Can you download it to me – in an envelope with a stamp?

I was only trying to collect a package from the counter. No, officer, I don't know why the post office is littered with broken glass. And teeth. Yes, officer, it might help if I start from the beginning. Let's have a look back on how it all started... … a look back… look back… back… [SFX: rippling video, sweeping of harp …

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not so many years ago...

Even in the late 90's the budget used to be put on a CD and bike couriered up to Pipex/UUNet where it was uploaded to the website - was a lot faster than data transfer.

[Anthidote]

Re: Not so many years ago...

RFC 1149 - IP over avian carrie

Submitted to the IETF in 1990

If you attempt this please follow the industry standard :D

[Tom 7]

Linux.

Sorry but there were a million better ways to move files safely on low speed connections pretty much from day 1 of you had a Linux. With 9600 baud you could rule the world!

Post is only for powders.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Linux.

Whaaat? In 1994? Downvote deserved. If you would have suggested "split in small chunks and include a .BAT file which does copy /b part1+part2+part3 fullfile" okay, but just throwing "Linux" in the room in 1994 is nonsense. Look at that time graph, it wasn't even at kernel 1.2 back then... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel#Releases_before_2.6.0

EDIT: Even worse: It was 1993 (my bad), and Linux Kernel wasn't even at Version 1.0 yet...

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: Linux.

> Even worse: It was 1993 (my bad), and Linux Kernel wasn't even at Version 1.0 yet...

IIRC my start with Linux was at some 0.9x version of the kernel. Worked well enough, you just needed to avoid some non-supported hardware.

Anyway, beer for Dabbsy. Welcome back!

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Linux.

"Anyway, beer for Dabbsy. Welcome back!"

He's been back for months. But it took this long for the courier to turn up with the article on floppy disk from the sticks.

[J.G.Harston]

Re: Linux.

Even Grandfather Unix had split-file stuff before 1993. I remember emails with that would start with lines something like cat >filename <<'+E+O+F'

[englishr]

Re: Linux.

I remember downloading Slackware 1.0 (kernel 0.98) in August 1993, packaged as 24 x 1.44mb floppy disk images, using a 2400 baud modem. Once I had it installed, and with a custom compiled kernel (took 6 hours to compile!) it was absolutely brilliant :-)

[harmjschoonhoven]

Re: Linux.

In 1991 I had to transfer text and binary files over an (fast) ASCII-only connection to IBM AIX for the development of the https://9292.nl/ service which was launched in 1992. I converted the files to hex, 32 byte/line, but left the printable characters (except space) unchanged preceded by a minussign. That way the converted file was still kind of readable.

--> icon, because of AIX's ksh.

[J.G.Harston]

Re: Linux.

I had to do similar back in HK to be able to transfer binary files via email, I used GSTrans to encode them so they ended up looking like filename|mL|b|@|@DOC|A

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Linux.

Why hex? AIX, like every UNIX variant by that time, had uuencode, which is a radix-64 encoding (like PEM's now-ubiquitous Base64). It adds some overhead and metadata, but it's considerably more compact than hex. And implementing it is pretty trivial.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Linux.

I was going to suggest that the obvious method for error free, restartable file transfers back in '93 would have been to use Kermit. But on reflection, it was probably deemed 'too old-fashioned' even then.

(Ironic, isn't it, that the only thing in IT that doesn't become old and out-of-date is the belief that something old can't possibly do the job?)

[Stoneshop]

Re: Linux.

I was going to suggest that the obvious method for error free, restartable file transfers back in '93 would have been to use Kermit.

I'm quite sure that ZModem could deal with interrupted file transfers, though that might have been a later protocol extension or some external add-on. It definitely was pretty capable of dealing with hokey connections by adjusting packet sizes as needed, so when the error rate went up the packet size decrease and vice versa.

[Charles 9]

Re: Linux.

I was definitely using it back in '91 when an 80486 was the hottest thing out there, and I was lucky to have a 14.4 modem and a line clean enough to actually use it. ZMODEM was the goto protocol then because it had three key features: batch transfer (can set up to transfer a group of files in one go), resume (in case the transfer or even the connection dropped out partway), and adjustable packet sizes (from as low as the XMODEM standard of 128B to the YMODEM standard of 1KB, and in between if necessary to balance between data integrity and transfer efficiency). A little later, a competing system called HSLink made the rounds as well with similar features.

[Charles 9]

Re: Linux.

One other thing it had as well: a distinct beginning signature, which good terminal programs could pick up to automatically start downloading. HSLink turned out to have a similar signature, allowing it to also be auto-starting.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Linux.

ZModem could deal with interrupted file transfers, though that might have been a later protocol

Well - I was using it in the mid-80s on my BBC model B so it was certainly around then..

(I spent many happy days inflating my parents phone bill using my trusty 300/15? non-autodial model to connect to Almac..Up until my parents had to pay said bill - at which point my online time drastically reduced)

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Linux.

Downvote deserved

Indeed. Even on poor, benighted DOS you could still use zmodem - which supported resuming a dropped connection..

(I remember writing a batch file that looped - if the zmodem transfer completed then it dropped out of the loop. If it failed then it restarted the tranfer using the resume option)

[Andy Non]

French telecoms

Brings back memories. Only a few years ago when we lived in rural France I was limited to using dial-up internet at 1200 baud rate. Upon moving to the property the estate agent assured us that big infrastructure improvements were imminent and I'd have broadband within months. Ten years later when we left there was still no broadband. While the UK was arguing about the latest broadband speeds I was still mailing out software via CDs. Tried to get French Telecom to do something about the poor state of the telephone line but because it still "worked" they didn't want to know; despite explaining that the line was hanging off the telegraph poles in a nearby field and the cows were using it as a skipping rope.

[Diogenes]

Re: French telecoms

Mrs D's aunt was born in The Netherlands and moved to Australia as a teen. Thirty something years ago she married a Commander in US Navy and he got a posting to somewhere in Belgium that was very close to the Dutch border, so they decided to rent a place in Holland as Aunt, lets call her Helen, could at least understand , if not speak fluently.

Aunt Helen goes to get the phone connected, the house a phone, and it has dial tone, but you cant ring in or out (here it used to be called soft dial tone, and all it takes is a SULII command to the exchange to put the line in service) fills out paperwork that for some reason the form asks for his work address, which is in Belgium, as Aunt Helen describes it, "it as if i had asked the dutch govt to go to war with Belgium", and somehow the US and Australian Embassies need to be involved as well. Uncle , lets call him John, posting was for 2 years, and when it finished they went back to the States, They had been at Alameida for 6 months, when they got a letter from the dutch telco , stating they needed to be home on day x as the technician needed to plug the phone in as their service was about to be connected.

[A.P. Veening]

Re: French telecoms

Make that at least 50 something years ago, by 1989 the Dutch PTT was pretty quick with connecting phones. Except for that minor detail, I can believe it.

[Stoneshop]

Re: French telecoms

Nah. In 1988 I did have a phone line (with a very fancy clear plastic T65 on it), and wanted to have tone dialling enabled so that I could use a second phone that I had just purchased in Denmark (lines were pulse dialling only by default). They wanted to see my telephone and test it, even despite it being a model that was electronically identical to one they were selling themselves, just styled differently.

Also around that time someone in the uncharted backwaters of Twente someone called in to a lunchtime radio program complaining that they never managed to get in to radio phone-in games because their exchange was still pulse-dial only, and from the connection quality apparently relying on barbed wire fencing doing double duty.

[Grikath]

Re: French telecoms

Methinks auntie forgot that when you're married to a military commander of a furrin' nation with a posting in foreign country A, it's generally a Bad Idea to have your home adress in foreign country B without prior arrangement.

Something about secure lines, borders/jurisdictions ( this is when europe still had Borders...) , and the hoops telecom companies have to jump through to arrange stuff like that. I'm not surprised embassies got involved.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: French telecoms

I saw precisely that on a very expensive north suburb of Madrid (Spain).

Telefonica would not upgrade the cabinet.. it was a bit too small, plagued by corrosion, etc, DSL connections dropped, etc etc.

Somebody, in the middle of the night, decided to torch it!

My then girlfriend started having decent internet, as they had to put a new one.

Note: it wasn´t me, anon in any case.

[9Rune5]

Re: French telecoms

and the cows were using it as a skipping rope.

Any chance that, with some training, you could use the jumping cows to control the modulation?

[macjules]

Le catch 22

Non, non, they insist: it is not possible to let me rent a mailbox unless I have a fixed address.

Mais si, si, I plead: if I had a fixed address, I wouldn't need to rent the mailbox.

Nowadays known as "une situation sans issue"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing much has changed since 1993...

French postal workers, or for that matter, most french public workers, still behave the same way today....

[Andy Non]

Re: Nothing much has changed since 1993...

On one occasion I found a note in our mail box stating that there was a parcel for me, but that I wasn't in so it would be available for me to collect after 3pm (or some such instruction) from the local la poste. We were actually in at the time, but the postie couldn't be bothered to walk up our drive.

I popped into the post office in the afternoon with the card and presented it to the postal counter worker. She sighed, frowning, and said I needed to come back after 3pm pointing to the time on the card. I pointed to my parcel which was on the top of small pile of parcels a mere three feet behind her "C'est la!" Our address shouting out at me in large letters.

Reluctantly she made the colossal effort of turning around and passing me the parcel. No wonder French public workers have such a poor reputation.

[Mooseman]

Re: Nothing much has changed since 1993...

It's not limited to the French by any means - I've had numerous " we tried to deliver your package but you were out" messages left (when we were in; on one occasion I actually watched the delivery driver stop his van, wander aimlessly up to my letter box and shove the card through from my living room window. He could probably see me) from couriers in England.

Or FedEx who will helpfully leave a card with a reference number on it but no indication of what they were allegedly trying to deliver.

Other couriers have left quite expensive items "in secure porch". I don't have a secure porch, I have a step leading from my path to my front door. Other items have been left in what is presumably my secure rubbish bin, or on one splendid occasion with a hapless neighbour - I got their delivery and mine was...somewhere. It eventually turned up when I did a good turn and mowed their front lawn, discovering a mouldering package half buried in under a pile of rotting vegetation.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Nothing much has changed since 1993...

"Other couriers have left quite expensive items "in secure porch". I don't have a secure porch, "

And even if you did have a porch, it's not secure if some random courier deliver drone has access to it then so does every Tom, Dick and Harry who is passing.

[Anonymous Custard]

4-wheeled carrier pigeons?

To quote Andrew Tanenbaum (who himself was paraphrasing Warren Jackson):

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway."

[Oengus]

Re: 4-wheeled carrier pigeons?

I remember that quote from my uni days. In the Data comms subject we were asked to calculate the bandwidth of a number of scenarios including copying a large amount of data to tape and transporting them to the other site and loading them from tape. Not only did we have to take into consideration the time but also the cost. It was amazing how cost effective the lorry of tapes was as opposed to the data comms capability of the day.

[Ken Shabby]

Re: 4-wheeled carrier pigeons?

For us it was a St Bernard and floppy discs, bonus prize you get a free potion.

[baud]

> sheer emptiness of the room and utter absence of other customers

I don't believe I've ever seen an empty post office in France, between the very short opening time and the number of services offered, there's always between an handful and a dozen of people queueing.

[Robert Carnegie]

And expostulating, but of course. :-)

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Getting angry can cost a fortune in clothes

It is probably better to go all Thor and turn clerks like that into Coca-cola machines.

I'll get me coat. The one with "The Long Dark teatime of the Soul" in the pocket please

[Dr_N]

Point Relais

If I don't want stuff rammed into my letterbox I ask for it to be delivered to the newsagents in the village or the travel agency in my apartment block.

Both of which do a sideline in recieving deliveries these days.

Get with the programme Mr Dabbs.

[DontFeedTheTrolls]

Re: Point Relais

"sideline in receiving deliveries these days"

Whatever you do, do not let the Daily Mail know there's a way to "receive deliveries" as a sideline. Who knows what could be being delivered, and just think of the children!!!

[Semtex451]

Pettit beaurocrat

is in french for a reason

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: Pettit beaurocrat

Petty bureaucrats, the German post/telecom had them before privatization. As much as I usually curse privatization, it really helped with that.

Icon for those vicious small minded sadistic bastards.

[baud]

Re: Pettit beaurocrat

Huh in French it's petit bureaucrat

[TimR]

Brilliant - welcome back Mr Dabbs

[Caver_Dave]

Deliberately obnoxious

In 1992 (the last time I went into a French Post Office) I was in the rural village of Autrans and wanted to send a postcard home to my family. In my very best French I asked for "un timbre pour l'angleterre". Much scratching of the Post Master's head ensued and laughing when I tried again. Eventually the he called his daughter out of the back room to deal with this crazy English and they both kept laughing at me. Probably only 5 minutes after I arrived (although it felt much longer) another customer came into the Post Office and immediately the Post Master took my cash and provided the stamp. I think that they were just taking the P155, but I can't be sure because I don't speak foreign languages with any proficiency (although I do try to at least start the conversation in the native tongue).

On the same trip, during a day long search for diesel to get the expedition minibus home to the UK (a strike had been taking place for a few days, most garages were shut and I eventually found some in the seedy back streets of Grenoble) I passed a cinema that had a Union Flag and English film title outside and so I returned when I had eventually purchased the diesel. I was the only person in the cinema and noticed my folly when the film started - in Welsh!

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Deliberately obnoxious

I remember watching the first Lord of the Rings film when I lived in Brussels. They don't dub much other than children's films - and have screenings with or without subtitles (french and flemish) - given the high language skills of the locals.

Which was all well and good until people started speaking elvish and orc - of which there's quite a lot in that film. And I found myself in the unexpected and somewhat odd situation of having to translate the subtitles - which just felt utterly wrong.

I struggle to read film subtitles at the best of times, because they often move off screen so fast - and that's even worse when they're in foreign...

[Kubla Cant]

Re: Deliberately obnoxious

Long ago I watched a very funny English-language comedy film in Oslo. It was subtitled, and because most people can read faster than talk, the punchline of every joke was inaudible because the audience had already started to laugh.

[Rich 11]

Re: Deliberately obnoxious

Sitting in a hotel room in Moscow one evening, waiting for the bar to open, I put the telly on and tried to find a news channel (I only know a few words of Russian but it might have been enough to catch the headlines on international stories). During my channel-hopping I came across an episode of Porridge, dubbed into what I think was Romanian and then subtitled in Russian. I spent a happy 20 minutes trying to work out what the Russian-via-Romanian equivalent of 'Naff off!' was.

[matthewdjb]

Re: Deliberately obnoxious

I watch LOTR in a Swiss cinema. French and German subtitles generally, but when Elvish was spoken, up popped English subtitles.

[Rich 11]

Re: Deliberately obnoxious

Tolkien didn't turn in his grave.

[Precordial thump]

Re: Deliberately obnoxious

Surprised the other dialogue didn't have Elvish subtitles in Tengwar...

[Jay 2]

Re: Deliberately obnoxious

Reminds me of a school ski trip to France many years ago. A snippet of the conversation went like so (please excuse my bad attempt at writing French, can't be bothered to look it up):

My friend (in best French he could muster): Tois timbres pour Angleterre s'il vous plait

French post bloke: Three stamps then?

[Andy Non]

Re: Deliberately obnoxious

I've had many conversations like that in France; me speaking French and the French person speaking English. They liked to practice their English as much as I liked to practice my French. Many younger or professional people have a good grasp of English. I always took the view that French was obligatory for me to learn and speak while living there. From day 1 we watched French TV and that was a great help.

One thing made me smile. There were so many Brits moving to France and not learning the language that the French started an initiative offering free French lessons. You had to phone a specific number to arrange to attend the lessons. There was only one catch. The person on the other end of the phone only understood/spoke French. A typically French bureaucratic catch-22 situation.