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Ancient UNIX

Chesapeake, VA

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UUCP

9/15/2009 7:23 PM
Tom Manos photo

By Tom Manos

I've started the process of getting UUCP up and running again on a modem. The memory balks at the details, but it should come back to me with time.

Like many these days, I am not really interested in installing and paying for a second phone line, so my alternatives seem to be doing UUCP over TCP, or trying VOIP. Just because I think it will be more fun, and it sure will be more authentic, I'll first try VOIP. I ordered a Magicjack.

This thing provides unlimited local and long distance for $25 per year, and the quality is reported to be very good. You get a local number and a USB device to plug into a Windows or OS X system. Then you plug a phone (or modem) into the device and get to talking.

I'm not sure it will work, but I'm going to give it a try. Maybe at 2400bps or even 1200bps it will work. And that's all I need for low volume email and USENET.

Tom

RE: UUCP

1. 9/17/2009 7:35 PM
Tom Manos photo

By Tom Manos

The MagicJack came today and I have to say that this is one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.

I plugged it into my Intel MacBook, and after a minute it installed itself and I was making calls. It gave me a large set of choices for my local phone number and the quality is superb so far. I called a buddy and he couldn't tell I was on VOIP.

Now I need to try it on a modem instead of a phone. I'm hoping I can get 2400bps or better.

RE: UUCP

2. 10/18/2009 7:03 PM
Tom Manos photo

By Tom Manos

I mentioned a while back that I wanted to try UUCP again after all these years. I've got an old system running System V UNIX and a modem, but I didn't want to use my real phone line (kids are on it all the time). I also didn't want to buy another line.

So I bought a MagicJack, thinking maybe I could get it to work with a modem, although conventional wisdom said no way.

I think I already said in another post that the MagicJack is a really cool product: for $20 a year I get unlimited local and long distance, and the quality so far after a month or so has been terrific.

So tonight I finally got around to trying it with a modem. I hooked it up to a windows box with TerraTerm Pro, did some web searching for a working dialup BBS, and tried it with a couple that I found.

I didn't expect it to work, but it sure did - at 9600bps. I was figuring the network lag from the VOIP connection would get the modem all fouled up, but it worked reasonably well. I bet it works even better at 2400bps.

So the next step is to configure a serial port on the UNIX system and get a dialup connection working. After that, I want to try UUCP with someone else out there.

Is anyone interested?

Outgoing Modem Works

3. 10/18/2009 10:18 PM
Tom Manos photo

By Tom Manos

I hooked up a Sportster to tty01 and edited an ACU entry in /etc/uucp/Devices, and lo and behold, I am able to dial out on the MagicJack. I tried ot for only a few minutes, and it reliably dials out using cu. I was not able to get pcomm running, I think because it is installed with the wrong owner and permissions.

Next I need to set up a uugetty on tty01 and see if I can manage a dialin connection from my regular home phone to the MagicJack. That will be the beginning of my trial of UUCP and USENET.

I'm still looking for someone to trade UUCP email and USENET with!

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