uccxmgm@unx2.ucc.okstate.edu (Martin McCormick) (05/14/91)
Is there a gateway between the Internet and "Compuserve?" I would like to be able to down-load some files from a Compuserve site. Thank you. Martin McCormick Amateur Radio WB5AGZ Oklahoma State University Computer Center Data Communications Group Stillwater, OK
karl.kleinpaste@osc.edu (05/15/91)
uccxmgm@unx2.ucc.okstate.edu writes:
Is there a gateway between the Internet and "Compuserve?" I would like
to be able to down-load some files from a Compuserve site.
The only connection to CompuServe is for email passage. You can't get
at CompuServe's libraries through it. They require you to login to
their systems as a known subscriber who can be billed in order to get
at such stuff.
--karljoshua@Spies.COM (Joshua Geller) (05/15/91)
In article <1991May14.174227.29625@oar.net> karl.kleinpaste@osc.edu writes: |>uccxmgm@unx2.ucc.okstate.edu writes: |> Is there a gateway between the Internet and "Compuserve?" I would like |> to be able to down-load some files from a Compuserve site. |>The only connection to CompuServe is for email passage. You can't get |>at CompuServe's libraries through it. They require you to login to |>their systems as a known subscriber who can be billed in order to get |>at such stuff. And their mail is semi-frequently hosed. For the amount of money they charge their subscribers, it does not seem to me that said subscribers get incredibly good service. |> |>--karl josh
Walter_William_Kemmerer@cup.portal.com (05/15/91)
There is a email gateway between the Internet and Compuserve. In order to use it to transfer files from compuserve, you'd need to be able to get the files into a format that compuserve's email handler can access. If you are moving files from a personal file area there's no problem. If OTOH you're transferring data from a clipping service like ENS, go & send them to yourself (this assumes you've got a compuserve id), and then remail them out the gateway. If you're trying to send forum files, I don't see an easy way you can get 'em to a point that they can be emailed (other than uploading into a PC and downloading into mail - yecch!) Anyway, the format to mail from Compuserve's email to the Internet is to use the To: address ">INTERNET: usrid@location". Actually, old style "!" addresses work, too, for the UUCP crowd. Hope that answered your question. If not, please follow up - "we're always open!" :-) Cheers, Walt Kemmerer WWKIII@MCIMAIL.COM
karl.kleinpaste@osc.edu (05/15/91)
joshua@Spies.COM writes: |>The only connection to CompuServe is for email passage. And their mail is semi-frequently hosed. For the amount of money they charge their subscribers, it does not seem to me that said subscribers get incredibly good service. [adjusting mailer-daemon cap. (Yes, I really have such a thing, a weird blue-and-purple hat with horns on it that Elizabeth Zwicky crocheted for me a couple of years back. It makes me fit the part.)] Consider that the situation is the following... 1. The link to CServe is a 9600bps modem and a poor protocol. 2. The link is passing almost 2 orders of magnitude more traffic per day than was ever anticipated. That'll teach us... 3. The queue which builds up during the nominal working day now finally manages to clear around 4am EST the next morning...just in time for the Europeans using it to start generating the next day's blortful. 4. There are CServe users who are requesting large(!) things from places like bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu. That MBASes like bitftp are tolerated at all in non-load-sensitive incantations is a mystery to me. 5. When the backlog gets too great, the load on the MX hosts too high, and the discs there too full, we have to shut down the mailers while we try to get things to clear somehow. (We do _not_ shut down the mailers for "days at a time," as a rumor I heard described it.) 6. When things go completely insane, as they did about 2 weeks ago, we ultimately boot up SneakerNet and deliver, oh, about 8000 messages to CServe via magtape. Probably closer to 12000 this last time, actually. 7. The support for the link on the Internet side is strictly volunteer. 8. CServe is taking steps to move the gateway entirely in-house, so as not to depend on volunteer assistance, and to gain the advantages of higher link speeds and possibly faster protocols. I've been contracted to help with the software conversion and assist CServe people in some of the questions of maintaining an IP connection. They have chosen a commercial IP provider, and the lines are (or should be) ordered. In the meantime, the current house of toothpicks is occasionally blown over and we have to go whittle a new set to build it up again. Just a little patience, we'll get there. And apologies for the occasionally degraded/delayed service in the meantime. --karl kleinpaste Personification of the Internet (Light) Side of the Schizoid CompuServe Mailer Daemon (and the CompuServe (Dark) Side is itself schizoid-split as well, imagine that) PS- No, emphatically, general IP (telnet) access into CompuServe is _not_ part of the game plan.
eckert@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Toerless Eckert) (05/17/91)
From article <1991May15.143317.4297@oar.net>, by karl.kleinpaste@osc.edu: > > PS- No, emphatically, general IP (telnet) access into CompuServe is > _not_ part of the game plan. How did you guess people could be interested in this, and so why isn't compuserv interested in this - we do have a commercial internet by now too, don't we ? --- Toerless.Eckert@informatik.uni-erlangen.de /C=de/A=dbp/P=uni-erlangen/OU=informatik/S=Eckert/G=Toerless bandwidth - the final frontier.
karl.kleinpaste@osc.edu (05/17/91)
eckert@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de writes: > PS- No, emphatically, general IP (telnet) access into CompuServe is > _not_ part of the game plan. How did you guess people could be interested in this, No guessing involved; the two most common questions I get about CServe are "how do I address a subscriber" and "can I telnet there?" and so why isn't compuserv interested in this I don't know. For one thing, though, their hosts don't speak IP.
bill@TUATARA.UOFS.EDU (Bill Gunshannon) (05/20/91)
> and so why isn't compuserv interested in this > > I don't know. For one thing, though, their hosts don't speak IP. Unless things have changed drastically since the last article I read about Compuserve, they are running PRIME Mini's. They most assuredly can speak IP. And if the interest was there, there is always the milking-machine approach with terminal servers. I would imagine the reasons are more political/philosophical than technical. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | If this statement wasn't here, bill@platypus.uofs.edu | This space would be left intentionally blank bill@tuatara.uofs.edu | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
sam@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (Sam Neely) (05/21/91)
In article <9105201208.AA22490@tuatara.uofs.edu> bill@TUATARA.UOFS.EDU (Bill Gunshannon) writes: > > >> and so why isn't compuserv interested in this >> >> I don't know. For one thing, though, their hosts don't speak IP. > >Unless things have changed drastically since the last article I read about >Compuserve, they are running PRIME Mini's. Actually, CompuServe uses Dec-10 based technology running a variant of TOPS-10. > And if the interest was there, there is always the milking-machine >approach with terminal servers. I would imagine the reasons are more >political/philosophical than technical. At this point, you run into the NSFnet acceptable use policy which states "Thou shalt not use the NSFnet for commercial use." CompuServe would have to block most sites. - Sam
lars@spectrum.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) (05/21/91)
- on the burning question: Why isn't Compu$erve on the Internet ? In article <123603@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> sam@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (Sam Neely) writes: >At this point, you run into the NSFnet acceptable use policy which >states "Thou shalt not use the NSFnet for commercial use." CompuServe >would have to block most sites. If CompuServe were to hook up to a commercial IP network vendor, they would have done THEIR part of the deal. Academic users would be presumed to be using CIS fro academic purposes, and if their use was not academic, they surely would not be doing it on NSFnet in the first place ? -- / Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer CMC Rockwell lars@CMC.COM
bill@TUATARA.UOFS.EDU (Bill Gunshannon) (05/21/91)
> > And if the interest was there, there is always the milking-machine > >approach with terminal servers. I would imagine the reasons are more > >political/philosophical than technical. > > At this point, you run into the NSFnet acceptable use policy which > states "Thou shalt not use the NSFnet for commercial use." CompuServe > would have to block most sites. 1. There are commercial INTERNET providers that Compuserve could hook up to. 2. It is not Compuserve's responsibility to police the NSFnet. It is up to the users to ensure that their traffic meets Acceptable Use Policy. It might even make the commercial INTERNET providers look more attractive if one of them could lure Compuserve into the fold. But, I stand by what I said above, it isn't a technical problem. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | If this statement wasn't here, bill@platypus.uofs.edu | This space would be left intentionally blank bill@tuatara.uofs.edu | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
karl.kleinpaste@osc.edu (05/21/91)
[This begins to encroach on territory that
rightly belongs to com-priv@psi.com...]
lars@spectrum.cmc.com writes:
- on the burning question: Why isn't Compu$erve on the Internet ?
Because they haven't got a clue? :-)
If CompuServe were to hook up to a commercial IP network vendor, they
would have done THEIR part of the deal.
Perhaps true. But (picking an example out of the air here; no slurs
against corporate entities implied) when {HP,DEC,Sun,ATT <pick one>}
employees start accessing CompuServe's graphics forums for image
downloading via their NSFNet-affiliated network connection, who gets
the blame? Past indications are that placement of materials which are
"unsuitable" to the Internet must be removed by the provider of the
materials; cf. complaints about certain GIF collections. (Hm. I
almost begin to wonder if there's a connection between CompuServe's
non-presence on the Internet and the fact that the GIF graphics format
is a CompuServe creation, specifically a guy by the name of Steve
Wilhite. Nah, it's too improbable...)
Academic users would be presumed to be using CIS fro academic purposes,
Would they? The presumption in the cases of GIF collections seems to
be guilty-until-proven-innocent. Not that this has stopped Usenet's
alt.sex.pictures from succeeding, of course.
and if their use was not academic,
they surely would not be doing it on NSFnet in the first place ?
I don't mean to offend, but that strikes me as naive.
Just for starters, it would be interesting to me to know how many
connections to CompuServe via...
NSFNet -> Merit -> hermes.merit.edu -> Telenet -> CompuServe
are really legit. I wonder about all kinds of things regarding that
access point; "appropriate use" stipulations notwithstanding, Telenet
and CompuServe both _must_ be making a handy profit, directly, by such
connections. No fuzziness with "indirect" or "incidental" profit
here, just raw bitpipe connectivity, for a price. I can't use it in
the first place, myself; my account at CompuServe is free for obvious
reasons, so they don't let me get in via Telenet.
From: bill@tuatara.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon)
Date: 21 May 91 11:59:31 GMT
1. There are commercial INTERNET providers that Compuserve could hook up to.
They are doing so, for the mail gateway. Alternet is the IP supplier.
2. It is not Compuserve's responsibility to police the NSFnet. It is
up to the users to ensure that their traffic meets Acceptable Use Policy.
That's empirically disprovable, see above; the NSFNet would police CompuServe.
But, I stand by what I said above, it isn't a technical problem.
Yes, you're entirely correct, it's a political problem. That's why
this is really no longer an issue for tcp-ip, and hasn't been for at
least the last 3 or 4 notes in the thread; note Reply-To: and
Followup-To: (the latter will confuse your news interface, no doubt).
--karlgary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston) (05/21/91)
In article <1991May17.131622.16043@oar.net> karl.kleinpaste@osc.edu writes: >eckert@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de writes: > How did you guess people could be interested in this, >No guessing involved; the two most common questions I get about CServe >are "how do I address a subscriber" and "can I telnet there?" > and so why isn't compuserv interested in this >I don't know. For one thing, though, their hosts don't speak IP. Compuserve likes to bill for the use of their systems; billing people who telnet in would be very difficult. They do very little for "free"; I use quotes since the things that CIS doesn't directly bill for, you are still paying TYMNET or long distance charges for. If CIS could see money in telnet/ftp connections, it'd already be done. -- Gary Heston System Mismanager and technoflunky uunet!sci34hub!gary or My opinions, not theirs. SCI Systems, Inc. gary@sci34hub.sci.com I support drug testing. I believe every public official should be given a shot of sodium pentathol and ask "Which laws have you broken this week?".
bill@pyrite.nj.pyramid.com (Bill Pechter) (05/22/91)
In article <9105201208.AA22490@tuatara.uofs.edu> bill@TUATARA.UOFS.EDU (Bill Gunshannon) writes: > >Unless things have changed drastically since the last article I read about >Compuserve, they are running PRIME Mini's. Nah, they're running DEC KL10's which run a modified TOPS10. The Source, purchased by Compuserve, ran Prime minis. Delphi ran VAX's with VMS... Anyone know what Genie runs? Bill -- Bill Pechter | "The postmaster always pings twice." Pyramid Technology | bill@pyrite.nj.pyramid.com 10 Woodbridge Center Drive | rutgers!pyrnj!pyrite!bill Woodbridge, NJ 07095 (908)602-6308 | pyramid!pyrnj!pyrite!bill
sl@wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne) (05/22/91)
In article <9105211159.AA23740@tuatara.uofs.edu> bill@TUATARA.UOFS.EDU (Bill Gunshannon) writes: > >1. There are commercial INTERNET providers that Compuserve could hook up to. >2. It is not Compuserve's responsibility to police the NSFnet. It is up to > the users to ensure that their traffic meets Acceptable Use Policy. > >It might even make the commercial INTERNET providers look more attractive if >one of them could lure Compuserve into the fold. But, I stand by what I said >above, it isn't a technical problem. It's far more likely that the current commercial provider's are not too terribly happy about Compuserve getting interested in IP connectivity. It would be kind of interesting if Compuserve was able to provide dialup PPP or SLIP from all of their access points..... Locally the University of BC's dialup ports for UBCNet offer X.28/X.29 access to X.25 hosts, Telnet to internet hosts, or SLIP (either by using %slip or just sending a slip packet in command mode). If Compuserve was to introduce a service like that with some services behind it like say POP3, FTP, and Telnet things could get quite interesting :-) Of course we hope that they would join CIX and have an NFSNet interconnect as well. -- Stuart Lynne Computer Signal Corporation, Canada ...!van-bc!sl 604-937-7785 604-937-7718(fax) sl@wimsey.bc.ca
karl.kleinpaste@osc.edu (05/22/91)
gary@sci34hub.sci.com writes:
Compuserve likes to bill for the use of their systems; billing people
who telnet in would be very difficult.
This is false. Connect time is connect time; they know how long
you've been there by any access method, and they'll bill
appropriately. Remember the hermes.merit.edu Telenet access point --
this effect is already there.
If CIS could see money in telnet/ftp connections, it'd already be done.
Also false. Regardless of the raw $$$ that might be available,
CompuServe has a really serious problem with political questions.
They are quite paranoid about being on the receiving end of political
complaints; getting the original mail connection in place required an
agreement with the FRICC (this was 1989) which says, essentially, that
neither CompuServe nor NSFNet will charge the other for the use of the
other's network. More recently, questions of "appropriate use"
agreements with each of the IP suppliers with which they checked
somewhat dominated their concerns.
Please, this is not a topic appropriate to tcp-ip any more; please
take it to com-priv@psi.com, if anywhere. (Unfortunately, I
understand that my Reply-To: isn't surviving the news->mail gateway at
ucbvax. Ohwell.)
--karlpeter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (05/23/91)
In article <1991May21.165458.7441@sci34hub.sci.com> gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston) writes: > Compuserve likes to bill for the use of their systems; billing people > who telnet in would be very difficult. Why? I'm sure it'd look like this: % telnet compuserve.com Trying... Connected to compuserve.com. Escape character is '^]'. Host: CIS Username: 70216,1076 Password: Welcome to Compuserve! Similarly, they would provide FTP service on the same basis: % ftp compuserve.com Connected to compuserve.com. 220 compuserve.com FTP server ... ready. Name: (compuserve.com:peter): 70216,1076 331 Password required for 70216,1076. Password: 230 User 70216,1076 logged in. ftp> cd amigatech 100 CWD command okay. ... > If CIS could see money in telnet/ftp connections, it'd already be done. They have their eyes closed. -- Peter da Silva; Ferranti International Controls Corporation; +1 713 274 5180; Sugar Land, TX 77487-5012; `-_-' "Have you hugged your wolf, today?"
jms@mrsvax.mis.arizona.edu (The IRS gets 28% of this message---and everything else I own) (05/23/91)
In article <.QHBBXB@xds13.ferranti.com>, peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes... >In article <1991May21.165458.7441@sci34hub.sci.com> gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston) writes: > >I'm sure it'd look like this: > > % telnet compuserve.com > Trying... > Connected to compuserve.com. > Escape character is '^]'. > Host: CIS > Username: 70216,1076 > Password: > Actually, this service is already available. All you have to do is find one of the sites which has both a CompuServe link and an Internet link that is willing to handle your traffic. When I log onto CompuServe, I sure don't use no slow dialin line. > >> If CIS could see money in telnet/ftp connections, it'd already be done. > >They have their eyes closed. CompuServe is very technically adept, and has a number of very good people working for it. However, it runs as an extremely low-overhead organization. The question is not whether they "see money" in such a connection; there have been individuals calling for such a connection for at least 9 years. The question is where the project falls in a long list of projects, all designed to satisfy customer requests. It is clear from their current directions that CompuServe is ready to offer such a connection; the current impediments are almost certainly political, legal, and procedural rather than technical. In any case, such aspersions in this forum do nothing to improve the situation; a well-worded letter requesting such a capability sent to the appropriate vice president (probably Sandy Trevor) certainly would be a more useful use of all our time. jms Joel M Snyder, 627 E Speedway, 85705 Phone: 602.626.8680 FAX: 602.795.0900 The Mosaic Group, Dep't of MIS, the University of Arizona, Tucson BITNET: jms@arizona Internet: jms@arizona.edu SPAN: 47541::telcom::jms "Communication without purpose is artistic masturbation." - Rod Steiger
randy@rls.UUCP (Randall L. Smith) (05/23/91)
In article <543@pyrite.nj.pyramid.com>, bill@pyrite.nj.pyramid.com (Bill Pechter) writes: > In article <9105201208.AA22490@tuatara.uofs.edu> bill@TUATARA.UOFS.EDU (Bill Gunshannon) writes: >> >> Unless things have changed drastically since the last article I read about >> Compuserve, they are running PRIME Mini's. > > Nah, they're running DEC KL10's which run a modified TOPS10. The Source, > purchased by Compuserve, ran Prime minis. True and they're now converting to VMS. I toured their data center last fall and they still had *ton's* of RP06's!! The antique KL10's and KL20's still humming along. The Primes were sitting the corner running but not being used, as I was told. Modifying TOPS seemed to be a costly venture in the long run. Might have been more costly to be out of business though. Anyway, I really don't know how central it was to the business. Presumably, very. They do all (almost) their own hw support even on the new Vaxen. The biggest Vax they had (at the time) was a 6410. Cheers! - randy Usenet: randy@rls.uucp Bangpath: ...<backbone>!osu-cis!rls!randy Internet: rls!randy@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Do not meddle in the affairs of the network news, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (05/24/91)
In article <22MAY91152850@mrsvax.mis.arizona.edu> jms@mrsvax.mis.arizona.edu writes: > In any case, such aspersions in this forum do nothing to improve the > situation... I call them as I see them. Further comments taken to email. -- Peter da Silva; Ferranti International Controls Corporation; +1 713 274 5180; Sugar Land, TX 77487-5012; `-_-' "Have you hugged your wolf, today?"
dricejb@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1) (05/25/91)
In article <10716@rls.UUCP> randy@rls.UUCP (Randall L. Smith) writes: >In article <543@pyrite.nj.pyramid.com>, bill@pyrite.nj.pyramid.com (Bill Pechter) writes: >> In article <9105201208.AA22490@tuatara.uofs.edu> bill@TUATARA.UOFS.EDU (Bill Gunshannon) writes: >>> >>> Unless things have changed drastically since the last article I read about >>> Compuserve, they are running PRIME Mini's. >> >> Nah, they're running DEC KL10's which run a modified TOPS10. The Source, >> purchased by Compuserve, ran Prime minis. > >True and they're now converting to VMS. I toured their data center last >fall and they still had *ton's* of RP06's!! The antique KL10's and KL20's >still humming along. The Primes were sitting the corner running but not >being used, as I was told. Modifying TOPS seemed to be a costly venture >in the long run. Might have been more costly to be out of business >though. Anyway, I really don't know how central it was to the business. >Presumably, very. They do all (almost) their own hw support even on the >new Vaxen. The biggest Vax they had (at the time) was a 6410. >Usenet: randy@rls.uucp I know that this is somewhat afield of tcp-ip, but I had heard from a former employee that Compuserve was working with a company that had rights to manufacture new DEC-20s. Modifying the operating system heavily was the only way to run a timesharing company in the '70s. The vendor systems, especially on large machines, simply didn't have the security, billing, and communications options required to run a commercial timesharing business. Most of the big timesharing outfits had a real wrench getting onto newer hardware and more standard software sometime during the '80s. By then, vendor software was a little more up to the task, and running standard software didn't mean too many compromises. Compuserve became more specialized than most and so has stayed on the modified stuff longer. They also have managed to extend the life of a timesharing business longer than most--many of their competitors have already or are now leaving the timesharing business. An example of the things which were nearly mandatory in the timesharing business is task reconnection. With the low quality phones and modems available then, disconnections were frequent. It was not economically viable to simply send your task a SIGHUP (or equivalent). Most timesharing companies had some concept of reconnecting to a running task. Somebody from Bell Labs presented a framework for doing this under Unix about two years ago; I think portions of it may have made it into SVR4. -- Craig Jackson dricejb@drilex.dri.mgh.com {bbn,axiom,redsox,atexnet,ka3ovk}!drilex!{dricej,dricejb}
root@infoac.rmi.de (INFOAC-Operator) (05/27/91)
jms@mrsvax.mis.arizona.edu (The IRS gets 28% of this message---and everything else I own) writes: >In article <.QHBBXB@xds13.ferranti.com>, peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes... >>In article <1991May21.165458.7441@sci34hub.sci.com> gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston) writes: >> >>I'm sure it'd look like this: >> >> % telnet compuserve.com >> Trying... >> Connected to compuserve.com. >> Escape character is '^]'. >> Host: CIS >> Username: 70216,1076 >> Password: >> or like this: telnet compuserve.com compuserve.com: No address associated with name -rm -- ***************************************************************** ___ ____ ___ _ _ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ _ _ /__/ / / / / /\ / /__ / /__//__// /__//__ /\ / / \ / / __/_ / / /__ / / // //__ / //__ / /
jlister@slhisc.uucp (John Lister) (05/28/91)
In article <1991May16.211344.16328@informatik.uni-erlangen.de> eckert@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Toerless Eckert) writes: >From article <1991May15.143317.4297@oar.net>, by karl.kleinpaste@osc.edu: >> >> PS- No, emphatically, general IP (telnet) access into CompuServe is >> _not_ part of the game plan. > >How did you guess people could be interested in this, and so why >isn't compuserv interested in this - we do have a commercial internet >by now too, don't we ? >--- Let's ask the final question: how about telnet/FTP *out* of Compuserve as well?! (Since we're looking at possible commercial uses of the Internet, I would speculate that making access available *at a premium* to Compuserve users outside of prime hours, could provide a significant amount of money. Look how much traffic went through the Internet/Compuserve mail gateway from Bitftp...) John Lister.