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Jay:</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">I enjoyed your story and will mention it in this week’s issue of Zero Retries newsletter.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">You said:</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote" type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">I still have the source code somewhere in my archives.</div></div></blockquote><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">If you have any archival information on GLnet (or the organization, such as newsletters), I can recommend donation of it to Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC) project of the Internet Archive - <a href="https://archive.org/details/dlarc?tab=collection">https://archive.org/details/dlarc?tab=collection</a>, to make it available for posterity and your fellow Amateur Radio Operators worldwide, for free.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">There is a lot of archival information on Amateur Radio Packet Radio already there, but a quick search for GLnet didn’t get any hits, so anything you can contribute would be new information.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">The DLARC archivist, Kay Savetz K6KJN is very easy to work with - <a href="mailto:kay@archive.org">kay@archive.org</a>.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Thanks,</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Steve N8GNJ<br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.247)">---</span></div><span style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.247)"><div><span style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.247)"><br></span></div>Steve Stroh N8GNJ (he / him / his)</span><div><span style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.247)">Editor</span><div style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.247)">Zero Retries Newsletter - <a href="https://www.zeroretries.org">https://www.zeroretries.org</a></div><div><span style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.247)">Radios are Computers - With Antennas!</span><br></div></div></div></div><br>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Dec 31, 2024 at 20:22:33, Jay <<a href="mailto:jjn@nuge.com">jjn@nuge.com</a>> wrote:<br></div>
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Greetings,<br> I was a (distant) member of the Texas Packet Radio Society TPRS, living <br>in Michigan but commuting each year to their annual meeting in Texas. It <br>was always the weekend before or the weekend after the TAPR meeting in <br>Tucson, so it was a fun WEEK for me hitting each organizations annual <br>meeting!<br><br> Along with several others, we ran the "GLnet" (Great Lakes Net) network <br>of TexNet nodes throughout Michigan, Indiana, a bit of Ohio and a bit of <br>Illinois. They were linked together at 9600 baud using old UHF RCA <br>radios, and one 6-meter link (that was always so-so depending upon the <br>time of day).<br><br> I still have *several* TexNet nodes stacked up in my basement. They <br>were Z80 based with one 9800 modem and two 1200 baud modems on a single PC <br>board. It was designed and coded by the "Tom Tom" team. One "Tom" <br>designed the hardware and the other "Tom" coded ALL of the AX.25, memory <br>management, timing, and PMS (Packet Mail Server) code in Z80 Assembly! <br>The code was burned onto an EPROM, including any configuration information <br>- so it wasn't for the faint of heart. I still have the source code <br>somewhere in my archives.<br><br> The user interface was SO incredibly easy for the users to connect to <br>any station at any node with a single command. There were also Sysop <br>commands (password protected) that allowed for diagnostics and remote <br>reboots, and PMS message management.<br><br> The 'networking' code was build around a MESH model where they <br>automatically detected one another and set up Primary, Secondary, and <br>Tertiary route tables. So should a link go down or become congested, <br>packets would take alternate routes to their destinations. This was FAR <br>more efficient and much faster than anything Software-2000 put out with <br>their NetROM offering.<br><br> Any node could have a hard drive attached and serve as a "PMS" packet <br>mail server. There was NO NEED to do Heirarchical mail forwarding as you <br>simply used the network to get to the PMS, wherever it was, and read/post <br>email and bulletins.<br><br> One serial port on a TexNet board could be assigned to watch the NWS <br>weather teletype wire. It would store select, pre-determined, weather <br>PRODUCTS to SPECIFIC message numbers on the PMS hard disk.<br><br> The Tom-Tom team knew what they were doing and were FAR ahead of their <br>time! Makes me want to fire up a couple of those nodes and refresh a few <br>crusty brain cells remebering the past :)<br><br> --- Jay Nugent WB8TKL<br><br><br><br>On Tue, 31 Dec 2024, <a href="mailto:maiko@pcsinternet.ca">maiko@pcsinternet.ca</a> wrote:<br><br><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> Here is a link that mentions the LINK TO 'message' - wow 1987 era !<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> <a href="http://www.tapr.net/meetings/CNC_1987/CNC1987-TEXNET-Overview-N5EG.pdf">http://www.tapr.net/meetings/CNC_1987/CNC1987-TEXNET-Overview-N5EG.pdf</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> I quote :<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> TEXNET utilizes the *** LINKED message to cause bulletin boards<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> to work properly.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> And how funny is this, ZERO RETRIES (newsletter by Steve Stroh N8GNJ) :<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> <a href="https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0116">https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0116</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> There is a link to a PDF in there about the old TEXNET system, lots of info !<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> <a href="https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0116">https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0116</a> \<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> ?open=false#%C2%A7the-texnet-packet-switching-network<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> Some holiday reading perhaps, had no idea about this, I was still midway<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> through university and it would be years later before I got into amateur<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> radio. I'm into my 60th year of living now, whew, long ago I suppose :(<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> Maiko / VE4KLM<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> On 2024-12-31 19:53, <a href="mailto:maiko@pcsinternet.ca">maiko@pcsinternet.ca</a> wrote:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">> If you google "texnet wb5bbw" early 1990s Tex Net packet networks,<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">> never heard of that before, before 'my time' in any amateur radio<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">> packet networking. The "*** LINKED" handled by the dostars() func<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">> in mailbox.c was written for that.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> _______________________________________________<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> nos-bbs mailing list<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> <a href="mailto:nos-bbs@lists.tapr.org">nos-bbs@lists.tapr.org</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> <a href="http://lists.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/nos-bbs_lists.tapr.org">http://lists.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/nos-bbs_lists.tapr.org</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><br>_______________________________________________<br>nos-bbs mailing list<br><a href="mailto:nos-bbs@lists.tapr.org">nos-bbs@lists.tapr.org</a><br><a href="http://lists.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/nos-bbs_lists.tapr.org">http://lists.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/nos-bbs_lists.tapr.org</a><br>
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