up a mailing list for people using Linux. After discussion with Ian and Owen, I urged that the purpose of this list should be to help people to get things done using Linux (because most who had their interest tickled by Linux would want to be able to transfer their work to Linux -- which would be a must if we were going to persuade people to switch from DOS etc.), and the list was duly established as "Linux-Users@mcc.ac.uk"; it was much less oriented towards matters to do with the operating system itself.
But then, shortly afterwards, as local interest in Linux grew, Nobby Clarke (bringing in Owen Leblanc, John Heaton and Ian Pallfreeman) took the initiative of setting up a "Linux Club" where people could get together and share all things Linux, chat and natter, and help each other.
This duly emerged as the Manchester Linux Users Group (ManLUG), and is reputedly the oldest LUG in the UK; so we've been going since 1993. Owen, John and Ian, being entirley within the University (which Nobby was not quite) organised the availability of a University meeting-room where we would get together on Saturday afternoons.
We also set up a mailing-list: man-lug@mcc.ac.uk; and I have been the list-owner for linux-users and man-lug ever since (so just over 20 years, now).
While the linux-users list was about getting things done using Linux, the prime purpose of man-lug was to do with the LUG itself; though it wasn't long before "using Linux" also became a major theme on the man-lug list!
There was much activity, and many pioneering discussions, on both lists; and this has continued over the years.
I don't recall that Richard Ibbotson (despite what he says) had much, if anything, to do with the setting up of ManLUG or Linux-Users; he did later set up the Sheffield LUG (sheflug), and was at some later ManLUG meetings; but I don't recall him being around at the time (1992-93) when we were starting it all up.
As a closing whimsy: Richard wisely called the Sheffield tgroup ShefLUG -- and not SLUG! However, the Glasgow Linuc Users Group have no qualms about being GLUG! (As one might expect ... ).
Best wishes to all (or sláinte, as they might say in Glasgow), Ted.
------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@wlandres.net Date: 22-Feb-2014 Time: 21:23:49 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------
On 22/02/2014, Ted Harding Ted.Harding@wlandres.net shared: ... an impressive story of LUG history.
Thank you, Ted.
On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 10:31:41 +0100 "E. Fosbrooke-Brown" e.fosbrookebrown@gmail.com allegedly wrote:
On 22/02/2014, Ted Harding Ted.Harding@wlandres.net shared: ... an impressive story of LUG history.
Thank you, Ted.
Indeed. Thank you for sharing that with us Ted. A much fuller reply than I expected. And a fascinating insight into early LUG history.
It strikes me that your story would be of interest to a fairly wide LUG readership. The new Linux Voice magazine has a LUG section and I'd be willing to bet that they would be happy to publish some or all of your story. Could I suggest that you send a copy to them? (letters@linuxvoice.com) Or if you do not wish to send it yourself, would you be content for me to send on your behalf? I think it would make a nice follow up to Richard Ibbotson's contribution.
Thanks again
Mick
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Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net
---------------------------------------------------------------------
On 23-Feb-2014 16:58:35 mick wrote:
On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 10:31:41 +0100 "E. Fosbrooke-Brown" e.fosbrookebrown@gmail.com allegedly wrote:
On 22/02/2014, Ted Harding Ted.Harding@wlandres.net shared: ... an impressive story of LUG history.
Thank you, Ted.
Indeed. Thank you for sharing that with us Ted. A much fuller reply than I expected. And a fascinating insight into early LUG history.
It strikes me that your story would be of interest to a fairly wide LUG readership. The new Linux Voice magazine has a LUG section and I'd be willing to bet that they would be happy to publish some or all of your story. Could I suggest that you send a copy to them? (letters@linuxvoice.com) Or if you do not wish to send it yourself, would you be content for me to send on your behalf? I think it would make a nice follow up to Richard Ibbotson's contribution.
Thanks again Mick
Mick, that's a nice idea; but if I do it then I would wish to bring in also such of the other people then involved as can still be contacted. They could add their own reminiscences, and perhaps correct any errors of memory on my part! In any case I'd want to make sure that these others (who really were pioneers, and energetic) activists) got due honour.
I'll try to follow it up.
Best wishes, Ted.
------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@wlandres.net Date: 23-Feb-2014 Time: 18:00:47 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------
On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 18:00:51 -0000 (GMT) (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@wlandres.net allegedly wrote:
Mick, that's a nice idea; but if I do it then I would wish to bring in also such of the other people then involved as can still be contacted. They could add their own reminiscences, and perhaps correct any errors of memory on my part! In any case I'd want to make sure that these others (who really were pioneers, and energetic) activists) got due honour.
I'll try to follow it up.
Ted
That would be good. I'm sure they would love to hear from you.
I will send you (off list) a copy pf the PDF of the article from the first issue.
Best
Mick ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Fascinating Ted, thanks for sharing.
Cheers, BJ
On 22 February 2014 21:23, Ted Harding Ted.Harding@wlandres.net wrote:
On 22-Feb-2014 14:19:40 mick wrote:
Ted
I have been reading my copy of (the first issue of) "Linux Voice". Page 17 of that magazine has an article about the founding of Sheffield LUG by Richard Ibbotson.
That article says:
"I remember back in the 1990s helping Manchester LUG to come into existence. Dr Owen Le Blanc, David Clarke, Dr Dave Gilbert, Professor Ted Harding and some other notables used to get together on Saturday afternoons to create the first LUG meeeting in the UK."
ISTR that you had a manchester.ac.uk email address before you used your own domain. So I assume said notable is you.
Care to tell us about it?
Best Mick
Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net
Hi Mick, Good memory! Happy to tell about it, though the story could get long!
My personal pathway is interesting. While working in the Statistical Laboratory (sub-Dept of the Pure Maths Dept) at Cambridge, prior to moving to Manchester in 1989-1990, I had taken on the admin of a UNIX system which the Dept wanted to install, following the lead of the Applied Maths Dept who already had one -- and in particular especially used it to prepare lecture notes, etc., which Pure Maths were envious of (all done using troff). This was installed in Pure Maths in 1984, and I initially learned how to administer it from the Applied Maths Computer Officer who (Robert Harding) was coincidentally my namesake.
The version of troff was an enhancement of AT&T's Documenter's Workbench by the firm SoftQuad, which they called sqtroff (and which our irreverent secretaries rapidly christened "squitroff").
Tha machine it was installed on had 1MB RAM and a 20MB hard drive, with a serial board on the back which had 24 ports on it, from which cables ran to people's offices around the Dept. Each office had a CRT teletype to communicate with the nachine.
With up to 6 or 7 logged on simultaneously, you would hardly notice that anyone else was there. With 8 or 9 logged on, you noticed it starting to limp; and above 10 or so it pretty well ground to a halt. But not bad for 1 MB RAM plus 20MB hard drive!
Getting to grips with looking after it taught me a lot about UNIX as a multi-user muilti-tasking system, and to appreciate its clean overall design (pipes and stuff ... ). Also, the printer was an Apple laser printer which worked with PostScript, which was also valuable education.
In the late 1980s, as well as the central UNIX system, we were also supplied with DOS desktop machines in our offices. Such a machine also had 1MB RAM and a 20MB hard drive -- and you can imagine the comparison between the performance of that compared with our UNIX machine!
I moved to Manchester University (UMIST) in 1989-1990 and stayed there till 2001. Being much involved with statistical consultancy there, as well as other academic work, I needed to produce many technical documents so needed my beloved troff. At about 1990, GNU troff was developed (by James Clark) and was available for DOS as well as UNIX. So that kept me going. By that time I had a DOS desktop with 4MB RAM and a 40MB hard drive, so was well aware that I should be able to comfortably run a UNIX system on it! (Compare the specs of that Cambridge UNIX machine).
But commercially available UNIX systems were very expensive: over £1,000 (in 1990 money) just for the basic OS, plus extra for any applications. So I gritted my teeth and plodded along with DOS.
Then -- Miracle! The Manchester Computing Centre issued a regular newsletter, and Issue 35, April 1992 (which I have preserved) carried an announcement by Owen Leblanc (UNIX admin at MCC, and file-system developer):
Free PC Unixes available There are now two free Unix operating systems available for PCs: Linux and 386BSD.
The description of Linux led me to see it as preferable to 386BSD (in particular being able to co-exist with DOS via dual-boot), so next day I was round there with a couple of boxes of floppies, onto which Owen helped me to copy Linux (kernel version 0.96) in a local version called MCC Linux, and gave me complete and detailed instructions about installing it alongside DOS.
So I took these back home, partitioned my 40MB hard drive to allow 20MB for Linux, and installed it. Then I booted up and, Lo and Behold, the magic "# " root prompt in the command line! I then installed myself as a user, and never looked back!
At that time there were few people (outside MCC) interested in UNIX/Linux, though some Depts were major UNIX users. The main interest in Linux was a small core of people: Owen Leblanc, David (Nobby) Clark, Ian Pallfreeman, John Heaton, and a few others (to whom I quickly made myself known).
After some months, Ian Pallfreeman contacted me about setting up a mailing list for people using Linux. After discussion with Ian and Owen, I urged that the purpose of this list should be to help people to get things done using Linux (because most who had their interest tickled by Linux would want to be able to transfer their work to Linux -- which would be a must if we were going to persuade people to switch from DOS etc.), and the list was duly established as "Linux-Users@mcc.ac.uk"; it was much less oriented towards matters to do with the operating system itself.
But then, shortly afterwards, as local interest in Linux grew, Nobby Clarke (bringing in Owen Leblanc, John Heaton and Ian Pallfreeman) took the initiative of setting up a "Linux Club" where people could get together and share all things Linux, chat and natter, and help each other.
This duly emerged as the Manchester Linux Users Group (ManLUG), and is reputedly the oldest LUG in the UK; so we've been going since 1993. Owen, John and Ian, being entirley within the University (which Nobby was not quite) organised the availability of a University meeting-room where we would get together on Saturday afternoons.
We also set up a mailing-list: man-lug@mcc.ac.uk; and I have been the list-owner for linux-users and man-lug ever since (so just over 20 years, now).
While the linux-users list was about getting things done using Linux, the prime purpose of man-lug was to do with the LUG itself; though it wasn't long before "using Linux" also became a major theme on the man-lug list!
There was much activity, and many pioneering discussions, on both lists; and this has continued over the years.
I don't recall that Richard Ibbotson (despite what he says) had much, if anything, to do with the setting up of ManLUG or Linux-Users; he did later set up the Sheffield LUG (sheflug), and was at some later ManLUG meetings; but I don't recall him being around at the time (1992-93) when we were starting it all up.
As a closing whimsy: Richard wisely called the Sheffield tgroup ShefLUG -- and not SLUG! However, the Glasgow Linuc Users Group have no qualms about being GLUG! (As one might expect ... ).
Best wishes to all (or sláinte, as they might say in Glasgow), Ted.
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@wlandres.net Date: 22-Feb-2014 Time: 21:23:49 This message was sent by XFMail
main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!
** Ted Harding Ted.Harding@wlandres.net [2014-02-22 22:50]:
On 22-Feb-2014 14:19:40 mick wrote:
Ted
I have been reading my copy of (the first issue of) "Linux Voice". Page 17 of that magazine has an article about the founding of Sheffield LUG by Richard Ibbotson.
That article says:
"I remember back in the 1990s helping Manchester LUG to come into existence. Dr Owen Le Blanc, David Clarke, Dr Dave Gilbert, Professor Ted Harding and some other notables used to get together on Saturday afternoons to create the first LUG meeeting in the UK."
ISTR that you had a manchester.ac.uk email address before you used your own domain. So I assume said notable is you.
Care to tell us about it?
Best Mick
Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net
Hi Mick, Good memory! Happy to tell about it, though the story could get long!
<snip>
Then -- Miracle! The Manchester Computing Centre issued a regular newsletter, and Issue 35, April 1992 (which I have preserved) carried an announcement by Owen Leblanc (UNIX admin at MCC, and file-system developer):
Free PC Unixes available There are now two free Unix operating systems available for PCs: Linux and 386BSD.
The description of Linux led me to see it as preferable to 386BSD (in particular being able to co-exist with DOS via dual-boot), so next day I was round there with a couple of boxes of floppies, onto which Owen helped me to copy Linux (kernel version 0.96) in a local version called MCC Linux, and gave me complete and detailed instructions about installing it alongside DOS.
So I took these back home, partitioned my 40MB hard drive to allow 20MB for Linux, and installed it. Then I booted up and, Lo and Behold, the magic "# " root prompt in the command line! I then installed myself as a user, and never looked back!
At that time there were few people (outside MCC) interested in UNIX/Linux, though some Depts were major UNIX users. The main interest in Linux was a small core of people: Owen Leblanc, David (Nobby) Clark, Ian Pallfreeman, John Heaton, and a few others (to whom I quickly made myself known).
<snip> ** end quote [Ted Harding]
Interesting timing, that's about the time I first started taking an interest in Linux, although I didn't fully realise how new it was at the time. I was working at IBM in Havant and had recently purchased an IBM L40 laptop to be my first toe in the watter of the PC world (at that time I was a devout Amiga user, even to the extent of producing IBM advertising material on it, but that's another story!). At IBM we had an internal global network form mail (it could exchange mail with external networks if you set up an address on the gateway to act as a go between - which I did enabling me to send emails to my mum at Hampshire County Council!), what were referred to at 'tools disks' (a sort of FTP server to some extent although they were VM based, and I downloaded a lot of software from them to use - OS/2, Fortran, Prolog, Word Perfect and all sorts of fun internal use only stuff), and internal forums.
One of these internal forums was about getting Linux running on the L40 laptop so I subscribed and followed all the talk of kernel patches to get the floppy disk drive working and other fun things. Sadly though, work dictated that I run a dual boot of DOS/Windows and OS/2 on my laptop (a tight squeeze on an 80M HD), so I never got the opportunity to really play with Linux at the time, just follow along the discussions. I say dictated, it was more a case of getting experience to progress my job prospects, and it worked since it resulted in getting moved into the IT department after a while of being a nuisance customer ;)
Following this list I made plans to get a copy of Linux from a local (Fareham) based company called Lasermoon. By the time I had spare hardware to play with that version of Linux was merging with a distribution called Caldera and working hard towards Posix compliance certification, so that combined with a copy turning up in PC World resulted in me starting with Caldera OpenLinux 1.1 a few years later. A friend having a spare copy of Red Hat 5.0 resulted in a switch of distro and then in 2000 during the worst of the 'RPM hell' years and the advent of RPM 7 and compatibility issues I switched to Debian and have never looked back.
I still look back and wish I'd had the spare cash to get another machine to try Linux on sooner. It was an interesting process downloading software off the tools disks to my VM account and then transferring them to my PC and then onto a floppy. I also wish I still had copies of the forum posts, they would be an interesting archive. I do still have archives on my local LUG after I stumbled across it in around '98, although I have yet to sort out getting them extracted from the backups of my Turnpike software (I was with Demon Internet back then).
Anyhoo, enough reminiscing, I need to get back to OpenVPN, Wordpress and Linux backups (not directly linked projects).
On 24/02/14 13:18, Paul Tansom wrote:
I still look back and wish I'd had the spare cash to get another machine to try Linux on sooner. It was an interesting process downloading software off the tools disks to my VM account and then transferring them to my PC and then onto a floppy. I also wish I still had copies of the forum posts, they would be an interesting archive. I do still have archives on my local LUG after I stumbled across it in around '98, although I have yet to sort out getting them extracted from the backups of my Turnpike software (I was with Demon Internet back then). Anyhoo, enough reminiscing, I need to get back to OpenVPN, Wordpress and Linux backups (not directly linked projects).
AFAIK Turnpike used the standard email mbox format data files. This should mean that they're really easy to import into some other system. I certainly imported mine into Thunderbird without any trouble, though I can't remember exactly how - probably because it was as trivial as Tools/Import or Drag & Drop a <file-manager> folder into a Thunderbird Folder.
Steve
** steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk [2014-02-25 10:29]:
On 24/02/14 13:18, Paul Tansom wrote:
I still look back and wish I'd had the spare cash to get another machine to try Linux on sooner. It was an interesting process downloading software off the tools disks to my VM account and then transferring them to my PC and then onto a floppy. I also wish I still had copies of the forum posts, they would be an interesting archive. I do still have archives on my local LUG after I stumbled across it in around '98, although I have yet to sort out getting them extracted from the backups of my Turnpike software (I was with Demon Internet back then). Anyhoo, enough reminiscing, I need to get back to OpenVPN, Wordpress and Linux backups (not directly linked projects).
AFAIK Turnpike used the standard email mbox format data files. This should mean that they're really easy to import into some other system. I certainly imported mine into Thunderbird without any trouble, though I can't remember exactly how - probably because it was as trivial as Tools/Import or Drag & Drop a <file-manager> folder into a Thunderbird Folder.
** end quote [steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk]
Yes I think it did, and I seem to remember importing my main mail into whichever client / server setup I was using at the time I migrated (although that may have been via an IMAP drag and drop as I've been using that setup since the mid 90s). Unfortunatly I used a feature within it that could turn a particular tag, sender or list (Turnpike was doing this sort of thing way before Google!) into a newsgroup (which it also handled), and I think the format used for that was different. I haven't really delved into it properly. I did ask about it on a newsgroup some time ago and got a reply - which has probably expired from the newsgroup cache by now! It's all down to time an priorities, and much like playing with my retro kit this never quite makes it to the top :(
On 26/02/14 13:14, Paul Tansom wrote:
Yes I think it did, and I seem to remember importing my main mail into whichever client / server setup I was using at the time I migrated (although that may have been via an IMAP drag and drop as I've been using that setup since the mid 90s). Unfortunatly I used a feature within it that could turn a particular tag, sender or list (Turnpike was doing this sort of thing way before Google!) into a newsgroup (which it also handled), and I think the format used for that was different. I haven't really delved into it properly. I did ask about it on a newsgroup some time ago and got a reply - which has probably expired from the newsgroup cache by now! It's all down to time an priorities, and much like playing with my retro kit this never quite makes it to the top :(
I'd hope that the information would all still be available via Google Groups!
For one day, when you get round to it....
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/demon.ip.support.turnpike
I think that newsgroup files and email files could easily have been in a different format, but, I would expect if it were showing emails like a newsgroup, it was still probably storing them as emails in mbox format, BICBW. There's always the "Suck it and See" approach to find out! :-)
Steve
** steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk [2014-02-26 14:24]:
On 26/02/14 13:14, Paul Tansom wrote:
Yes I think it did, and I seem to remember importing my main mail into whichever client / server setup I was using at the time I migrated (although that may have been via an IMAP drag and drop as I've been using that setup since the mid 90s). Unfortunatly I used a feature within it that could turn a particular tag, sender or list (Turnpike was doing this sort of thing way before Google!) into a newsgroup (which it also handled), and I think the format used for that was different. I haven't really delved into it properly. I did ask about it on a newsgroup some time ago and got a reply - which has probably expired from the newsgroup cache by now! It's all down to time an priorities, and much like playing with my retro kit this never quite makes it to the top :(
I'd hope that the information would all still be available via Google Groups!
For one day, when you get round to it....
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/demon.ip.support.turnpike
I think that newsgroup files and email files could easily have been in a different format, but, I would expect if it were showing emails like a newsgroup, it was still probably storing them as emails in mbox format, BICBW. There's always the "Suck it and See" approach to find out! :-)
** end quote [steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk]
I didn't manage to find it via the Google groups search, but a quick search on Google itself for "Paul Tansom Turnpike" found it on Narkive and then searching for the exact message subject on Google Groups gets me there:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/demon.ip.support.turnpike/$20Conv...
Now all I need to do is set up an install of Turnpike somewhere, restore my backup, drag and drop back to my inbox (likely one on an IMAP server). So where did I put my Turnpike installer and backups?!
Aha, found a copy of v6.07 and it seems that will install in a 32 bit version of Windows 7, so if I do it before I wipe my machine and reinstall both Windows and Linux with proper 64 bit versions it may save some hassle later - only snag is lack of space, about 100M on my Windows boot and all of 160M on my Linux one (this install has been through about motherboard upgrades without a reinstall so I have treated myself to nice new 2TB HD).
On 22/02/2014 21:23, (Ted Harding) wrote:
[SNIP]
Hi Mick, Good memory! Happy to tell about it, though the story could get long!
[SNIP]
Thanks Ted, that's an interesting story. Must've been fun to have been around Linux in those days. One thing...
[SNIP]
Free PC Unixes available There are now two free Unix operating systems available for PCs: Linux and 386BSD.
At that time, I was working for DEC in Brussels programming VAX Pascal on VMS. Myself and another bloke (sadly no longer with us) played around fairly seriously with Minix. I just checked Wikipedia and it seems that Minix came out in 1987, and V1.5 in 1991 had a major influence on Linus when he built Linux. I'm surprised Minix wasn't on your list. Maybe we got hold of it because we were at an American company with a world-wide network.
Having said that, Wikipedia has reminded me that Minix wasn't "free" (in any sense of the word), and I have a little bell clanging telling me that we (DEC) had a corporate licence of some kind. That would exclude it from a list of free PC Unixes!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINIX
On a side note, I have pretty well every email this list has ever had, and the first one was 7 April 1999, sent by Mark Ray. So, 15 years ago this year. Wow.
On another side note, apropos Paul Tansom's posting on this thread, my first serious foray into Linux was SuSE 5.1 in 1997. Like Paul, I was hit by the RPM hell of broken libraries and dependencies if one installed anything other than official packages. As we were running it as a commercial web-host this was a serious problem. We "found" Gentoo Linux in 2002, and I've stuck with it on CLI-based servers ever since. Sadly, it's falling in popularity, which is a shame because once understood, it's a great distro, albeit requiring quite a lot of attention with respect to updates.
Desktop? Linux Mint Cinnamon all the way.
Cheers, Laurie.
-
E. Fosbrooke-Brown -
John Woodard -
Laurie Brown -
mick -
Paul Tansom -
steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk -
Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net