I found the depraved rantings of a psychotic on ONLamp strangely compelling. I mean, can this insanity be real? Can UUCP be the solution for mobile email? What’s next, Gopher based RSS readers? I love retro protocols, but finding a well reasoned article explaining their current usefulness is too much.
Some of the benefits (a twofold, really): It supports automatic resume, so if your connection dies you can pick up where you left off and you only need one port for sending and receiving.
Maybe I’ll add this to my mobile arsenal, along with an IP over DNS setup. Why the second? Because most for-pay wireless and wired internet access services (like those in coffee houses, hotels, etc) still allow DNS queries. If you can tunnel your internet traffic through DNS, you can get free Internet access. Whether you should is left up to your own ethical compass.
Then again, I won’t need to work on the mobile arsenal until I start leaving my apartment.
5 responses to “UUCP in 2003… err… 2004”
Currently at work I’m programming a pair of modems to talk 9600 baud over a Tx line in order to off-load weather data to a web server in 15 minute intervals. (long distance)
I’m programming the modems in raw Hayes Set with minicom.
So guess what the best program for scripting the connection and data collection?
Trusty, rusty kermit.
Of course the solution includes perl,php, and mysql but who knew I’d be using kermit in 2004.
Whoah. Kermit and UUCP in an article and a comment. The two of you should get KA9Q, SLIP, and Xmodem together and have reunion!
I’m feeling nostalgic now; I think I’m going to fire up my 8088 w/CGA graphics card and use my 2400bps to dial up a Renegade BBS and bathe in the glow of ANSI graphics…
Yeah, as I read the minicom comment above, I was thinking “kermit”. I always use kermit in preference to minicom to speak serial to devices, because it just feels more like I am in control of what’s happening. It probably just boils down to my preference for command-line interfaces. I like “set baud 9600” better than “Control-A, o [look at menu] [down][down] [look at new menu] e”.
However, it seems to me that using UUCP for this mission would probably simplify the scripting requirements. No need to script the dialing and transfer of files, because UUCP takes care of all that. Just build a script on the remote end and then “uux remotehost!loaddata
Build the script on the remote end of what Sean? There’s no computer on the data-logger side my friend! There’s be no reason to run at 9600 then!
I’m now waiting on a propriatary cable from the logger manufacterer. ho hum.
Maybe I can still remember my Renegade ops codez and play some pimp wars.
Pimp Wars… Ah ,yes. I still have Dope Wars on my linux box, and I wasted way to much time playing Trade Wars and Arena. Of course, thats when I was the cool kid on the block because I saved my money to by a 2400bps modem.