[ih] FTP RIP

[Jack Haverty]

Unfortunately, my Dectapes weren't stored very well, and succumbed to
decades of summer attic heat and winter below-zero abuse.   They
eventually became brittle and crumbled.  The plastic cases were
surprisingly robust; the tape itself not so much.

I also have a request in to MIT for whatever they can find of my ancient
ITS work.  I just got back a response that my request has been "closed"
with no action, but that "we are working on our procedure for this
collection and hope to have it in place soon."

So I have to now create an account and re-submit my request.  Best to
wait a bit for "soon" to pass I guess.

Yes, there were a lot of mailing lists, as well as a lot of interaction
among small groups of people not using any formal list at all.

If you're a packrat, Lars is the premier Internet Dumpster Diver.  It
will be interesting to see those first two archives.

/Jack


On 10/1/20 11:28 AM, Noel Chiappa via Internet-history wrote:
>     > From: Jack Haverty
>
>     > I lost my own packrat stash when I failed to find a way to move info
>     > from Dectapes to a more modern medium.
>
> Oh, you didn't pitch them, did you? There are a couple of people in the
> classic computer community who have working DECTape drives. (I have a TU56
> and TC11 controller, but don't have them working yet.) So if you still
> have them they could be read. Ditto for RK packs, etc, etc.
>
>     > the message archives Noel has saved for almost 50 years.
>
> Err, I didn't save them for the whole 50 years! About 10 years ago, I noticed
> that stuff that _used_ to be available on the Web had started to disappear.
>
> (There was one particular list archive which the person hosting it had taken
> down because they had developed an objection to it. I can't remember which
> list it was now; it was something from the early commercialization of the
> Internet. Maybe something about email?)
>
> So I went out and scarfed up all the archives I could find for lists which I
> remembered as early and important, and which seemed to me to be in danger of
> going offline. (As in, hosted by individuals, not institutions.) The Internet
> Archive was, IIRC, a big help; I had old URLs for some things which weren't
> up anymore, but the IA came through.
>
> A lot has gone, though, sigh; e.g. the DARPA Internet group had a list, one
> whose archives would be invaluable to historians of technology, but I think
> they are gone (although if institutions still have backup tapes from that
> era, perhaps they could be recovered).
>
> Speaking of which, Lars has found a copy of the two earliest Hearer-Prople
> archives (the ones I'm missing) on ITS backup tapes at the MIT Archives, and
> I'll be working on getting them released so they can be put up. Thanks, Lars!
>
> 	Noel