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Frank da Cruz
The Kermit Project, Bronx NY.
Most recent update: Sun Jun 18 15:31:56 2023 New York time
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V 5.3(248)  2023-10-28

V 5.3(235)  2023-06-11

V 5.3(230)  2023-04-02

V 5.1(186)  2006-01-06

Older

Bill Catchings in 1984

Kermit-20 — Kermit communications and file-transfer software for the DECSYSTEM-20 — was first written at Columbia University by Bill Catchings in 1981; it is coded in MACRO-20 assembly language. It was the very first Kermit program and performed its first successful file transfer on April 29, 1981; read about it HERE. Bill left Columbia in March 1983 and that same month I took over Kermit-20 development with continuous edits and releases through January 1988, when the DECsystem-20 line was discon­tinued. I picked it up again in 2001 (when DEC-20 emulators started to sprout up around the Internet) to add long packets and buffered i/o, and Tom DeBellis added some mostly TCP related fixes. 25th-anniversary edition was released in January 2006.

Me with DEC-20, 1980s

The DEC-20 and its TOPS-20 operating system had a huge impact on what was to become the Internet. As early as 1977 it supported several distinct networking methods, including ARPANET (which was to become the Internet), DECnet, and RJE connections with IBM mainframes. Users accessed it with text terminals via serial ports or modems, or by Telnet or DECnet network connections. There were no graphical user interfaces yet (except at Xerox PARC), but the DEC-20 had the most user-friendly command language ever known; you can see it today in the user interfaces of MS-DOS Kermit, C-Kermit for Unix and VMS, Kermit 95 (now called C-Kermit for Windows), and of course in DEC-20 Kermit itself. The DEC-20 supported a proliferation of programming languages, math and statistical packages, etc etc, and email was practically born on the DEC-20, as were spell checkers, and on and on; for greater detail see this page.

In case you're curious about the version number, it's in DEC-20 versioning notation: MAJOR.MINOR(EDIT)-WHO.

UPDATE: Version 5.3(248)-5 of 28 November 2023

Version 5.3(248)-5 incorporates additional features, enhancements and fixes since the minor release of 5.3(235)-5 in June of this year (11-Jun-2023). These are as follows and can be identified in the code with the edit number as the prefix of a comment.

[236] Implement /FORKLESS connections for DECnet NRT’s
[237] Implement the RETURN keyword to stop processing a TAKE file
[238] Enhanced NRT disconnect messages
[239] Use .HPTOD (High Precision Time of Day) if the monitor has it HPTIM% .HPTOD
[240] When logging to a disk file, display the number of bytes written
[241] Handle potential case of incorrect data being sent for CWD
[242] ECHO /TRANSACTION /DEBUG /SESSION Switches
[243] Fix off by one error which appended NUL characters in packets
[244] Fix server FINISH does not close all logs
[245] Rewrite MOVSTU to use EXTEND instead of loop
[246] Additional C escape sequences: \O and \U
[247] Rewrite IAC handling to use EXTEND instead of loop
[248] Fix incorrect string lengths being returned by C constant expansion

Kermit-20-Testing-Battery-5.3(248)-5 Updates and new Batch Tests:

• K20DPD: Updated Kermit-20 Packet Decoding Example
• K20NRV: Updated Kermit-20 Server functions via Tops-20 DECnet NRT to local host
• K20NRT: Updated Kermit-20 Server functions via Tops-20 DECnet NRT to remote host
• K20DPD: Updated Kermit-20 Packet Decoding Example
• K20P8R: New Regression test against Kermit-20 4.2(174) [2-May-85] 8 bit files with parity
• K20RDC: New Communications comparison Kermit-20 4.2(174) [2-May-85] and 5.3(243)
• Updated Help

Documentation includes more detail on the above list.

The source code is available in two archive formats, both compressed with gzip:

Unix tar archive	k20mit-248.tar.gz	13063956 bytes	Listing
Tap archive of Dumper tape	kermit20.tap.gz	10202169 bytes	Listing	Control file

Furthermore the uncompressed individual source and documentation files are available in the following directories:

Source code	20 files (.mac, .ctl, .log)
Documentation	10 files (testing battery, announcement, 1988 user guide, 1985 Kermit book)
Data	26 files of different types used by the test suite
Testing	Test suite and logs

UPDATE: Version 5.3(235)-5 of 11 June 2023

This version isn't installed yet, but a new directory structure has been set up to accommodate multiple versions and this version, as well as the 2006 version (as well as earlier versions if they can be found), will be filled in shortly. — fdc, 15 June 2023

From Tom DeBellis: version 5.3(235)-5 incorporates all fixes since the major release of 5.3, Edit 230 in January of this year. These are as follows and can be identified in the code with the edit number as the prefix of a comment.

• [231] Fix RECEIVE with no file name
• [232] 36 bit byte file sizes
• [233] Transaction Log and Debug log fixes and enhancements:
  Transaction logging
    Garbled Text
    Write-Protection Failures
    Enhancements
  Debug Log Decode Fix
• [234] Error messages may not be seen if displayed in remote server
• [235] Properly signal and handle file errors in server mode
  
• Additional Batch Tests
    K2036P: Kermit-20 36 Bit Mode via pseudo-terminal
    K2036C: Kermit-20 36 Bit Mode via pseudo-terminal with parity Updated Help

Documentation includes more detail on the above list. All regression tests have passed except for Tops-10 because of some local networking issues.

The source code is available in two archive formats, both compressed with gzip:

Unix tar archive	kermit20.tar.gz	13063956 bytes	Listing
Tap archive of Dumper tape	kermit20.tap.gz	10202169 bytes	Listing	Control file

Furthermore the uncompressed individual source and documentation files are available in the following directories:

Source code	20 files (.mac, .ctl, .log)
Documentation	10 files (testing battery, announcement, 1988 user guide, 1985 Kermit book)
Data	26 files of different types used by the test suite
Testing	Test suite and logs

Major new release: Version 5.3(230)-5 of 2 April 2023

Tom DeBellis with DEC-20, 1986

In April 2023, Tom DeBellis — another former Columbia U Computer Center systems group staffer — released a major new version that can be used on the many emulated DEC-20s that are still chugging away as virtual machines within Linux, Windows, and other modern platforms. The original single module had to split into sixteen modules to accommodate all the new stuff within the DEC-20s memory model. In Tom's words:

Version 5.3 is the first major release of Kermit-20 in nearly two decades and represents approximately a year of development for the following functionality:

• Adaptation to version 7 of Tops-20.
• Adds DECnet NRT transport for connections to Tops-10, Tops-20 and Ultrix hosts.
• Adds pseudoterminal support.
• Support for batch stream execution, including extensive testing.
• Microsecond timing (limited by Tops-20)
• Efficiency Enhancements
• Symbolic (C) escape sequences and enhanced parsing
• New and enhanced commands
• Revamped and enhanced macro facility

A large amount of restructuring has been done with an eye towards future development, instrumentation, debugging and overall robustness.

Here's the full announcement:

Rich text (PDF)	announcement.pdf	43 pages
Plain text (ASCII)	announcement.txt	2400 lines

The source code is available in two archive formats, both compressed with gzip:

Unix tar archive	kermit20.tar.gz	13063956 bytes	Listing
Tap archive of Dumper tape	kermit20.tap.gz	10202169 bytes	Listing	Control file

Furthermore the uncompressed individual source and documentation files are available in the following directories:

Source code	20 files (.mac, .ctl, .log)
Documentation	10 files (testing battery, announcement, 1988 user guide, 1985 Kermit book)
Data	26 files of different types used by the test suite
Testing	Test suite and logs

Kermit-20 5.1(186) of 6 January 2006

Bill's last version was revived (by me) in 2001 with the addition of long packets and buffered packet input for faster file transfer into and out of emulated DEC-20s, which might not include ARPANET support (in the sense that they have a TCP/IP stack and FTP or TELNET clients and servers), but might still be accessible to incoming Telnet connections. Long packets were never done for Kermit-20 before because the PDP-11/40 RSX20F front end could not tolerate them. Emulated DEC-20s (and DEC-20 Telnet servers), however, have no such limitation. (This improvement would, of course, also benefit file uploads to real DEC-20s via network connections, but by 2006 only a couple real DEC-20s were still in operation.)

Kermit-20 5.1(186) is the last single-source-file release; it is archived at Columbia University. Since all DEC-20s come with the MACRO-20 assembler, it is distributed in source-code form. Here are the files you need:

k20mit.mac

The DEC-20 Kermit MACRO-20 source file. Transfer this to the DEC-20 in text mode and rename to KERMIT.MAC, LOAD KERMIT, SAVE (see k20mit.txt for details). NOTE: Your Web browser might not know what to do with a .mac file; tell it to "Save as...", otherwise it might try to play it or something.

k20mit.doc

The Kermit-20 chapter of the 1988 Kermit User Guide in plain-text form. Your Web browser might think this is a Microsoft Word document because its name ends in .DOC. Transfer in text mode, rename to KERMIT.DOC. (Plain-text files were .DOC files for decades before MS Word came along.)

k20mit.ps

The Kermit-20 chapter of the 1988 Kermit User Guide in PostScript format. This one can be transferred in either binary or text mode. Rename to KERMIT.PS.

k20mit.pdf

The Kermit-20 chapter of the 1988 Kermit User Guide in PDF format. Clicking on this link in any graphical Web browser should produce the expected results.

k20mit.txt

Update notes for Kermit-20 5.1.

http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/archivefiles/dec20.html

Access to individual DEC-20 Kermit files (source, code, documentation, announcements, etc).

Older releases

These are some versions prior to 5.1(186) that I was able to exhume. Each one is a single self-contained source file that depends only on monsym.mac and macsym.mac, which are standard parts of TOPS-20, and also cmd.mac (COMND JSYS interface), which — if I recall correctly — was a "goodie"; if you don't have it you can download it from the table:

Kermit-20 5.1(182)	2003-08-04
Kermit-20 5.1(180)	2001-08-06
Kermit-20 5.1(179)	2001-01-29
Kermit-20 3.0(30)	1983-06-23
cmd.mac	1981-06-10

Links

• History of the DECSYSTEM-20 at Columbia University
• History of Computing at Columbia University
• 1986 video showing DEC-20s in the Columbia U machine room (starting at about minute 27).
• Kermit for the DECsystem-10
• KLH-10 PDP-10 emulator (for TOPS-10, TOPS-20, TENEX, WAITS, etc, by Ken Harrenstien, on GitHub)
• Gordon Bell's CyberMuseum for Digital Equipment Corporation
• Paul Allen's Living Computer Museum (formerly PDP Planet).