[cctalk] Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

[Nigel Johnson Ham via cctalk]

On 2023-05-27 16:38, Alexander Schreiber via cctalk wrote:

On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 12:30:52PM -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

On 5/25/23 10:06, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote:

The way SPARK works is that you have code and then can also provide
proofs for the code.  Proofs are you might expect are *hard* to write
and in many cases are *huge* relative to the actual code (at least if
you want a platinum level proof).

...and we still get gems like the Boeing 737MAX...

That was Working As Implemented. Turns out, if you change the way
the aircraft behaves under some conditions and you can't be bothered
to tell the pilots about it, bad things are eventually going to happen.

Bonus points for making safety related features extra-cost items
(so your cheaper airlines won't buy them, with predictable results).

Extra bonus points for having achieved regulatory capture and so
being allowed to handwave "It will be fine, trust us" the certifications.

One long term result is that European agencies learned to no longer
trust the FAA.

The root cause was that Boeing was trying to do things on the cheap,
going "This is still your fathers old 737, just a little spruced up"
when it was effectively a different plane - but admitting that would
have triggered lots of expensive things (certifications, pilot training
for a new aircraft, ...).

There are businesses where you can get away with being cheap and
there are types of business where a little extra profit will be
paid for with _someones_ blood.

Kind regards,
 Alex.


I think you have hit the nail on the head there, Alex. not wanting to 
cause airlines to analyse the cost of extra pilot training and thus 
compare to the cost of equivalent Airbus product. I have a friend who 
has a full 737 simulator in his house (no FO seat though) and he put me 
through a trim runaway. Two toggle switches down on the engine quadrant 
just disabled the system if the pilots knew what was happening!


--
Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU
Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept!
Skype:  TILBURY2591

[cctalk] Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

[Alexander Schreiber via cctalk]

On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 12:30:52PM -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
> On 5/25/23 10:06, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote:
> > 
> 
> > The way SPARK works is that you have code and then can also provide
> > proofs for the code.  Proofs are you might expect are *hard* to write
> > and in many cases are *huge* relative to the actual code (at least if
> > you want a platinum level proof).
> 
> ...and we still get gems like the Boeing 737MAX...

That was Working As Implemented. Turns out, if you change the way
the aircraft behaves under some conditions and you can't be bothered
to tell the pilots about it, bad things are eventually going to happen.

Bonus points for making safety related features extra-cost items
(so your cheaper airlines won't buy them, with predictable results).

Extra bonus points for having achieved regulatory capture and so
being allowed to handwave "It will be fine, trust us" the certifications.

One long term result is that European agencies learned to no longer
trust the FAA.

The root cause was that Boeing was trying to do things on the cheap,
going "This is still your fathers old 737, just a little spruced up"
when it was effectively a different plane - but admitting that would
have triggered lots of expensive things (certifications, pilot training
for a new aircraft, ...).

There are businesses where you can get away with being cheap and
there are types of business where a little extra profit will be
paid for with _someones_ blood.

Kind regards,
Alex.
-- 
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
 looks like work."  -- Thomas A. Edison

[cctalk] Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

[Christian Kennedy via cctalk]

On 5/25/23 13:38, geneb via cctalk wrote:
That wasn't a software problem, that was a criminally cheap management 
problem - they deleted the comparator for the AoA indexer to save money.


Yes, but probably not Boeing's.  AoA disagree was an available option 
that most /airlines/ explicitly elected not to purchase. Part of the AD 
was requiring that system, plus limiting MCAS authority so that if you 
hadn't noticed the trim wheel whacking you in the side of the leg you at 
least couldn't get into a situation where it would take three people to 
overpower the combined trim and aeroloading forces, and notably, sim 
time to review trim runaway procedures.  It's not reassuring how many 
crews got trim runaway wrong in the sim.


AoA disagreement on the B737 is weird anyway.  Each AoA sensor drives 
one half of the cockpit stall avoidance systems, so the way you 
typically tell that a sensor has failed is when the stick shaker on one 
side starts going nuts while the other one doesn't.


Honestly, the biggest blame here probably belongs on the doorstep of 
Southwest.


--
Christian Kennedy, Ph.D.
ch...@mainecoon.com AF6AP | DB0692 | PG00029419
http://www.mainecoon.comPGP KeyID 108DAB97
PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97
"Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration…"

[cctalk] MCAS (was: Re: Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.)

[Christian Kennedy via cctalk]

On 5/25/23 12:30, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

...and we still get gems like the Boeing 737MAX...


I get your point, but it's a bad example.  MCAS worked precisely as 
specified, and while one could have a discussion regarding if those 
specifications were wrong, the logic was that a MCAS failure was 
indistinguishable from any other 737 trim runaway and was to be handled 
in the same fashion. Perhaps this is an example of Brooks' observation 
that most bugs in software are in fact bugs in specification.


I can even sorta understand the thought processes behind the specs. 
While there were two hull losses, there have been many, many, many more 
MCAS failures; the only time they resulted in holes in the ground is 
when the trim runaway procedures weren't followed -- that being a sort 
of sobering thought given that there are all sorts of other things that 
can lead to that happening beyond MCAS.


--
Christian Kennedy, Ph.D.
ch...@mainecoon.com AF6AP | DB0692 | PG00029419
http://www.mainecoon.comPGP KeyID 108DAB97
PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97
"Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration…"

[cctalk] Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On May 25, 2023, at 4:38 PM, geneb via cctalk  wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 25 May 2023, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
> 
>> On 5/25/23 10:06, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote:
>>> 
>> 
>>> The way SPARK works is that you have code and then can also provide
>>> proofs for the code.  Proofs are you might expect are *hard* to write
>>> and in many cases are *huge* relative to the actual code (at least if
>>> you want a platinum level proof).
>> 
>> ...and we still get gems like the Boeing 737MAX...
>> 
> That wasn't a software problem, that was a criminally cheap management 
> problem - they deleted the comparator for the AoA indexer to save money.

So?  We know managers often don't know engineering or reliability, that's why 
we have engineers.  It's not just the job of the engineer to follow orders; 
it's also his job to make the right thing happen, and to complain if it isn't.

Engineers keeping quiet has been a key contributor in many spectacular 
failures, from the 737 MAX to the two Space Shuttle failures.

paul

[cctalk] Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

[geneb via cctalk]

On Thu, 25 May 2023, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:


On 5/25/23 10:06, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote:





The way SPARK works is that you have code and then can also provide
proofs for the code.  Proofs are you might expect are *hard* to write
and in many cases are *huge* relative to the actual code (at least if
you want a platinum level proof).


...and we still get gems like the Boeing 737MAX...

That wasn't a software problem, that was a criminally cheap management 
problem - they deleted the comparator for the AoA indexer to save money.


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

[cctalk] Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

Just wondering what's marking Guy's posts with ***SPAM***.  It's
beginning to look like a Monty Python sketch.

--Chuck

[cctalk] Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 5/25/23 10:06, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote:
> 

> The way SPARK works is that you have code and then can also provide
> proofs for the code.  Proofs are you might expect are *hard* to write
> and in many cases are *huge* relative to the actual code (at least if
> you want a platinum level proof).

...and we still get gems like the Boeing 737MAX...

--Chuck

[cctalk] Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

[Guy Sotomayor via cctalk]

On 5/25/23 10:00, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

On 5/25/23 08:58, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote:

ADA and SPARK (a stripped down version of ADA) are used heavily in
embedded that has to be "safety certified".  SPARK also allows the code
to be "proven" (as in you can write formal proofs to ensure that the
code does what you say it does).  Ask me how I know.  ;-)

I was aware of Ada's requirements in the defense- and aerospace-related
industry.  Is that where your experience lies?  Is SPARK the "magic
bullet" that's been searched for decades to write provably correct code?


I'm familiar with it from the higher end automotive perspective 
(self-driving cars).  Even when using C/C++ we have *lots* of standards 
that we have to adhere to (MISRA, CERT-C, ISO-26262, etc).


The way SPARK works is that you have code and then can also provide 
proofs for the code.  Proofs are you might expect are *hard* to write 
and in many cases are *huge* relative to the actual code (at least if 
you want a platinum level proof).


--
TTFN - Guy

[cctalk] Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 5/25/23 08:58, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote:
> 
> ADA and SPARK (a stripped down version of ADA) are used heavily in
> embedded that has to be "safety certified".  SPARK also allows the code
> to be "proven" (as in you can write formal proofs to ensure that the
> code does what you say it does).  Ask me how I know.  ;-)

I was aware of Ada's requirements in the defense- and aerospace-related
industry.  Is that where your experience lies?  Is SPARK the "magic
bullet" that's been searched for decades to write provably correct code?

Now, let's hear from the Nim, Zig...etc. enthusiasts.  There's a YT
video that claims that Zig code execution is faster than assembly.
Exactly how does that work?

--Chuck

[cctalk] Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

[Guy Sotomayor via cctalk]

On 5/25/23 07:55, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

On 5/25/23 04:52, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote:

For the programming language, I stick with C, not C++, not Python and
plain old makefiles--that's what the support libraries are written in.
I don't use an IDE, lest I become reliant on one--a text editor will do.
I document the heck out of code.  Over the 50 or so years that I've been
cranking out gibberish, it's nice to go back to code that I wrote 30 or
40 years ago and still be able to read it.


That's basically what I do too.  It's too easy to get stuck with an 
unsupported environment.  A text editor and makefiles mean that I can 
(generally) port my code over to any new environment fairly easily.




I'm all too aware of the changing trends in the industry--and how
quickly they can change.  I remember when there was a push in embedded
coding not long ago to use Ada--where is that today?
ADA and SPARK (a stripped down version of ADA) are used heavily in 
embedded that has to be "safety certified".  SPARK also allows the code 
to be "proven" (as in you can write formal proofs to ensure that the 
code does what you say it does).  Ask me how I know.  ;-)


--
TTFN - Guy

[cctalk] Spurious spam filters

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

The notion that mailing lists can filter spam by sender email address is 
fundamentally broken, at least when the addresses filtered are those of major 
ISPs.  The mistake is that the fact a particular ISP customer sends spam 
doesn't mean that the millions of other customers do.

Since the antispam "service" currently used by the cctalk list doesn't 
understand this, can it be leaned on to fix their mistake?  If not, could it be 
scrapped?  Unfortunately, this sort of wrongheaded behavior goes back decades; 
one wonders what's wrong with the people who run these so-called services.

paul

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] RQDX3's: Lessons learned.

[Chris Zach via cctalk]

Yeah at this point pop it open, unlock the heads (the white cam down at 
the base there, trip it) and get the heads to move. They should smoothly 
move with a bit of effort. Then fire it up and see if anything works.


I'm going to run this one for a bit in the backup pdp11 here, see if it 
runs if you fire it up every month or two. Once again what do I have to 
lose :-)


I should probably install a TK50 for backups.

C

On 2/3/2023 11:34 PM, Zane Healy wrote:

I’d just like to say that 25 years ago, RD53’s were *EVIL*.  I do have one that 
I should try taking apart.  I failed to back it up the first time I powered it 
on.  It didn’t boot the second time.

ESDI or SCSI is the way to go, at least that was true 20-25 years ago.  Today 
I’d be inclined to say SCSI is the way to go.

Zane




On Feb 3, 2023, at 7:48 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk  wrote:

Some thoughts on this day of working on MFM drives:

1) MFM drives are just going bad. They were always kind of meh in terms of 
reliability, but I think even since 2019 (the last time I checked these drives) 
things have gotten worse. Drives which were readable and good then are now 
either shot or throwing errors and they have had an easy 3+ years in my 
upstairs room.

2) There are at least two RQDX3 ROM sets. The earlier one does not support the 
RX33 floppy and doesn't give any info during formatting. The later version 
(Version 4) does support the RX33 and is a lot nicer.

3) Seagate drives seem to be pretty good, especially the 20mb ones. They have 
no problems, work well, and are pretty right-sized for an RT11 system.

4) RD53 drives are weird. Their main failure is the drive head positioner just 
gets stuck and needs to be worked loose. Unfortunately that requires removing 
the lid. Fortunately there is a good filter in the drive along with an air 
handler that runs air from inside the drive body through the filter, then into 
the spindle where it is blown over the heads. Result is a pretty clean drive on 
the inside and so far opening the lid doesn't seem to be a recipe for instant 
destruction. Go figure.

I may try an RD53 in one of my Pro/380's. It's about time I loaded up the final 
version of P/OS, as I can use the Gotek floppy to load everything instead of 
screwing with the RX50's. Or can I do that and switch disks on the fly with a 
single Gotek... Hm.

5) For anything bigger, it's time to retire the MFM drives. Unlike RL02's these 
things just were not that reliable when new and at this point are kind of 
falling apart. I have not had any trouble with the ESDI disks, but it might 
just be a matter of time. Perhaps I should look into duplexing my 330mb CDC 
drive in the 11/84

CZ

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] RQDX3's: Lessons learned.

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

I’d just like to say that 25 years ago, RD53’s were *EVIL*.  I do have one that 
I should try taking apart.  I failed to back it up the first time I powered it 
on.  It didn’t boot the second time.

ESDI or SCSI is the way to go, at least that was true 20-25 years ago.  Today 
I’d be inclined to say SCSI is the way to go.

Zane



> On Feb 3, 2023, at 7:48 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> Some thoughts on this day of working on MFM drives:
> 
> 1) MFM drives are just going bad. They were always kind of meh in terms of 
> reliability, but I think even since 2019 (the last time I checked these 
> drives) things have gotten worse. Drives which were readable and good then 
> are now either shot or throwing errors and they have had an easy 3+ years in 
> my upstairs room.
> 
> 2) There are at least two RQDX3 ROM sets. The earlier one does not support 
> the RX33 floppy and doesn't give any info during formatting. The later 
> version (Version 4) does support the RX33 and is a lot nicer.
> 
> 3) Seagate drives seem to be pretty good, especially the 20mb ones. They have 
> no problems, work well, and are pretty right-sized for an RT11 system.
> 
> 4) RD53 drives are weird. Their main failure is the drive head positioner 
> just gets stuck and needs to be worked loose. Unfortunately that requires 
> removing the lid. Fortunately there is a good filter in the drive along with 
> an air handler that runs air from inside the drive body through the filter, 
> then into the spindle where it is blown over the heads. Result is a pretty 
> clean drive on the inside and so far opening the lid doesn't seem to be a 
> recipe for instant destruction. Go figure.
> 
> I may try an RD53 in one of my Pro/380's. It's about time I loaded up the 
> final version of P/OS, as I can use the Gotek floppy to load everything 
> instead of screwing with the RX50's. Or can I do that and switch disks on the 
> fly with a single Gotek... Hm.
> 
> 5) For anything bigger, it's time to retire the MFM drives. Unlike RL02's 
> these things just were not that reliable when new and at this point are kind 
> of falling apart. I have not had any trouble with the ESDI disks, but it 
> might just be a matter of time. Perhaps I should look into duplexing my 330mb 
> CDC drive in the 11/84
> 
> CZ

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: [SPAM] Re: PKBACK Floppies?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Wed, 1 Feb 2023, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote:
You have that right Sellam, the more that I look into this, based on 
Fred’s info, I think that I need to get MS-DOS running under DOSBOX-X.


Probably worthwhile.

Although the truncation of file content after EOF during concatenation is 
somewhat esoteric.

There may be plenty of other things to check out.

Are you using the correct version of PKZIP?
I'm wondering how well PKZIP handles features that were added to PKZIP in 
versions newer than itself.
Ideally, PKZIP should include metadata in files, including version number, 
to let you know whether it's a suitable version for a given file, . . .


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: [SPAM] Re: PKBACK Floppies?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

On Feb 1, 2023, at 11:59 AM, Sellam Abraham via cctalk  
wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Feb 1, 2023 at 11:45 AM Fred Cisin via cctalk 
> wrote:
> 
>>> On Wed, 1 Feb 2023, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote:
>>> So far I’ve tackled one split zip.  I wasn’t having any luck with
>>> the version of PKZIP that I assume created this.  I copied the files
>>> into a directory, and did COPY
>>> FILE1.ZIP+FILE2.ZIP+FILE3.ZIP+FILE4.ZIP+FILE5.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP
>> 
>> THAT will give you a corrupted file!
>> 
>> Concatenated copy (COPY with '+') has a behavior that you need to take
>> into account.
>> 
>> PC/MS-DOS 1.00 kept track of the file size with a course granularity.
>> (logical sectors, not bytes)
>> Therefore, PC/MS-DOS supported CTRL-Z as an end of file character!
>> (A legacy of CP/M)
>> 
>> When you cop a file, it copies the whole thing.  Any extraneous content
>> after EOF won't matter.
>> 
>> BUT!  When you concatenate files,
>> COPY FILE1.ZIP + FILE2.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP
>> COPY will terminate FILE1.ZIP at the first CTRL-Z that it encounters!
>> When copying text files, Concatenated COPY will trim off all content after
>> EOF!
>> It is called "text mode".
>> 
>> You need to change your command to
>> COPY /B  FILE1.ZIP+FILE2.ZIP+FILE3.ZIP+FILE4.ZIP+FILE5.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP
>> to get "binary mode", so that it will copy ALL of each file, rather than
>> just to the "end of file character" of each!
>> 
>> Compare the final resulting file size of  COPY and COPY /B
>> 
>> --
>> Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
> 
> 
> Excellent knowledge transfer, Fred.  That is what makes this list great.
> 
> Sellam

You have that right Sellam, the more that I look into this, based on Fred’s 
info, I think that I need to get MS-DOS running under DOSBOX-X.

Zane

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: [SPAM] Re: PKBACK Floppies?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

FILE1.ZIP+FILE2.ZIP+FILE3.ZIP+FILE4.ZIP+FILE5.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP

THAT will give you a corrupted file!
Concatenated copy (COPY with '+') has a behavior that you need to take into 
account.
PC/MS-DOS 1.00 kept track of the file size with a course granularity. (logical 
sectors, not bytes) Therefore, PC/MS-DOS supported CTRL-Z as an end of file 
character!
(A legacy of CP/M)
When you copy a file, it copies the whole thing.  Any extraneous 
content after EOF won't matter.

BUT!  When you concatenate files,
COPY FILE1.ZIP + FILE2.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP
COPY will terminate FILE1.ZIP at the first CTRL-Z that it encounters!
When copying text files, Concatenated COPY will trim off all content after EOF!
It is called "text mode".
You need to change your command to
COPY /B  FILE1.ZIP+FILE2.ZIP+FILE3.ZIP+FILE4.ZIP+FILE5.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP
to get "binary mode", so that it will copy ALL of each file, rather than just to the 
"end of file character" of each!
Compare the final resulting file size of  COPY and COPY /B


On Wed, 1 Feb 2023, Zane Healy wrote:
I’m running the version of DOS that comes with DOSBOX-X (I think 
it’s FreeDOS?).  Checking COPY, and I’m not sure it supports /B, but 
it also doesn’t complain, the resulting combined ZIP is the same in 
both cases.  Turns out that I have three corrupted files in the fixed 
Zip, before fixing it there are a lot more.  That’s based on telling 
PKZIP to check the ZIP integrity.


If you get a convenient chance, try COPY /A ...+...+... ...

/A ("ASCII" or text mode) is the default in PC/MS-DOS, where CTRL-Z, and 
any padding/junk after the EOF (CTRL-Z) character in the files in the 
middle is truncated.  That is so that when you concatenate text files, you 
don't leave EOFs and sector/record padding in the middle.


If /A gives the same as /B and the same as no switch, then either your 
version does not have that "feature", OR there are no CTRL-Z's (1Ah) 
anywhere in the middle files!
If /A gives a shorter result, stay away from it, but that would mean that 
/B is the default in your version.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: [SPAM] Re: PKBACK Floppies?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

On Feb 1, 2023, at 11:44 AM, Fred Cisin via cctalk  
wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 1 Feb 2023, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote:
>> So far I’ve tackled one split zip.  I wasn’t having any luck with the 
>> version of PKZIP that I assume created this.  I copied the files into a 
>> directory, and did COPY FILE1.ZIP+FILE2.ZIP+FILE3.ZIP+FILE4.ZIP+FILE5.ZIP 
>> COMBINED.ZIP
> 
> THAT will give you a corrupted file!
> 
> Concatenated copy (COPY with '+') has a behavior that you need to take into 
> account.
> 
> PC/MS-DOS 1.00 kept track of the file size with a course granularity. 
> (logical sectors, not bytes) Therefore, PC/MS-DOS supported CTRL-Z as an end 
> of file character!
> (A legacy of CP/M)
> 
> When you cop a file, it copies the whole thing.  Any extraneous content after 
> EOF won't matter.
> 
> BUT!  When you concatenate files,
> COPY FILE1.ZIP + FILE2.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP
> COPY will terminate FILE1.ZIP at the first CTRL-Z that it encounters!
> When copying text files, Concatenated COPY will trim off all content after 
> EOF!
> It is called "text mode".
> 
> You need to change your command to
> COPY /B  FILE1.ZIP+FILE2.ZIP+FILE3.ZIP+FILE4.ZIP+FILE5.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP
> to get "binary mode", so that it will copy ALL of each file, rather than just 
> to the "end of file character" of each!
> 
> Compare the final resulting file size of  COPY and COPY /B
> 
> --
> Grumpy Ol' Fred   ci...@xenosoft.com

I’m running the version of DOS that comes with DOSBOX-X (I think it’s 
FreeDOS?).  Checking COPY, and I’m not sure it supports /B, but it also doesn’t 
complain, the resulting combined ZIP is the same in both cases.  Turns out that 
I have three corrupted files in the fixed Zip, before fixing it there are a lot 
more.  That’s based on telling PKZIP to check the ZIP integrity. 

Zane

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: PKBACK Floppies?

[Sellam Abraham via cctalk]

On Wed, Feb 1, 2023 at 11:45 AM Fred Cisin via cctalk 
wrote:

> On Wed, 1 Feb 2023, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote:
> > So far I’ve tackled one split zip.  I wasn’t having any luck with
> > the version of PKZIP that I assume created this.  I copied the files
> > into a directory, and did COPY
> > FILE1.ZIP+FILE2.ZIP+FILE3.ZIP+FILE4.ZIP+FILE5.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP
>
> THAT will give you a corrupted file!
>
> Concatenated copy (COPY with '+') has a behavior that you need to take
> into account.
>
> PC/MS-DOS 1.00 kept track of the file size with a course granularity.
> (logical sectors, not bytes)
> Therefore, PC/MS-DOS supported CTRL-Z as an end of file character!
> (A legacy of CP/M)
>
> When you cop a file, it copies the whole thing.  Any extraneous content
> after EOF won't matter.
>
> BUT!  When you concatenate files,
> COPY FILE1.ZIP + FILE2.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP
> COPY will terminate FILE1.ZIP at the first CTRL-Z that it encounters!
> When copying text files, Concatenated COPY will trim off all content after
> EOF!
> It is called "text mode".
>
> You need to change your command to
> COPY /B  FILE1.ZIP+FILE2.ZIP+FILE3.ZIP+FILE4.ZIP+FILE5.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP
> to get "binary mode", so that it will copy ALL of each file, rather than
> just to the "end of file character" of each!
>
> Compare the final resulting file size of  COPY and COPY /B
>
> --
> Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com


Excellent knowledge transfer, Fred.  That is what makes this list great.

Sellam

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: PKBACK Floppies?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Wed, 1 Feb 2023, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote:
So far I’ve tackled one split zip.  I wasn’t having any luck with 
the version of PKZIP that I assume created this.  I copied the files 
into a directory, and did COPY 
FILE1.ZIP+FILE2.ZIP+FILE3.ZIP+FILE4.ZIP+FILE5.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP


THAT will give you a corrupted file!

Concatenated copy (COPY with '+') has a behavior that you need to take 
into account.


PC/MS-DOS 1.00 kept track of the file size with a course granularity. 
(logical sectors, not bytes) 
Therefore, PC/MS-DOS supported CTRL-Z as an end of file character!

(A legacy of CP/M)

When you cop a file, it copies the whole thing.  Any extraneous content 
after EOF won't matter.


BUT!  When you concatenate files,
COPY FILE1.ZIP + FILE2.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP
COPY will terminate FILE1.ZIP at the first CTRL-Z that it encounters!
When copying text files, Concatenated COPY will trim off all content after 
EOF!

It is called "text mode".

You need to change your command to
COPY /B  FILE1.ZIP+FILE2.ZIP+FILE3.ZIP+FILE4.ZIP+FILE5.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP
to get "binary mode", so that it will copy ALL of each file, rather than 
just to the "end of file character" of each!


Compare the final resulting file size of  COPY and COPY /B

--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: CD-R, DVD-R media available

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

Kodak Gold CD-R’s were supposed to be the best as I recall.

The Verbatim DataLifePlus are definitely long lived. 

I can’t remember if I’ve found any Sony or TDK disks in the stuff I’ve 
recovered recently, I believe I used both on occasion, but not for archives 
(though I’ve recovered CD’s I didn’t intend to be archives).  I have no 
experience with FujiFilm, except for DLT Tapes.

Zane




> On Feb 1, 2023, at 8:51 AM, Anders Nelson via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> Does anyone here know which brands/lines had the best longevity?
> 
> --
> Anders Nelson
> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 1, 2023 at 11:28 AM David Barto via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
>> 100’s of CD-R, Sony, TDK, and FujiFilm.
>> 25-30 DVD-R Sony and TDK
>> 
>> And CD cases sufficient to hold all the disks
>> 
>> Heavy, available for the cost of shipping.
>> I’m in San Diego, so local delivery is possible.
>> 
>>David
>> 
>> 

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: PKBACK Floppies?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On Jan 31, 2023, at 1:26 PM, David Glover-Aoki via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> On Jan 29, 2023, at 9:37 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk  
> wrote:
>> 
>> Some of the floppies I’m recovering data look to be either a multi-part ZIP 
>> file, or something.  Was this a separate product from PKZIP?  I’m not sure 
>> if I have a copy of PKZIP in the stuff I’ve recovered thus far.  I’ve not 
>> pulled them into DOSBOX to try and restore them, so far I’ve just tried to 
>> use Stuffit-Expander.   Part of the problem is every file has the same name, 
>> just on different floppies.
> 
> Info-ZIP still supports "split" archives, and spanned archives can be 
> converted to split archives by renaming them to the appropriate extension. 
> From the man page:
> 
> zip version 3.0 and later can create split archives.  A split archive is a 
> standard zip archive split over multiple files.  (Note that split archives 
> are not just archives split in to pieces, as the offsets of entries are now 
> based on the start of each split.  Concatenating the pieces together will 
> invalidate these offsets, but unzip can usually deal with it.  zip will 
> usually refuse to process such a spliced archive unless the -FF fix option is 
> used to fix the offsets.)
> 
> One use of split archives is storing a large archive on multiple removable 
> media.  For a split archive with 20 split files the files are typically named 
> (replace ARCHIVE with the name of your archive) ARCHIVE.z01, ARCHIVE.z02, 
> ..., ARCHIVE.z19, ARCHIVE.zip. Note that the last file is the .zip file.  In 
> contrast, spanned archives are the original multi-disk archive generally 
> requiring floppy disks and using volume labels to store disk numbers.  zip 
> supports split archives but not spanned archives, though a procedure exists 
> for converting split archives of the right size to spanned archives.  The 
> reverse is also true, where each file of a spanned archive can be copied in 
> order to files with the above names to create a split archive.
> 
> A split archive with missing split files can be fixed using -F if you have 
> the last split of the archive (the .zip file).  If this file is missing, you 
> must use -FF to fix the archive, which will prompt you for the splits you 
> have.
> 
> David.

So far I’ve tackled one split zip.  I wasn’t having any luck with the version 
of PKZIP that I assume created this.  I copied the files into a directory, and 
did COPY FILE1.ZIP+FILE2.ZIP+FILE3.ZIP+FILE4.ZIP+FILE5.ZIP COMBINED.ZIP

That still wasn’t working, as the file was corrupt, but I managed to use 
PKZIPFIX to fix it, and then I could unzip it.  The info above will definitely 
help, especially with regards to the ZIPs missing the first part.

Slowly I’m recovering my old DOS system.

Zane

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: Computer Museum uses GreaseWeazle to help exonerate Maryland Man

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On Jan 31, 2023, at 2:19 PM, Paul Koning  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Jan 31, 2023, at 5:03 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> On Jan 31, 2023, at 10:22 AM, Steve Lewis via cctalk  
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I know the first generation CD/DVD disc are known to "go bad" - the
>>> material itself somehow degrades and becomes unreadable by modern drives.
>>> I'm not sure if that's still the case with newer or more modern CD/DVD disc
>>> (not just that they're newer, but are they a more durable material or
>>> casing?)
>> 
>> Choosing the right blanks made a world of difference.  The as I said 
>> recently, all the Verbatim DataLifePlus I’ve tried to recovered have been 
>> fine.  The main data I lost was stored on a DVD-R blank from another 
>> manufacturer.
>> 
>> I’m now looking at switching to Verbatim M-Disc’s.
>> 
>> As part of my recent efforts I’ve regained access to data that while live on 
>> spinning disk, had become corrupted sometime between 1997 and 1999.
>> 
>> Zane
> 
> I don't remember if RW (erasable) DVDs exist, or if that is only offered for 
> CD blanks.  As I understand it, the RW technology has nowhere the longevity 
> of the write-once kind.  Makes sense since those are reversible, which 
> suggests that the reversing might happen gradually in storage, similar to the 
> way that NVRAM (flash memory) gradually fades which OTP ROMs tend to last 
> forever unless they have a process defect.
> 
>   Paul

I was quite frankly amazed that I was able to recover data from Memorex CD-RW 
disks.

I don’t remember if I’ve run across any DVD-RW disks in my efforts (they do 
exist).

Zane

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: Computer Museum uses GreaseWeazle to help exonerate Maryland Man

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 31, 2023, at 5:03 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Jan 31, 2023, at 10:22 AM, Steve Lewis via cctalk  
> wrote:
>> 
>> I know the first generation CD/DVD disc are known to "go bad" - the
>> material itself somehow degrades and becomes unreadable by modern drives.
>> I'm not sure if that's still the case with newer or more modern CD/DVD disc
>> (not just that they're newer, but are they a more durable material or
>> casing?)
> 
> Choosing the right blanks made a world of difference.  The as I said 
> recently, all the Verbatim DataLifePlus I’ve tried to recovered have been 
> fine.  The main data I lost was stored on a DVD-R blank from another 
> manufacturer.
> 
> I’m now looking at switching to Verbatim M-Disc’s.
> 
> As part of my recent efforts I’ve regained access to data that while live on 
> spinning disk, had become corrupted sometime between 1997 and 1999.
> 
> Zane

I don't remember if RW (erasable) DVDs exist, or if that is only offered for CD 
blanks.  As I understand it, the RW technology has nowhere the longevity of the 
write-once kind.  Makes sense since those are reversible, which suggests that 
the reversing might happen gradually in storage, similar to the way that NVRAM 
(flash memory) gradually fades which OTP ROMs tend to last forever unless they 
have a process defect.

paul

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: Computer Museum uses GreaseWeazle to help exonerate Maryland Man

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

On Jan 31, 2023, at 10:36 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk  
wrote:
> 
> Half-inch open-reel 9 track tape seems to withstand the test of time as
> well as anything.
> 
> The problem with the high-capacity tape used for server backup will be
> finding drives and controllers compatible with it in years to come.  I
> don't know how many people, for example, squirrel away LTO drives of
> various types, but you're not going to read that LTO-2 tape on your
> LTO-9 drive.  Then there's the matter of finding the apppropriate
> controller.
> 
> 8mm and DDS drives are starting to become uncommon.  And we all know the
> fate of QIC/Travan tapes.
> 
> The rule seems to be that if you want to hang onto something, keep
> migrating it to newer storage.
> 
> --Chuck

When using tape as an archive medium, you must include a plan for refreshing 
those tapes.  When creating an archive solution, it’s important that the 
refresh of the media is an automated process that doesn’t require headcount.

Having a system in place for tracking where all your archive media is, and what 
it is, is equally important.  Case in point, I’ve spent the last 3 weekends 
trying to find some boxes of floppies.  I found “them” on Sunday, only to find 
that they are apparently no longer in one of the boxes, and that box must be 
one of the others I’ve found, and it’s been reused.  

Zane

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: Computer Museum uses GreaseWeazle to help exonerate Maryland Man

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

On Jan 31, 2023, at 10:22 AM, Steve Lewis via cctalk  
wrote:
> 
> I know the first generation CD/DVD disc are known to "go bad" - the
> material itself somehow degrades and becomes unreadable by modern drives.
> I'm not sure if that's still the case with newer or more modern CD/DVD disc
> (not just that they're newer, but are they a more durable material or
> casing?)

Choosing the right blanks made a world of difference.  The as I said recently, 
all the Verbatim DataLifePlus I’ve tried to recovered have been fine.  The main 
data I lost was stored on a DVD-R blank from another manufacturer.

I’m now looking at switching to Verbatim M-Disc’s.

As part of my recent efforts I’ve regained access to data that while live on 
spinning disk, had become corrupted sometime between 1997 and 1999.

Zane

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: USB Attached 5.25" drives?

[Jim Brain via cctalk]

On 1/20/2023 2:31 PM, Zane Healy wrote:

Realistically that’s good enough Jim, though I find the way the 3.5” floppies 
are working to be quite useful.  I can take a look at what’s on them, and in 
many cases, I just pull the files off.  As there is no reason to image them.


No doubt.  Don't get me wrong, GW and KryoFlux and Catweazel(sp?) and 
others serve a great purpose.  But, most media is not so important.  I 
have some geneology disks a family member worked on in the 1980s that I 
need to archive.  But, it does not rise to the need to flux image.  I'll 
just pop them into a DOS PC and grab the data.  If there are issues, 
we'll cross that bridge then.


Jim

--
Jim Brain
br...@jbrain.com
www.jbrain.com

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: USB Attached 5.25" drives?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On Jan 20, 2023, at 11:19 AM, Jim Brain via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On 1/20/2023 1:05 PM, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:
>> Using the Greaseweazel is a two stage process.  The GW itself connects to 
>> the actual drive and just records the flux transitions as a series of zeros 
>> and ones.  This is transferred to a computer (PC, MAC, Linux) where the 
>> captured flux image is analyzed by a second program which understands floppy 
>> formats.  You tell the analyzer what you are looking at.
>> 
>> The analyzer can then provide a binary dump of the actual data (track by 
>> track) or for operating systems that it understands it can extract 
>> directories and files.
>> 
>> On 1/20/2023 12:52 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote:
>>> I’m now aware of the GreaseWeazle, but what I’ve not seen is if it allows 
>>> standard access to the data on a floppy, or only provides a way to image 
>>> the disk.  With an USB attached 3.5” floppy the disk mounts on my Mac, and 
>>> I can easily pull files off the disk.  Does this work with the GreaseWeazle 
>>> and a 5.25” floppy drive?
>>> 
>>> Zane
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
> Not to discount Mike's response, but to Zane's original question:  At this 
> time, No, the GW only allows imaging.
> 
> *BUT*, there is nothing preventing the firmware Keir wrote from being 
> extended to support accessing the actual floppy disk directly via the USB 
> interface (by emulating a regular USB floppy drive set of commands).
> 
> In reality, most people just do with Mike is suggesting.  Grab the image and 
> then mount it as a virtual floppy and read the files/dirs as needed.
> 
> Jim
> 
> -- 
> Jim Brain
> br...@jbrain.com
> www.jbrain.com

My thanks to all that answered.  I’ll probably pick up a GreaseWeazel at some 
point.  Right now I’m trying to judge my need.  I’ve only found a fraction of 
the 5.25” floppies I should have.  For that matter, I’ve only found about 60% 
of the 3.5” floppies I should have.  I’m mystified as to where three big boxes 
are, and those include the bulk of my 5.25” floppies.

Realistically that’s good enough Jim, though I find the way the 3.5” floppies 
are working to be quite useful.  I can take a look at what’s on them, and in 
many cases, I just pull the files off.  As there is no reason to image them.

Zane

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Bob Roswell via cctalk]

Confirmed that the LINC in question is now at the Computer Museum @ System 
Source
This one is in great condition (except for the large live spider)  Pictures 
from unloading the truck
https://photos.app.goo.gl/2GvqTQukSEEnyoQp8


Bob Roswell
mus...@syssrc.com
https://museum.syssrc.com

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Chris Zach via cctalk]

Cool! Let me know when you get it running, I've got a box of LINCTapes I 
wanted to read from the pdp12.


CZ

On 1/19/2023 4:29 PM, rar--- via cctalk wrote:

We (Computer Museum @ System Source) picked up this unit today.
Here are a few snapshots after we pulled the unit off of the truck.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2GvqTQukSEEnyoQp8

Bob Roswell

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[rar via cctalk]

The machine is in great condition.  It was (carefully) turned on this evening!  
Blinking Lights!
Bob Roswell

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Tom Hunter via cctalk]

You got an amazing bargain. I was expecting at least a magnitude higher
price.

On Fri, 20 Jan 2023, 8:29 am rar--- via cctalk, 
wrote:

> We (Computer Museum @ System Source) picked up this unit today.
> Here are a few snapshots after we pulled the unit off of the truck.
>
> https://photos.app.goo.gl/2GvqTQukSEEnyoQp8
>
> Bob Roswell
>

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[rar--- via cctalk]

We (Computer Museum @ System Source) picked up this unit today.
Here are a few snapshots after we pulled the unit off of the truck.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2GvqTQukSEEnyoQp8

Bob Roswell

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[h...@dec.dog via cctalk]

it was not LSSM, i asked one of their docents last night.

—
.hush
Got interesting stuff to sell? Let me know!
Looking for DEC, IBM, CDC, SGI, Data General, and more!

> On Wednesday, Jan 18, 2023 at 1:43 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk 
> mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org)> wrote:
> On 1/17/23 21:34, Wayne S via cctalk wrote:
> > Another forum said a museum
> > in Pa won it.
>
> LSSM (Large Scale Systems Museum)? I just donated some
> stuff to them.
>
> Jon
>

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Bill Degnan via cctalk]

I am told System Source north of Baltimore, MD

On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 1:43 PM Jon Elson via cctalk 
wrote:

> On 1/17/23 21:34, Wayne S via cctalk wrote:
> > Another forum said a museum
> >   in Pa won it.
>
> LSSM  (Large Scale Systems Museum)?  I just donated some
> stuff to them.
>
> Jon
>
>

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 1/17/23 21:34, Wayne S via cctalk wrote:

Another forum said a museum
  in Pa won it.


LSSM  (Large Scale Systems Museum)?  I just donated some 
stuff to them.


Jon

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Mike Loewen via cctalk]

   A smaller one.

On Wed, 18 Jan 2023, Bill Degnan wrote:


Didnt they already have a LINC?
B

On Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 12:15 AM Mike Loewen via cctalk 
wrote:



No, it went to the System Source museum in Huntsville, MD.

On Tue, 17 Jan 2023, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:


So it must have gone to the LSSM.  It did not go to kennett classic.

Maybe

the "computer church" in Parkesburg bought it.
BIll

On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 10:35 PM Wayne S via cctalk <

cctalk@classiccmp.org>

wrote:


Another forum said a museum
 in Pa won it.


Sent from my iPhone


On Jan 17, 2023, at 17:55, Tony Jones via cctalk <

cctalk@classiccmp.org>

wrote:


On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 5:52 PM Bill Degnan via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:


That bwas a good price I think.



Yes, just imagine all the cool things you could do with it :-)






Mike Loewen mloe...@cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology  http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/




Mike Loewen mloe...@cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology  http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Bill Degnan via cctalk]

Didnt they already have a LINC?
B

On Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 12:15 AM Mike Loewen via cctalk 
wrote:

>
> No, it went to the System Source museum in Huntsville, MD.
>
> On Tue, 17 Jan 2023, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
>
> > So it must have gone to the LSSM.  It did not go to kennett classic.
> Maybe
> > the "computer church" in Parkesburg bought it.
> > BIll
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 10:35 PM Wayne S via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Another forum said a museum
> >>  in Pa won it.
> >>
> >>
> >> Sent from my iPhone
> >>
> >>> On Jan 17, 2023, at 17:55, Tony Jones via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 5:52 PM Bill Degnan via cctalk <
> >>> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >>>
>  That bwas a good price I think.
> 
> >>>
> >>> Yes, just imagine all the cool things you could do with it :-)
> >>
> >
>
> Mike Loewen mloe...@cpumagic.scol.pa.us
> Old Technology  http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Chris Zach via cctalk]

Does it have a floating point unit? You could mine bitcoins

C

On 1/17/2023 8:55 PM, Tony Jones via cctalk wrote:

On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 5:52 PM Bill Degnan via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:


That bwas a good price I think.



Yes, just imagine all the cool things you could do with it :-)

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Mike Loewen via cctalk]

   Correction: Hunt Valley, MD.

On Wed, 18 Jan 2023, Mike Loewen via cctalk wrote:



  No, it went to the System Source museum in Huntsville, MD.

On Tue, 17 Jan 2023, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:


 So it must have gone to the LSSM.  It did not go to kennett classic.
 Maybe
 the "computer church" in Parkesburg bought it.
 BIll

 On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 10:35 PM Wayne S via cctalk
 
 wrote:


 Another forum said a museum
  in Pa won it.


 Sent from my iPhone


 On Jan 17, 2023, at 17:55, Tony Jones via cctalk 

 wrote:


 On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 5:52 PM Bill Degnan via cctalk <
 cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:


 That bwas a good price I think.



 Yes, just imagine all the cool things you could do with it :-)






Mike Loewen mloe...@cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology  http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/



Mike Loewen mloe...@cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology  http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Mike Loewen via cctalk]

   No, it went to the System Source museum in Huntsville, MD.

On Tue, 17 Jan 2023, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:


So it must have gone to the LSSM.  It did not go to kennett classic.  Maybe
the "computer church" in Parkesburg bought it.
BIll

On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 10:35 PM Wayne S via cctalk 
wrote:


Another forum said a museum
 in Pa won it.


Sent from my iPhone


On Jan 17, 2023, at 17:55, Tony Jones via cctalk 

wrote:


On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 5:52 PM Bill Degnan via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:


That bwas a good price I think.



Yes, just imagine all the cool things you could do with it :-)






Mike Loewen mloe...@cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology  http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Bill Degnan via cctalk]

So it must have gone to the LSSM.  It did not go to kennett classic.  Maybe
the "computer church" in Parkesburg bought it.
BIll

On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 10:35 PM Wayne S via cctalk 
wrote:

> Another forum said a museum
>  in Pa won it.
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Jan 17, 2023, at 17:55, Tony Jones via cctalk 
> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 5:52 PM Bill Degnan via cctalk <
> > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >
> >> That bwas a good price I think.
> >>
> >
> > Yes, just imagine all the cool things you could do with it :-)
>

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Wayne S via cctalk]

Another forum said a museum
 in Pa won it.


Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 17, 2023, at 17:55, Tony Jones via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 5:52 PM Bill Degnan via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
>> That bwas a good price I think.
>> 
> 
> Yes, just imagine all the cool things you could do with it :-)

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Tony Jones via cctalk]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2023 at 5:52 PM Bill Degnan via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> That bwas a good price I think.
>

Yes, just imagine all the cool things you could do with it :-)

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Bill Degnan via cctalk]

I planned to bid but forgot...live pretty nearby too I could have picked
up.  Oh well.  Thatbwas a good price I think.
B

On Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 8:44 PM Zane Healy via cctalk 
wrote:

> Yes, but they have to move it now!
>
> Zane
>
>
>
> > On Jan 17, 2023, at 5:09 PM, Sellam Abraham via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >
> > That LINC-8 sold for $2,150.  A total bargain.
> >
> >
> https://hibid.com/lot/143159802/digital-equipment-corp-linc-eight-vintage
> >
> > Sellam
>
>

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] LINC-8 sells for $2,150

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

Yes, but they have to move it now!

Zane 



> On Jan 17, 2023, at 5:09 PM, Sellam Abraham via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> That LINC-8 sold for $2,150.  A total bargain.
> 
> https://hibid.com/lot/143159802/digital-equipment-corp-linc-eight-vintage
> 
> Sellam

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: long lived media (Was: Damage to CD-R from CD Sleeve

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

On Jan 17, 2023, at 2:02 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk  
wrote:
> 
> If you mean CHKDSK.EXE, it's broadly equivalent to Unix fsck plus a surface
> scan, and all fsck does is check and repair filesystem _metadata_. If the
> metadata is corrupt then that's a good sign that the data itself is also
> toast, but a successful verification of the metadata does not tell you
> anything useful about the data itself.

And this is where having Optical Discs help.  As part of my project, I’ve found 
backups from as far back as ’97, and as a result, recovered data that I’d lost 
by ’99.  That includes an update to a book that can no longer be found on the 
Internet, and all the code for a Shareware program I wrote in ’96/97.

The 3-2-1 rule says you should have at least 3 copies of your data, including 
two on different types of media, and a 3rd copy off-site.

Zane

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Mon, 9 Jan 2023 at 03:45, Ethan Dicks via cctalk
 wrote:

> I have a memory of installing Windows 95 on a monochrome 386SX laptop
> w/4MB of RAM in August, 1995 at McMurdo because that's the equipment
> we had on hand when Win95 arrived on the continent. It was
> unpleasantly slow but it did run.
>
> Way better on a 486 w/8MB.

Oh my word yes.

But the surprising thing was that it did work, my careful
benchmarking, using MS Office, Photoshop and some other real apps,
automated with macros, showed that MS' optimization work had gone in
the right places.

WfWg 3.11 with 32-bit disk access and 32-bit file access had a fast
disk subsystem, but it wasn't able to adjust cache sizes on the fly.
You set min/max sizes and that was that.

W95 could shrink them to next to nothing if it needed.

Result: W95 started slower and felt slower on a very low-end machine,
such as a 386 with 4MB, the min spec. WfWg 3.11 started quicker and
was much more responsive.

But put both through the same set of demanding exercises in real apps,
doing a lot of work, generating documents, outputting info over OLE
into other apps and things, and W95 ran the whole benchmark suite
quicker.

It _felt_ slower but it actually traded off responsive feel for doing
big demanding jobs faster overall.

In comparison, an OS that went the other way was BeOS, which was tuned
to feel maximally responsive at all times... and for the most part it
didn't _have_ big demanding apps that could be scripted into long
heavy workloads, so BeOS felt much massively quicker on
turn-of-the-century PCs.





-- 
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Ethan Dicks via cctalk]

On Sun, Jan 8, 2023 at 11:52 AM Liam Proven via cctalk
 wrote:
> > Win95/Win98 would be happy with a PC/AT 286, with appropriate RAM
>
> Nope. 32-bit only. 386DX or later. I tried it and benchmarked it at
> the time of release. And it beat WfWg 3.11 by a significant margin, to
> everyone's amazement.

I have a memory of installing Windows 95 on a monochrome 386SX laptop
w/4MB of RAM in August, 1995 at McMurdo because that's the equipment
we had on hand when Win95 arrived on the continent. It was
unpleasantly slow but it did run.

Way better on a 486 w/8MB.

-ethan

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Fri, 23 Dec 2022 at 07:54, Chuck Guzis via cctalk
 wrote:

> Well, if you want to pedantic about it, you certainly could emulate a
> 32-bit processor on any reasonably Turing-equivalent processor, given
> sufficient memory.  It might be incredibly slow, but you could do it.

Noted Australian Mac hacker Dana Silbera -- "nanoraptor" on Twitter --
got Mac OS X to boot on a 68040 Mac this way. EXTREMELY slowly, in the
PearPC PowerPC emulator, compiled on 680x0 Linux, IIRC.

It took 2 days to show the desktop or something.

-- 
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Thu, 22 Dec 2022 at 23:41, Fred Cisin via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> On Thu, 22 Dec 2022, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote:
> > You've apparently never heard of Tony Duell: last I read he was running
> > Windows 98 on an IBM PC/XT or something like that :)

Linux on a heavily-upgraded PC-AT with a '386 board in it, I believe.

> Tony,
> are you around?

He is, still posts occasionally, and I believe he has a more modern PC now. :-)

> Win95/Win98 would be happy with a PC/AT 286, with appropriate RAM

Nope. 32-bit only. 386DX or later. I tried it and benchmarked it at
the time of release. And it beat WfWg 3.11 by a significant margin, to
everyone's amazement.

-- 
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

On 12/22/22 22:31, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:


Software development calls for more speed, for decent compile, assmble, 
and link times.




Come on Fred.  You have been around long enough to know this isn't
really true.  It's nice to have but we did just fine developing real
software (not Candy Crush Saga) back when turnaround time on a compile
could easily be more than 24 hours.  The things you mention above have
only made developers more lazy.

bill

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Chris via cctalk]

 




On Friday, December 23, 2022, 01:54:57 AM EST, Chuck Guzis via cctalk 
 wrote:


On 12/22/22 18:45, Glen Slick via cctalk wrote:

> Shirley none of you are serious about a 32-bit (at least partially)
> operating system being able to execute on a 286 processor.
>
> You couldn't even run Windows 3.1 in Enhanced mode on a 286 processor.

Well, if you want to pedantic about it, you certainly could emulate a
32-bit processor on any reasonably Turing-equivalent processor, given
sufficient memory. It might be incredibly slow, but you could do it.

--Chuck

I was going to say assembly language texts and maybe even Intel docs give 
examples of substituting 2 or more instructions to replace a newer processors 
instructions, that the earlier one never heard of. Not sure if that's what Fred 
was talking about.

Who cares about W95/98. I want to see NT 4.0 running on PC Peanut.  

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 12/22/22 18:45, Glen Slick via cctalk wrote:
> Shirley none of you are serious about a 32-bit (at least partially)
> operating system being able to execute on a 286 processor.
>
> You couldn't even run Windows 3.1 in Enhanced mode on a 286 processor.
Well, if you want to pedantic about it, you certainly could emulate a
32-bit processor on any reasonably Turing-equivalent processor, given
sufficient memory.  It might be incredibly slow, but you could do it.

--Chuck

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Tony Duell via cctalk]

On Thu, Dec 22, 2022 at 10:41 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> On Thu, 22 Dec 2022, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote:
> > You've apparently never heard of Tony Duell: last I read he was running
> > Windows 98 on an IBM PC/XT or something like that :)
>
> Tony,
> are you around?

QSL

The only 'classic' Windows system I have is an HP150. Of course that
is a specially modified version of Windows1 (doesn't even have
overlapping windows)

Alas I have had to get a more modern PC to have access to the internet
and this list. I don't regard it as a computer. I do not know how to
program it, I do not know how to interface it. It does what the
manufacturers want, not what I want. And we call this progress.

Still got all my classics though, and a few more. Spent the last
couple of months sorting out a strange 68020 box called a Stride 440.
I guess that's on-topic here.

-tony

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Win95/Win98 would be happy with a PC/AT 286, with appropriate RAM

On Thu, 22 Dec 2022, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:

I don't think "happy" is how I would describe that.
Would it run?  Maybe.
Would I want to run it like that?  Nope.  Not at all.

I stand corrected.
"Run", no.
"limp along", yes
It could do a few useful things; but was far from suitable for general
purpose.




On Thu, Dec 22, 2022 at 6:46 PM Glen Slick via cctalk 
wrote:

Shirley none of you are serious about a 32-bit (at least partially)
operating system being able to execute on a 286 processor.

You couldn't even run Windows 3.1 in Enhanced mode on a 286 processor.


On Thu, 22 Dec 2022, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote:


Seems a bit impossible to me as well but Fred has made computers do things
that would make ordinary men involuntarily lose their bladder so I look
forward to the story/explanation.


Well, some of that was just being ignorant that certain things weren't 
"possible" until after they were done.


but, really, nothing fancy.
If you have A computer, and need it to do many different things 
adequately, you have much greater requirements, than if you have MANY 
computers, many of which are dedicated to specific tasks.


"Telephone log", "order entry", "order processing", "bookkeeping and 
accounting" don't require much; "documentation" and "desktop publishing"
need a bit more, but different needs.  And NONE of those should EVER be on 
the same machines used for software development and testing.


Software development calls for more speed, for decent compile, assmble, 
and link times.


Software testing must be done on a variety of machines, specifically 
including ones at the level of the customer.
XenoCopy 1.000 was tested on 5150.  And that was ALL that it ran 
on.  Changes had to be made when "compatible" machines came out.


Many companies make the mistake of providing state of the art machines to 
their testers, who therefore don't experience the kinds of problems that 
the customers get on crappy machines.


For example, when an operating system company uses high end RELIABLE 
machines for testing, they don't experience the problems, and end up with 
very poor error handling.


For example, Microsoft was unaware that a disk error, even a minor one, 
could/would corrupt the content being written to disk by write cacheing in 
SMARTDRV.  When that was reported to them by Win3.1 beta testers, their 
response was LITERALLY, "That's a hardware issue; NOT OUR PROBLEM."  They 
had to do a major free "update" towards DOS 6.2x because of that (SMARTDRV 
was the only issue that actually forced that free update; the "problems 
with disk compression" were virrtually ALL SMARTDRV.)


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Will Cooke via cctalk]

> On 12/22/2022 8:45 PM CST Glen Slick via cctalk 
> 
> Shirley none of you are serious about a 32-bit (at least partially)
> operating system being able to execute on a 286 processor.
> 
> You couldn't even run Windows 3.1 in Enhanced mode on a 286 processor.
> 
> >
Well, there's always Linux on an 8 bit microcontroller...
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/28/building-the-worst-linux-pc-ever/

Will

I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by 
married men. Nikola Tesla

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Sellam Abraham via cctalk]

Seems a bit impossible to me as well but Fred has made computers do things
that would make ordinary men involuntarily lose their bladder so I look
forward to the story/explanation.

Sellam

On Thu, Dec 22, 2022 at 6:46 PM Glen Slick via cctalk 
wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 6:16 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk  >
> wrote:
>
> > >> Win95/Win98 would be happy with a PC/AT 286, with appropriate RAM
> >
> > On Thu, 22 Dec 2022, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:
> > > I don't think "happy" is how I would describe that.
> > > Would it run?  Maybe.
> > > Would I want to run it like that?  Nope.  Not at all.
> >
> > I stand corrected.
> > "Run", no.
> > "limp along", yes
> > It could do a few useful things; but was far from suitable for general
> > purpose.
> >
>
> Shirley none of you are serious about a 32-bit (at least partially)
> operating system being able to execute on a 286 processor.
>
> You couldn't even run Windows 3.1 in Enhanced mode on a 286 processor.
>
> >
>

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Glen Slick via cctalk]

On Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 6:16 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk 
wrote:

> >> Win95/Win98 would be happy with a PC/AT 286, with appropriate RAM
>
> On Thu, 22 Dec 2022, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:
> > I don't think "happy" is how I would describe that.
> > Would it run?  Maybe.
> > Would I want to run it like that?  Nope.  Not at all.
>
> I stand corrected.
> "Run", no.
> "limp along", yes
> It could do a few useful things; but was far from suitable for general
> purpose.
>

Shirley none of you are serious about a 32-bit (at least partially)
operating system being able to execute on a 286 processor.

You couldn't even run Windows 3.1 in Enhanced mode on a 286 processor.

>

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Win95/Win98 would be happy with a PC/AT 286, with appropriate RAM


On Thu, 22 Dec 2022, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:

I don't think "happy" is how I would describe that.
Would it run?  Maybe.
Would I want to run it like that?  Nope.  Not at all.


I stand corrected.
"Run", no.
"limp along", yes
It could do a few useful things; but was far from suitable for general 
purpose.


"Happy"??!?  as in a "happy holiday season"

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 12/22/22 2:24 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote:

For PC’s, being able to run WinXP is an interesting cutoff


Why use a cut off that's based on a date?

After all, the list is a moving / sliding window.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 12/22/22 3:41 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

Win95/Win98 would be happy with a PC/AT 286, with appropriate RAM


I don't think "happy" is how I would describe that.

Would it run?  Maybe.

Would I want to run it like that?  Nope.  Not at all.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Thu, 22 Dec 2022, Jim Brain via cctalk wrote:


On 12/22/2022 5:02 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:


Another possible exception for banning XP:
I think that the OQO is interesting enough to call for inclusion.
It is a handheld, running XP.   Screen slides partway off to reveal a 
keyboard.


/me looks at his OQO 2, which still works (and has XP on it, as I recall).  
Battery is no more, though.


it has the docking station as well.  Bought new in 2005 or something.


There is a common problem, that if that battery is discharged below some 
threshold, it won't charge on the normal charger(s).  But, SOMETIMES, if 
you open the battery and force a little bit of charge into it, sometimes 
that will revive it.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Jim Brain via cctalk]

On 12/22/2022 5:02 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:


Another possible exception for banning XP:
I think that the OQO is interesting enough to call for inclusion.
It is a handheld, running XP.   Screen slides partway off to reveal a 
keyboard.


/me looks at his OQO 2, which still works (and has XP on it, as I 
recall).  Battery is no more, though.


it has the docking station as well.  Bought new in 2005 or something.

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

We used to shun anything newer than and including the IBM PC but
time.marches on.  You're safe if you discuss systems produced before 1990.
After that put an OT in the front of your subject so as not to offend the
purists.  Personally I think anything built after 1995 is too new for
cctalk, but thats just me.

As mentioned elsewhere, the old "10 year" rule is long irrelevant.
I think 1995 is a good general cut-off for a strictly time-based
threshold, but it's not a hard boundary - PPC Macs I would think
should still be in bounds.

A softer rule would probably be "(nearly) anything goes except
nearly-current Windows PCs".  If a machine can run WinXP, it's too
new.  Also as mentioned, there are plenty of lists about modern PCs.


On Thu, 22 Dec 2022, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote:
For PC’s, being able to run WinXP is an interesting cutoff, and I 
think makes sense.


Another possible exception for banning XP:
I think that the OQO is interesting enough to call for inclusion.
It is a handheld, running XP.   Screen slides partway off to reveal a 
keyboard.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Thu, 22 Dec 2022, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote:

You've apparently never heard of Tony Duell: last I read he was running
Windows 98 on an IBM PC/XT or something like that :)


Tony,
are you around?

My experience was that Windoze 3.00 was the last that could be installed 
on an 8088.
Win 3.10 and above demanded at least a few K of RAM above the 1MB 
boundary. (Himem.sys, A20)  You could easily get away (3.10, 3.11) with 
512K plus 64K addressed with A20.
There MIGHT be some clever tricks to fool the SETUP program, which also 
installed SMARTDRV.



Win95/Win98 would be happy with a PC/AT 286, with appropriate RAM

--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Sellam Abraham via cctalk]

On Thu, Dec 22, 2022 at 1:31 PM Zane Healy via cctalk 
wrote:

> For PC’s, being able to run WinXP is an interesting cutoff, and I think
> makes sense.

Zane
>

You've apparently never heard of Tony Duell: last I read he was running
Windows 98 on an IBM PC/XT or something like that :)

Sellam

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

On Dec 22, 2022, at 11:29 AM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk  
wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 5:35 PM Bill Degnan via cctalk
>  wrote:
>> We used to shun anything newer than and including the IBM PC but
>> time.marches on.  You're safe if you discuss systems produced before 1990.
>> After that put an OT in the front of your subject so as not to offend the
>> purists.  Personally I think anything built after 1995 is too new for
>> cctalk, but thats just me.
> 
> As mentioned elsewhere, the old "10 year" rule is long irrelevant.
> 
> I think 1995 is a good general cut-off for a strictly time-based
> threshold, but it's not a hard boundary - PPC Macs I would think
> should still be in bounds.
> 
> A softer rule would probably be "(nearly) anything goes except
> nearly-current Windows PCs".  If a machine can run WinXP, it's too
> new.  Also as mentioned, there are plenty of lists about modern PCs.
> 
> -Ethan


For PC’s, being able to run WinXP is an interesting cutoff, and I think makes 
sense.  Though in my case, my need for WinXP is due to a 35mm film scanner that 
only works with the OEM software, and that only runs on WinXP.  Currently I use 
it via Parallels Desktop running on a 2010 Mac Pro.  People lucky enough to 
have drum scanners run them with potentially older hardware, especially if 
connected to a Mac.

I’ll argue that Intel-based Macs or newer are off-topic, and I say that even 
though I’m a heavy user of Macs, even 10+ year old ones, including having 
software that only runs on even older ones.

I’d also argue pretty much any DEC Alpha, Sun, HP-UX, SGI IRIX, or non-PC IBM 
system is on topic.  Even the current IBM z16 Mainframe is something of a 
classic in my mind. :-)

Zane

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Sellam Abraham via cctalk]

On Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:51 AM Zane Healy  wrote:

>
> Having seen another of your posts, I’m left to wonder how many of us had
> our eyes opened by this list back in 1997.  In my case having worked on
> some systems decidedly “vintage” systems, prior to joining the list helped
> spark my interest.  That and my love of Operating Systems.  I want to say
> that I found the list after picking up my first couple vintage computers,
> back when you could find them at Goodwill cheap.
>

We all in some way owe a debt of gratitude to Bill Whitson (wherever he is
these days) for bringing us all together and being the impetus for so much
of what this hobby has become today.

Sellam

[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

Anything up to 64-bit has been on topic over the life of this list.  Though 
64-bit initially was pushing it, less so now, as I’d definitely consider 
something like a Sun Ultra 2, or DEC Alpha to be very much on topic.  I 
definitely participated in discussions of early Macintosh systems back around 
’97.  I doubt I participated much (if at all) in discussions of early PC’s.  
I’ve always viewed discussion of off-topic PC’s to be of more interest, though 
I am starting to look at vintage PC’s a bit differently (simply due to wanting 
to still access some vintage software, and needing to move off Parallels 
Desktop on my Mac).

While I probably wouldn’t want to participate in a discussion of them, I’d 
argue that a “Willamette” Pentium 4 is sufficiently vintage, and something of 
an odd-ball today.  Same with any PPC based Mac.  While I have Intel based 
Mac’s that are 10+ old, I don’t consider them to be classic, especially as one 
is still in nearly daily use.

I like your proposal of, "don't bring up boring modern topics that have a 
better home somewhere else."

Having seen another of your posts, I’m left to wonder how many of us had our 
eyes opened by this list back in 1997.  In my case having worked on some 
systems decidedly “vintage” systems, prior to joining the list helped spark my 
interest.  That and my love of Operating Systems.  I want to say that I found 
the list after picking up my first couple vintage computers, back when you 
could find them at Goodwill cheap. 

Zane



> On Dec 21, 2022, at 11:58 AM, Sellam Abraham via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> This list was never declared to be exclusively an 8-bit affair.  I'm not
> sure where you're getting that from.  From the get go in 1997 when Bill
> Whitson founded the list, all computers of a vintage or obsolete nature
> were game for discussion.  It's only after a few years and time marching on
> with its inevitable technological progress, and companies that were once
> industry stalwarts started to fall by the wayside, that we began to
> question what the cut-off is.  And as far as the IBM PC, it was definitely
> vintage by the time the list was launched.  The objections back in the day
> as I remember them were to questions pertaining to modern x86 or Macintosh
> systems that had plenty of forums elsewhere on the internet to engage in
> discussions of those (i.e. this is not a tech support forum) (...unless
> it's vintage tech).  These days, however, I think it's fine to discuss
> 286/386/486 and even Pentium (below the II, at least) systems because
> they're sufficiently "vintage" now in the sense of the word that I think
> brings focus to the purpose and nature of this hobby.
> 
> In the interest of putting this thread to rest, if I were to call the rule,
> I'd make it simple: don't bring up boring modern topics that have a better
> home somewhere else.
> 
> And with that, I hope we can move on, or at least morph this thread into a
> more interesting topic.
> 
> Sellam

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Bill Degnan via cctalk]

>
> The /recipient/ of the messages is *not* the problem.  The /source/ of
> the messages *is* the problem.
>
> What is done with what is received is independent of the source of the
> problem.
>

Yes!  This is absolutely true.  Some of the members of this list use mail
servers whose outbound emails are not properly authenticated.  That is the
issue I was addressing in the initial post in this thread.  Authentication
is something individual members have control over to fix.

Bill Degnan

>

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 1/3/21 8:40 AM, Peter Coghlan wrote:

Grant,


Hi Peter,

Do you think it is likely that an email address like 
check212...@gmail.com is used by an actual real person for their 
personal email?


I absolutely do.

Multiply the odds of the above by the odds that some spammer 
or other individual of malicious intent has had the capability, 
the persistence, tenacity and sheer ill will in them that it would 
take to carry out a vendetta against poor old check212...@gmail.com 
for five long years, not to mention that when they only succeeed in 
causing check212...@gmail.com any actual difficulty is on the rare 
occasions that their trawl of mail servers of the internet manages 
to turn up an actual open mail relay?


I know multiple people that have signed victims up to mailing lists -- 
many of which were questionable content -- as an attack on said victims.


Pretending to send email from said victims to cause bounces and ire to 
be (mis)directed at them seems quite the same to me.


Five years?  Sure.  Many people will create filters and simply ignore 
the messages.  As such, it's effectively internet background radiation / 
wasted bits.


Whack-a-Mole works when everyone whacks their moles.  When one major 
property owner decides they aren't going to whack the moles in their 
garden when all the neighbours keep theirs under control, they are 
going to end up with all the moles in their lawn.  (We don't have 
real live moles in the part of the world were I am so please forgive 
me if my analogy is not accurate due to my lack of familiarity with 
the species.)


I am not a lawyer but it appears to me that check212...@gmail.com is 
doing nothing that violates Google's terms of service for using Gmail,


So ... by your own words, there is nothing that Google should be doing 
per their terms of service.


which indicates to me that the terms of service are flawed because 
they allow someone to use Google's infrastructure to scan for open 
relays to exploit as spam delivery platforms.  As far as I know, 
no other email provider allows this.


I've not seen anything in any provider's terms of service that say 
anything about what type of email they receive, save for exceedingly few 
categories; child porn and illegal activity among the short list.


I have yet to see anybody state that sending an email to an invalid 
email address and (potentially) receiving a bounce is illegal.


So, again, no grounds for Google to do anything.

Feel free to try to get Google to change their terms of service.

I don't see how this relates to Google allowing their services to 
be used to test my mail server (and likely thousands of others too) 
numerous times over multiple years for being an open relay that could 
be exploited to distribute spam.


Are the messages /originating/ from Google / Gmail?

Or are the messages /originating/ from somewhere else and causing the 
bounces to go to Google / Gmail?


The former is something Google cares about.  The latter quite likely is not.

If you burn a junk (snail) mail, could there be a security lapse in 
your furnace that would cause it to be replicated into a thousand 
copies of itself, run up your chimney and distribute itself into 
thousands of your neighbours letterboxes?  If not, I think you can 
rest easy in the knowledge that you are not causing the problem.


The /recipient/ of the messages is *not* the problem.  The /source/ of 
the messages *is* the problem.


What is done with what is received is independent of the source of the 
problem.


Nothing.  The problem is with the terms of service.  This is where 
the evil is.


See above regarding terms of service.

I feel obliged to try suggestions made in good faith, if nothing 
else just to prove they don't work.  I made one general report 
regarding the issues with check212...@gmail.com over the last 
five years using the form Mike suggested.  Since then, there have 
been two further attempts to relay mail through my mail server to 
check212...@gmail.com.  I have made two specific reports using the 
form Mike suggested, providing all the details I have available to me.


Good for you.  Thank you for trying to maintain the high road.


Interestingly, both attempts were made from 37.46.150.239.


Full stop.

37.46.150.239 is *NOT* Google IP address space.

According to WhoIs, that address space belongs to Serverion BV.

So, chances are quite good that your reports to Google are going to be 
silently dismissed because the source of the abuse does not originate 
from Google resources.  If anything, Google's user is also a victim.


The abuse contact email address for 37.46.150.239 listed in 
whois.ripe.net is ab...@serverion.com.  I have had reason to send 13 
reports of abuse of my systems by various Serverion BV ip addresses to 
ab...@serverion.com during December alone.  I have had zero response 
from them and the abuse from their ip address range continues daily.


Sadly, many companies leave a LOT to be desired when

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Peter Coghlan via cctalk]

> Hi Peter,
> 
> About two minutes of searching lead to this:
> https://support.google.com/mail/contact/abuse.  The keywords were "gmail
> report spam abuse", which led me to a page that was centered on
> organizations using Gmail as their backend and how to file a report against
> them that Google will handle.  However, the top link of the page was "Need
> to report abuse? Please see our Reporting Abuse Incidents page.", which was
> a link to a general abuse form to fill out for any Google product including
> Gmail.
> 
> I selected the product (Gmail), selected "Report an abusive Gmail account"
> and that led to "https://support.google.com/mail/contact/abuse;, which has
> the form you want to use to report the owner of that Gmail account.  There
> are enough fields on that form to make your specific abuse report, and
> there are plenty of free form entry areas so you can explain how this has
> been going on for years.
> 
> I'm not sure if you have seen that form or tried this process before.
> Clearly what "check212...@gmail.com" is wrong and is an abuse of the
> service.  Please try it out.
> 

Hi Mike,

I appreciate the trouble you are going to here.  I am prepared to accept
your suggestion in good faith.  However, I am not a big fan of filling in
webforms to report abuse.  It is a slow and tedious manual process to have
to engage with in comparison to the highly automated abuse I am attempting
to deal with.  It is difficult to create tools to make it easier for me and
less error prone for me to fill in webforms plus I don't easily get to keep
a copy of what I have put in the form for filing with the abuse reports I
make to other major email providers.  So, when I see further abuse of a
gmail.com account, I find it difficult to see whether I reported this
particular one previously or not and when.  I resent having to jump through
hoops to help Google do what they should be doing anyway.  Many other mail
providers are grateful for abuse reports received by whatever means is most
convenient to the reporter of the abuse.  They regard encouraging abuse
reports as a way of minimising the abuse they have to deal with because
their abusive customers tend to up sticks and go to another provider when
they are repeatedly stopped in their tracks.

I appreciate that you are the messenger here and I am trying not to shoot you.
It's just that you represent the only feedback most of us have ever got from
Google.

Anway, I went to https://support.google.com/mail/contact/abuse as you
suggested.  This form is clearly designed to report spam sent from a gmail.com
account, not a gmail.com account being used to receive the results of relay
testing.  The form has mandatory fields which require me to provide for
example "Email headers of the questionable message".  I don't have any
headers for any of the messages concerned because my mail server rejects
every one of them before the sender gets a chance to send headers as per
best practice for dealing with unauthorised relay attempts.  Even if I had
headers, they would not be from an email sent by a gmail.com account.  I am
betting that when this form finally gets to a real person in Google, it
will go straight in the bin because I wasn't able to provide email headers
that came from an email sent from a gmail.com account.  Nevertheless, I will
try it anyway, just to see what happens.

By the way,  I looked at the other link you suggested earlier for getting
mail through to Google: https://support.google.com/mail/contact/bulk_send_new

It turns out I had come across this link before some time ago but had forgotten
about it.  I had formed the impression that this particular one was aimed at
commercial mailing list operators who are having difficulty getting their
(legitimate) mailshots through to gmail.com customers of theirs, advertising
that people have signed up for by ticking the "please send me information
about your product" box or the "please put me on your monthly newsletter" box
etc.  It does not appear it is designed to help out someone who is trying to
get an email through to their friend who has a gmail.com account.

I also took a look at https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126 which you
suggested yesterday.  This is definately aimed at well funded commercial
senders of email that are sending out thousands of mailshots at a time, not
the person in the street who is trying to communicate with a friend or
someone with a shared interest.  Just look at the original title of the page!
It suggests I send messages that have different purposes from different ip
addresses for heavens sake. (I can do this but do you think I am going to?)

I apologise to my friends on cctalk for going on about this at such length
and I don't propose to waste any more of the mailing lists time on this.
(Unless everyone is actually sitting on the ed

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 1/1/21 4:24 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:

Does "Joe Job" mean anything to you?


There is also the possibility that the bounce recipient is a perfectly 
legitimate user that is the victim of someone else purposely doing 
things to cause bounces (and other crap) to be sent to them.


If anything, Google is likely to help defend such a user to filter out 
such junk while allowing legitimate email through.




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 1/1/21 2:24 PM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote:
You misunderstand.  What is Gmail / Google specific about it is 
that this is going on for nearly 5 years using the same recipient 
mailbox because it is so far impossible to let Google know about it 
so that Google can can delete the mailbox being used to receive the 
results of the relay testing which would force the spammer create a 
new receiving mailbox nearly every time they test.


Does "Joe Job" mean anything to you?

Similar probing using receiving mailboxes on other major email 
providers systems does not last last more than a day or two before 
the mailboxes get deleted after mail admins reported them.


Does "Whack-a-Mole" mean anything to you?

Anyone who tries to do that will rapidly find out that it does not 
work and they certainly won't have to wait 5 years to find it out.


If Google is not the /source/ of the spam, there is approximately 
nothing that they can or will do.  Especially if their mailbox user is 
not complaining.


After all, unless you can prove that their mailbox user is doing 
something against terms of service while using Google's infrastructure, 
they have no grounds to do anything.


If 100 different companies send me junk (snail) mail that I then burn as 
a source of heat during the winter, does that mean that I'm causing the 
problem?


There most certainly is something that Google can do.  They can 
cancel the mailbox that is being used to receive the results of the 
relay testing, provided it is possible to let Google know that the 
mailbox is being abused that is.  I just don't have that difficulty 
with other major email providers.


What is the mailbox doing that is against Google's terms of service?

Especially if the email originates completely outside of Google's systems.

Mike reports in another reply that he has unearthed a possible 
mechanism to let Google know what is happening so maybe the problem 
has is becoming soluble now.  It will be interesting to see if the 
mechanism he found works.


I suggest that you not hold your breath.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Peter Coghlan via cctalk]

> My issue with Google and evil is that they provide no way that I can 
> find to bring abuse of Google facilites (to send spam for example) 
> to their attention so that the abuse can be stopped.  For example, 
> someone has been testing my mail server to see if it can be used to 
> relay spam by forging emails as coming from various email addresses in 
> my domain name and addressed to check212...@gmail.com and attempting 
> to feed these emails into my mail server (which doesn't accept them) 
> from compromised ip addresses.  This has happened nearly two hundred 
> times over a period of five years now.  I have made numerous attempts 
> to bring this to the attention of Google so that they could put a 
> stop to this check212014 mailbox being used for this abusive purpose 
> yet I have failed.  You seem to have the magic touch.  Can you let 
> me know how to bring this to Google's attention?


What you describe is a well known spam tactic and is not Gmail -> Google 
specific.  It is hoping to abuse a questionable setting of allowing 
relay based on source domain, e.g. they are hoping that messages 
purportedly from your domain will be allowed to relay through your 
server(s).




You misunderstand.  What is Gmail / Google specific about it is that this is
going on for nearly 5 years using the same recipient mailbox because it is
so far impossible to let Google know about it so that Google can can delete the
mailbox being used to receive the results of the relay testing which would
force the spammer create a new receiving mailbox nearly every time they test.

Similar probing using receiving mailboxes on other major email providers
systems does not last last more than a day or two before the mailboxes get
deleted after mail admins reported them.



Aside:  This is exactly why you should not allow relay based on the 
purported source domain.




Anyone who tries to do that will rapidly find out that it does not work and
they certainly won't have to wait 5 years to find it out.



If the IPs perpetrating this attack are outside of Google's control, 
then there really is nothing that Google can do.




There most certainly is something that Google can do.  They can cancel the
mailbox that is being used to receive the results of the relay testing,
provided it is possible to let Google know that the mailbox is being abused
that is.  I just don't have that difficulty with other major email providers.

Mike reports in another reply that he has unearthed a possible mechanism to
let Google know what is happening so maybe the problem has is becoming soluble
now.  It will be interesting to see if the mechanism he found works.

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Michael Brutman via cctalk]

Hi Peter,

About two minutes of searching lead to this:
https://support.google.com/mail/contact/abuse.  The keywords were "gmail
report spam abuse", which led me to a page that was centered on
organizations using Gmail as their backend and how to file a report against
them that Google will handle.  However, the top link of the page was "Need
to report abuse? Please see our Reporting Abuse Incidents page.", which was
a link to a general abuse form to fill out for any Google product including
Gmail.

I selected the product (Gmail), selected "Report an abusive Gmail account"
and that led to "https://support.google.com/mail/contact/abuse;, which has
the form you want to use to report the owner of that Gmail account.  There
are enough fields on that form to make your specific abuse report, and
there are plenty of free form entry areas so you can explain how this has
been going on for years.

I'm not sure if you have seen that form or tried this process before.
Clearly what "check212...@gmail.com" is wrong and is an abuse of the
service.  Please try it out.


-Mike




On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 6:15 AM Peter Coghlan via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> Hi Mike,
>
> Thanks for chiming in on this.
>
> > Disclaimer: I don't speak for Google ...
>
> > Large corporations (Google included) are basically a scaling problem,
> > especially when it comes to customer service.  I think that's pretty
> > obvious, and stories about YouTube problems and account access are
> legion.
> > I don't have a solution that can be applied to the problems on this
> > thread.  My purpose in posting was to point out that this probably isn't
> a
> > matter of market share or people forgetting not to be evil; it's a
> > technical problem.  Getting the configs right is the first step.
> > Blacklists are also a problem, and clearly sometimes the filters being
> > applied are wrong.  We try to find and fix these things as they are
> brought
> > to our attention.
> >
>
> The big problem is bringing it to Google's attention.
>
> >
> > It took me less than a minute of searching to find this:
> > https://support.google.com/mail/contact/bulk_send_new
> >
> > That's the form to contact the Gmail team for getting help with debugging
> > your mail being marked as spam/phishing attempts, you get SMTP temp-fails
> > or rejects, or other problems.  (The search term was "problems sending
> > email to gmail accounts" - go to the first link, follow the workflow, and
> > assuming all of the preliminary answers to the questions are "I didn't do
> > anything wrong" then you'll get a link to that contact form.)
> >
>
> I spent hours over days looking for something like this (using Google
> searches) and I failed to find it.  I always ended up in blind alleys
> that assumed I was a Google customer trying to get an email into my
> mailbox,
> not a correspondant of a Google customer trying to get an email out.
>
> My issue with Google and evil is that they provide no way that I can find
> to bring abuse of Google facilites (to send spam for example) to their
> attention so that the abuse can be stopped.  For example, someone has been
> testing my mail server to see if it can be used to relay spam by forging
> emails as coming from various email addresses in my domain name and
> addressed
> to check212...@gmail.com and attempting to feed these emails into my mail
> server (which doesn't accept them) from compromised ip addresses.  This has
> happened nearly two hundred times over a period of five years now.  I have
> made numerous attempts to bring this to the attention of Google so that
> they
> could put a stop to this check212014 mailbox being used for this abusive
> purpose yet I have failed.  You seem to have the magic touch.  Can you let
> me
> know how to bring this to Google's attention?
>
> (By the way, this doesn't tend to happen with hotmail.com addresses to
> pick one
> example.  The reason it doesn't is because on the rare occasions when it
> does,
> reporting the issue to hotmail or whoever using the standard, easy to find
> abuse reporting mechanisms results in the problem being stopped and the
> spammer soon gets fed up having to set up new testing mailboxes every few
> days so they end up moving over to gmail.com instead where they can keep
> the
> same relay testing mailbox for at least 5 years.)
>
> Regards,
> Peter Coghlan.
>
> >
> > Mike
> >
>

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 1/1/21 6:43 AM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote:
My issue with Google and evil is that they provide no way that I can 
find to bring abuse of Google facilites (to send spam for example) 
to their attention so that the abuse can be stopped.  For example, 
someone has been testing my mail server to see if it can be used to 
relay spam by forging emails as coming from various email addresses in 
my domain name and addressed to check212...@gmail.com and attempting 
to feed these emails into my mail server (which doesn't accept them) 
from compromised ip addresses.  This has happened nearly two hundred 
times over a period of five years now.  I have made numerous attempts 
to bring this to the attention of Google so that they could put a 
stop to this check212014 mailbox being used for this abusive purpose 
yet I have failed.  You seem to have the magic touch.  Can you let 
me know how to bring this to Google's attention?


What you describe is a well known spam tactic and is not Gmail -> Google 
specific.  It is hoping to abuse a questionable setting of allowing 
relay based on source domain, e.g. they are hoping that messages 
purportedly from your domain will be allowed to relay through your 
server(s).


Aside:  This is exactly why you should not allow relay based on the 
purported source domain.


If the IPs perpetrating this attack are outside of Google's control, 
then there really is nothing that Google can do.




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Bill Degnan via cctalk]

Anyway, the issue with cctech/talk going to the spam folder as far as GMAIL
is concerned is that spectrum.com does not encrypt the messages.I
presume that's the mail server domain.
Bill

On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 9:47 AM Dave Wade G4UGM via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> I believe that the BIG PROBLEM is the unthinking liveware that simply
> looks at Spam filtering effectiveness in terms of how much SPAM it prevents
> from being delivered, and thinks that if some real e-mail gets lost in the
> friendly fire the sender is to blame.
> Apart from in technical groups as this, not one ever worries about lost
> mail. Of course as a sender you can set up DKIM and SPF records, but then
> so can the spammers.
>
> So if you find e-mail to cctalk or cctech goes to your JUNK folder on
> gmail create a filter to stop it...
> ... it much less effort than trying to fix google
>
> Dave
> G4UGM
>
>
> > -Original Message-
> > From: cctalk  On Behalf Of Peter Coghlan
> > via cctalk
> > Sent: 01 January 2021 13:44
> > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> > 
> > Subject: Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail
> >
> > Hi Mike,
> >
> > Thanks for chiming in on this.
> >
> > > Disclaimer: I don't speak for Google ...
> >
> > > Large corporations (Google included) are basically a scaling problem,
> > > especially when it comes to customer service.  I think that's pretty
> > > obvious, and stories about YouTube problems and account access are
> > legion.
> > > I don't have a solution that can be applied to the problems on this
> > > thread.  My purpose in posting was to point out that this probably
> > > isn't a matter of market share or people forgetting not to be evil;
> > > it's a technical problem.  Getting the configs right is the first step.
> > > Blacklists are also a problem, and clearly sometimes the filters being
> > > applied are wrong.  We try to find and fix these things as they are
> > > brought to our attention.
> > >
> >
> > The big problem is bringing it to Google's attention.
> >
> > >
> > > It took me less than a minute of searching to find this:
> > > https://support.google.com/mail/contact/bulk_send_new
> > >
> > > That's the form to contact the Gmail team for getting help with
> > > debugging your mail being marked as spam/phishing attempts, you get
> > > SMTP temp-fails or rejects, or other problems.  (The search term was
> > > "problems sending email to gmail accounts" - go to the first link,
> > > follow the workflow, and assuming all of the preliminary answers to
> > > the questions are "I didn't do anything wrong" then you'll get a link
> > > to that contact form.)
> > >
> >
> > I spent hours over days looking for something like this (using Google
> > searches) and I failed to find it.  I always ended up in blind alleys
> that
> > assumed I was a Google customer trying to get an email into my mailbox,
> not
> > a correspondant of a Google customer trying to get an email out.
> >
> > My issue with Google and evil is that they provide no way that I can
> find to
> > bring abuse of Google facilites (to send spam for example) to their
> attention
> > so that the abuse can be stopped.  For example, someone has been testing
> > my mail server to see if it can be used to relay spam by forging emails
> as
> > coming from various email addresses in my domain name and addressed to
> > check212...@gmail.com and attempting to feed these emails into my mail
> > server (which doesn't accept them) from compromised ip addresses.  This
> > has happened nearly two hundred times over a period of five years now.  I
> > have made numerous attempts to bring this to the attention of Google so
> > that they could put a stop to this check212014 mailbox being used for
> this
> > abusive purpose yet I have failed.  You seem to have the magic touch.
> Can
> > you let me know how to bring this to Google's attention?
> >
> > (By the way, this doesn't tend to happen with hotmail.com addresses to
> pick
> > one example.  The reason it doesn't is because on the rare occasions
> when it
> > does, reporting the issue to hotmail or whoever using the standard, easy
> to
> > find abuse reporting mechanisms results in the problem being stopped and
> > the spammer soon gets fed up having to set up new testing mailboxes every
> > few days so they end up moving over to gmail.com instead where they can
> > keep the same relay testing mailbox for at least 5 years.)
> >
> > Regards,
> > Peter Coghlan.
> >
> > >
> > > Mike
> > >
>
>

RE: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Dave Wade G4UGM via cctalk]

I believe that the BIG PROBLEM is the unthinking liveware that simply looks at 
Spam filtering effectiveness in terms of how much SPAM it prevents from being 
delivered, and thinks that if some real e-mail gets lost in the friendly fire 
the sender is to blame.
Apart from in technical groups as this, not one ever worries about lost mail. 
Of course as a sender you can set up DKIM and SPF records, but then so can the 
spammers. 

So if you find e-mail to cctalk or cctech goes to your JUNK folder on gmail 
create a filter to stop it... 
... it much less effort than trying to fix google

Dave
G4UGM


> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk  On Behalf Of Peter Coghlan
> via cctalk
> Sent: 01 January 2021 13:44
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> 
> Subject: Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail
> 
> Hi Mike,
> 
> Thanks for chiming in on this.
> 
> > Disclaimer: I don't speak for Google ...
> 
> > Large corporations (Google included) are basically a scaling problem,
> > especially when it comes to customer service.  I think that's pretty
> > obvious, and stories about YouTube problems and account access are
> legion.
> > I don't have a solution that can be applied to the problems on this
> > thread.  My purpose in posting was to point out that this probably
> > isn't a matter of market share or people forgetting not to be evil;
> > it's a technical problem.  Getting the configs right is the first step.
> > Blacklists are also a problem, and clearly sometimes the filters being
> > applied are wrong.  We try to find and fix these things as they are
> > brought to our attention.
> >
> 
> The big problem is bringing it to Google's attention.
> 
> >
> > It took me less than a minute of searching to find this:
> > https://support.google.com/mail/contact/bulk_send_new
> >
> > That's the form to contact the Gmail team for getting help with
> > debugging your mail being marked as spam/phishing attempts, you get
> > SMTP temp-fails or rejects, or other problems.  (The search term was
> > "problems sending email to gmail accounts" - go to the first link,
> > follow the workflow, and assuming all of the preliminary answers to
> > the questions are "I didn't do anything wrong" then you'll get a link
> > to that contact form.)
> >
> 
> I spent hours over days looking for something like this (using Google
> searches) and I failed to find it.  I always ended up in blind alleys that
> assumed I was a Google customer trying to get an email into my mailbox, not
> a correspondant of a Google customer trying to get an email out.
> 
> My issue with Google and evil is that they provide no way that I can find to
> bring abuse of Google facilites (to send spam for example) to their attention
> so that the abuse can be stopped.  For example, someone has been testing
> my mail server to see if it can be used to relay spam by forging emails as
> coming from various email addresses in my domain name and addressed to
> check212...@gmail.com and attempting to feed these emails into my mail
> server (which doesn't accept them) from compromised ip addresses.  This
> has happened nearly two hundred times over a period of five years now.  I
> have made numerous attempts to bring this to the attention of Google so
> that they could put a stop to this check212014 mailbox being used for this
> abusive purpose yet I have failed.  You seem to have the magic touch.  Can
> you let me know how to bring this to Google's attention?
> 
> (By the way, this doesn't tend to happen with hotmail.com addresses to pick
> one example.  The reason it doesn't is because on the rare occasions when it
> does, reporting the issue to hotmail or whoever using the standard, easy to
> find abuse reporting mechanisms results in the problem being stopped and
> the spammer soon gets fed up having to set up new testing mailboxes every
> few days so they end up moving over to gmail.com instead where they can
> keep the same relay testing mailbox for at least 5 years.)
> 
> Regards,
> Peter Coghlan.
> 
> >
> > Mike
> >

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Peter Coghlan via cctalk]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for chiming in on this.

> Disclaimer: I don't speak for Google ...

> Large corporations (Google included) are basically a scaling problem,
> especially when it comes to customer service.  I think that's pretty
> obvious, and stories about YouTube problems and account access are legion.
> I don't have a solution that can be applied to the problems on this
> thread.  My purpose in posting was to point out that this probably isn't a
> matter of market share or people forgetting not to be evil; it's a
> technical problem.  Getting the configs right is the first step.
> Blacklists are also a problem, and clearly sometimes the filters being
> applied are wrong.  We try to find and fix these things as they are brought
> to our attention.
>

The big problem is bringing it to Google's attention.

>
> It took me less than a minute of searching to find this:
> https://support.google.com/mail/contact/bulk_send_new
>
> That's the form to contact the Gmail team for getting help with debugging
> your mail being marked as spam/phishing attempts, you get SMTP temp-fails
> or rejects, or other problems.  (The search term was "problems sending
> email to gmail accounts" - go to the first link, follow the workflow, and
> assuming all of the preliminary answers to the questions are "I didn't do
> anything wrong" then you'll get a link to that contact form.)
>

I spent hours over days looking for something like this (using Google
searches) and I failed to find it.  I always ended up in blind alleys
that assumed I was a Google customer trying to get an email into my mailbox,
not a correspondant of a Google customer trying to get an email out.

My issue with Google and evil is that they provide no way that I can find
to bring abuse of Google facilites (to send spam for example) to their
attention so that the abuse can be stopped.  For example, someone has been
testing my mail server to see if it can be used to relay spam by forging
emails as coming from various email addresses in my domain name and addressed
to check212...@gmail.com and attempting to feed these emails into my mail
server (which doesn't accept them) from compromised ip addresses.  This has
happened nearly two hundred times over a period of five years now.  I have
made numerous attempts to bring this to the attention of Google so that they
could put a stop to this check212014 mailbox being used for this abusive
purpose yet I have failed.  You seem to have the magic touch.  Can you let me
know how to bring this to Google's attention?

(By the way, this doesn't tend to happen with hotmail.com addresses to pick one
example.  The reason it doesn't is because on the rare occasions when it does,
reporting the issue to hotmail or whoever using the standard, easy to find
abuse reporting mechanisms results in the problem being stopped and the
spammer soon gets fed up having to set up new testing mailboxes every few
days so they end up moving over to gmail.com instead where they can keep the
same relay testing mailbox for at least 5 years.)

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.

>
> Mike
> 

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Peter Corlett via cctalk]

On Thu, Dec 31, 2020 at 07:43:12PM -0800, Michael Brutman via cctalk wrote:
> Disclaimer: I don't speak for Google ...

> The thread shows a lot of Google bashing. Insinuating that Google makes it
> difficult so that people follow the path of least resistance is part of
> that.

I didn't insinuate it: I said it out loud. Whether it's an explicit decision
by Google or just an emergent effect is moot. Google are clearly quite happy
with this state of affairs otherwise they'd do something about it.

[...]
> It took me less than a minute of searching to find this:
> https://support.google.com/mail/contact/bulk_send_new

It is not exactly difficult to find forms to fill in at Google. They *love*
their forms. All attempts at getting support are deflected by a request to
fill in a form. Nothing useful happens upon filling in a Google support
form, of course. An auto-ack at best, then tumbleweed.

Franz Kafka could have written a whole shelf of novels about Google.

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Michael Brutman via cctalk]

Disclaimer: I don't speak for Google ...

The thread shows a lot of Google bashing.  Insinuating that Google makes it
difficult so that people follow the path of least resistance is part of
that.

For years I had a non-Google backed email system and I did not have
problems with sending or receiving from Gmail.  I helped set up the Google
Apps setup that VCFed.org is using, and we're not noticing any problems
there or having actional reports of problems with email.  I can't speculate
what is going on with individual problems, but generally I believe with
enough digging those problems can be understood and solved.

Large corporations (Google included) are basically a scaling problem,
especially when it comes to customer service.  I think that's pretty
obvious, and stories about YouTube problems and account access are legion.
I don't have a solution that can be applied to the problems on this
thread.  My purpose in posting was to point out that this probably isn't a
matter of market share or people forgetting not to be evil; it's a
technical problem.  Getting the configs right is the first step.
Blacklists are also a problem, and clearly sometimes the filters being
applied are wrong.  We try to find and fix these things as they are brought
to our attention.

It took me less than a minute of searching to find this:
https://support.google.com/mail/contact/bulk_send_new

That's the form to contact the Gmail team for getting help with debugging
your mail being marked as spam/phishing attempts, you get SMTP temp-fails
or rejects, or other problems.  (The search term was "problems sending
email to gmail accounts" - go to the first link, follow the workflow, and
assuming all of the preliminary answers to the questions are "I didn't do
anything wrong" then you'll get a link to that contact form.)


Mike


On Thu, Dec 31, 2020 at 6:23 PM Cameron Kaiser via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> > It seems easier to bash Google than it is to debug the actual problems.
>
> I think this is an unfair characterization of the frustrations people have
> voiced. I agree individual engineers aren't out to get people with private
> mail servers, but:
>
> > There are a lot of factors that
> > need to be considered besides DKIM and SPF.  Google has heuristics which
> > are probably well justified with data, and it works for the vast majority
> > of people.
>
> Stuff like the link you gave
>
> > https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126
>
> aren't the problem. The problem is when you're doing all of that, and it
> doesn't work (i.e., you're not part of this "vast majority"). I don't find
> it reasonable to assume everyone who's voiced frustration with Gmail isn't
> doing everything in that list already. When you get to that point, after
> all
> that sweat and work, there's no one to communicate with to find out which
> part of that black box of heuristics is still getting its nose out of
> joint,
> and it doesn't serve Google's interest to put any bodies towards that sort
> of communication because it costs money and it's not their problem.
>
> Plus, well, the more people who need to communicate with a Gmail user, the
> path of least resistance is ... Gmail. That works out pretty well for
> Google.
> From your view in the company, do you see an incentive on their end to work
> with folks like us?
>
> --
>  personal:
> http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
>   Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com *
> ckai...@floodgap.com
> -- Sleep, delicious and profound, the very counterfeit of death. -- Homer
> -
>

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Cameron Kaiser via cctalk]

> It seems easier to bash Google than it is to debug the actual problems.

I think this is an unfair characterization of the frustrations people have
voiced. I agree individual engineers aren't out to get people with private
mail servers, but:

> There are a lot of factors that
> need to be considered besides DKIM and SPF.  Google has heuristics which
> are probably well justified with data, and it works for the vast majority
> of people.

Stuff like the link you gave

> https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126

aren't the problem. The problem is when you're doing all of that, and it
doesn't work (i.e., you're not part of this "vast majority"). I don't find
it reasonable to assume everyone who's voiced frustration with Gmail isn't
doing everything in that list already. When you get to that point, after all
that sweat and work, there's no one to communicate with to find out which
part of that black box of heuristics is still getting its nose out of joint,
and it doesn't serve Google's interest to put any bodies towards that sort
of communication because it costs money and it's not their problem.

Plus, well, the more people who need to communicate with a Gmail user, the
path of least resistance is ... Gmail. That works out pretty well for Google.
>From your view in the company, do you see an incentive on their end to work
with folks like us?

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- Sleep, delicious and profound, the very counterfeit of death. -- Homer -

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Michael Brutman via cctalk]

It seems easier to bash Google than it is to debug the actual problems.

I work at Google; not on Gmail but on things that many of you use daily.  I
don't believe my colleagues are trying to build market share by annoying
specific users and dropping their mail.  There are a lot of factors that
need to be considered besides DKIM and SPF.  Google has heuristics which
are probably well justified with data, and it works for the vast majority
of people.

Here is a pretty good reference to help you start if you want to figure out
why Gmail hates you: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126


Mike

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Alexander Schreiber via cctalk]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 10:18:56AM -0500, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
> > Attempting to pull in this thread a tad, there are relatively simple
> > measures that can be taken to bring a private mail server into compliance
> > with gmail, Amazon, Microsoft level mail server protocol and
> > authentication.  Its not just gmail.  The simplest measures are done with
> > DNS and TLS.  Most of the mail that I see routinely falling into spam
> > folder is from what appears to be spoofed domains.  Many of these are legit
> > messages that dont have a properly configured DNS record, preventing the
> > receiving server from authenticating the FROM domain as owned by the
> > sender.  A simple fix.
> 
> Well, even with proper DKIM mail and SPF records, Google still sometimes
> shafts my mail. No idea why, no one to talk to on how to make it better, no
> options other than "Get a Google mail account".

Why not both?

I run my own mailserver which handles most of my email (both incoming and
outgoing) and I have a GMail account, mostly for the GSuite, calendar
and such. There is one mailing list that I forward via procmail from
my private email to my GMail account (for reading on the go) and that
works - so far, about 2-4 mails from that setup ended up tagged as spam
this year (out of several mails per day, so while annoying, that is below
the noise threshold).

My mailserver has SPF records and TLS enabled for ... ages. I couldn't
be bothered to setup DKIM yet. The only problems I had was when I was
responding to an email from someone using hotmail and hotmail refused
my reply ... well, I probably don't want to talk to Hotmail users
anyway.

 ¯\_(ö)_/¯

Kind regards,
   Alex.
-- 
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
 looks like work."  -- Thomas A. Edison

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Cameron Kaiser via cctalk]

> > The only conclusion I can draw is that Google is arbitrary and doesn't 
> > care and I'm one of the rare beneficiaries of their arbitrariness.
> 
> I'm quite convinced that Google isn't arbitrary.  It's just that there 
> are a LOT more variables in play than we know about, much less have 
> control over.  Including historical indicators that no longer reflect 
> current values of the same indicators.

Maybe. Floodgap.com has been a domain since 2000. But I know of
well-maintained mail servers older than that which Google drops on the floor.
They haven't changed, and they're older than I am. It really sucks.

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- How could we lose when we were so sincere? -- Charlie Brown 

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Chris Zach via cctalk]

And just to add on a data point (Bill, I know you're not the enemy here), one
of my personally-maintained mail servers does TLS and the other doesn't, I do
have proper reverse DNS but used not to, and while I have SPF I've never done
DKIM, and I've never had any trouble getting mail to Gmail.


Right. SPF is every bit as good as DKIM, the advantage of DKIM is you 
can use random servers as long as you sign your messages. Since I am 
small and run my own mail server, SPF is totally fine and can "prove" 
that I authorized the email.


That's why either is fine for DMARC. But even with that and TLS 
encryption Google sometimes fucks with me. As I said, since our Govt is 
using it the result is I am locked out of the legislative process.


Google. Well their goal is to make max money. If that screws people over 
then oh well.


But in the meantime setting up SPF/DMARC and TLS on your mail server 
will fix most problems. Doing SPF checks on email also will cut down on 
your spam from "Big name" domains. And the reports you get back showing 
how many fails you have because shit-bags in Russia are trying to spoof 
your From: will tell you how sad it is out there.


CZ

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 12/30/20 4:35 PM, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk wrote:
The only conclusion I can draw is that Google is arbitrary and doesn't 
care and I'm one of the rare beneficiaries of their arbitrariness.


I'm quite convinced that Google isn't arbitrary.  It's just that there 
are a LOT more variables in play than we know about, much less have 
control over.  Including historical indicators that no longer reflect 
current values of the same indicators.




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Cameron Kaiser via cctalk]

> As I said, I don't have problems sending mail to Amazon, Microsoft or any of
> the large (or small) email providers except for gmail.com and other Google
> email services.  It really is just Google.  I do have DNS properly configured,
> SPF in place and no TLS.  I can't be bothered setting up TLS just to be able
> to talk to Google when others report that they still can't get through to
> Google even when they have TLS.
> 
> Not only do Google not tell me why they will not deliver my emails to their
> customers, they don't tell their customers why they block non-spam emails
> that they want to receive either.  The most a Google customer has ever been
> able to pass on to me that Google given them by way of explaination was
> something like:
> 
> "This mail was tagged as spam because messages similar to it were spam"
> 
> which of course is complete nonsense.

And just to add on a data point (Bill, I know you're not the enemy here), one
of my personally-maintained mail servers does TLS and the other doesn't, I do
have proper reverse DNS but used not to, and while I have SPF I've never done
DKIM, and I've never had any trouble getting mail to Gmail.

The only conclusion I can draw is that Google is arbitrary and doesn't care
and I'm one of the rare beneficiaries of their arbitrariness.

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- Roger Waters, orthopaedist: "Hey! Careful with your back, Eugene!" -

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Nemo Nusquam via cctalk]

On 12/30/20 13:55, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

On Wed, 30 Dec 2020, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:

That's not true.
You don't have to do the cryptographic heavy lifting on the classic 
computer. You can easily do the cryptographic heavy lifting on other 
more contemporary computers which are used as a smart host for the 
classic computers.


So, you do have to use "modern" computers, although you could then 
connect classic computers to your "modern" computers.


RFC 6376 mentions a low default bar of RSA512 but one could use 
libressl, which builds on less powerful computers.


N.



--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Bill Degnan via cctalk]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 11:35 AM Peter Corlett via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 10:13:40AM -0500, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
> [...]
> > Attempting to pull in this thread a tad, there are relatively simple
> > measures that can be taken to bring a private mail server into compliance
> > with gmail, Amazon, Microsoft level mail server protocol and
> > authentication.
>
> You have failed to explain why I should make any effort at all to jump
> through random hoops set up by FAANG which seem to change on a weekly basis
> and where doing so offers no guarantee of success.
>
> > Its not just gmail. The simplest measures are done with DNS and TLS. Most
> > of the mail that I see routinely falling into spam folder is from what
> > appears to be spoofed domains. Many of these are legit messages
>
> ... so therefore they are not actually spoofed.
>
> > [...] that dont have a properly configured DNS record,
>
> I already have properly-configured DNS for mail: an MX record.
>
> > preventing the receiving server from authenticating the FROM domain as
> > owned by the sender.
>
> SMTP is an unauthenticated protocol. Further, the futile attempts to bodge
> authentication on to it with the likes of SPF and DKIM do not actually help
> at all with spam. Until I just added them to my blacklist of pink providers
> whose mail is unconditionally rejected, Google was quite happy to unleash a
> firehose of spam at my server, all nicely DKIM-signed to tell me it came
> from Google like I couldn't have already figured that out from the IP
> address.
>
> > A simple fix.
>
> So, what simple fix is this?
>
> SPF is extremely broken by design. The only useful configuration is a short
> PASS list of valid-sender IP addresses and a FAIL of everything else (e.g.
> "v=spf1 ip4:10.20.30.40 a -all"). This requires ensuring that you can
> chokepoint all mail through those hosts, which is not always easy to
> arrange.
>
> DKIM attempts to "fix" SPF by adding cryptography, thus adding rather a lot
> of extra complexity and CPU usage. This means that classic computers can no
> longer send email, because they don't have enough grunt to overcome this
> artificial barrier. It makes mail rather brittle and tends to break mailing
> lists in an even more spectacular manner than SPF. Just to liven things up
> a
> bit, DKIM is also patent-encumbered.
>
> Then there's ARC which attempts to mitigate various deliverability problems
> caused by DKIM making mail more brittle. No doubt further layers of gaffer
> tape will follow when that breaks something.
>
> And to what end? So the odds of a hypothetical message sent to a GMail user
> ending up in their spam folder drops from 99% to 98%? Here's a nickel kid,
> get yourself a better mail provider.
>
>
I did not expect everyone to agree with me, I just wanted to point out that
the same few domains keep ending up in the SPAM folder of gmail.  Here is a
useful article that explains some of the issues and how to tackle them.
Ignore for whatever reason and your messages are lost.  More people use
gmail than any other mail platform.  In ones' younger years technical
challenges are met with less abstinence.  It's hard to keep up with the
times but the times they are a changing.

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6330403?visit_id=637449510555239983-3774052171=tls=en=1

Don't shoot the messenger :-)

BIll

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Wed, 30 Dec 2020, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:

That's not true.
You don't have to do the cryptographic heavy lifting on the classic computer. 
You can easily do the cryptographic heavy lifting on other more contemporary 
computers which are used as a smart host for the classic computers.


So, you do have to use "modern" computers, although you could then connect 
classic computers to your "modern" computers.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 12/30/20 9:35 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote:
This means that classic computers can no longer send email, because 
they don't have enough grunt to overcome this artificial barrier.


That's not true.

You don't have to do the cryptographic heavy lifting on the classic 
computer.  You can easily do the cryptographic heavy lifting on other 
more contemporary computers which are used as a smart host for the 
classic computers.




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Peter Coghlan via cctalk]

> 
> Attempting to pull in this thread a tad, there are relatively simple
> measures that can be taken to bring a private mail server into compliance
> with gmail, Amazon, Microsoft level mail server protocol and
> authentication.  Its not just gmail.  The simplest measures are done with
> DNS and TLS.  Most of the mail that I see routinely falling into spam
> folder is from what appears to be spoofed domains.  Many of these are legit
> messages that dont have a properly configured DNS record, preventing the
> receiving server from authenticating the FROM domain as owned by the
> sender.  A simple fix.
>

Bill,

As I said, I don't have problems sending mail to Amazon, Microsoft or any of
the large (or small) email providers except for gmail.com and other Google
email services.  It really is just Google.  I do have DNS properly configured,
SPF in place and no TLS.  I can't be bothered setting up TLS just to be able
to talk to Google when others report that they still can't get through to
Google even when they have TLS.

Not only do Google not tell me why they will not deliver my emails to their
customers, they don't tell their customers why they block non-spam emails
that they want to receive either.  The most a Google customer has ever been
able to pass on to me that Google given them by way of explaination was
something like:

"This mail was tagged as spam because messages similar to it were spam"

which of course is complete nonsense.

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Peter Corlett via cctalk]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 10:13:40AM -0500, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
[...]
> Attempting to pull in this thread a tad, there are relatively simple
> measures that can be taken to bring a private mail server into compliance
> with gmail, Amazon, Microsoft level mail server protocol and
> authentication.

You have failed to explain why I should make any effort at all to jump
through random hoops set up by FAANG which seem to change on a weekly basis
and where doing so offers no guarantee of success.

> Its not just gmail. The simplest measures are done with DNS and TLS. Most
> of the mail that I see routinely falling into spam folder is from what
> appears to be spoofed domains. Many of these are legit messages

... so therefore they are not actually spoofed.

> [...] that dont have a properly configured DNS record,

I already have properly-configured DNS for mail: an MX record.

> preventing the receiving server from authenticating the FROM domain as
> owned by the sender.

SMTP is an unauthenticated protocol. Further, the futile attempts to bodge
authentication on to it with the likes of SPF and DKIM do not actually help
at all with spam. Until I just added them to my blacklist of pink providers
whose mail is unconditionally rejected, Google was quite happy to unleash a
firehose of spam at my server, all nicely DKIM-signed to tell me it came
from Google like I couldn't have already figured that out from the IP
address.

> A simple fix.

So, what simple fix is this?

SPF is extremely broken by design. The only useful configuration is a short
PASS list of valid-sender IP addresses and a FAIL of everything else (e.g.
"v=spf1 ip4:10.20.30.40 a -all"). This requires ensuring that you can
chokepoint all mail through those hosts, which is not always easy to
arrange.

DKIM attempts to "fix" SPF by adding cryptography, thus adding rather a lot
of extra complexity and CPU usage. This means that classic computers can no
longer send email, because they don't have enough grunt to overcome this
artificial barrier. It makes mail rather brittle and tends to break mailing
lists in an even more spectacular manner than SPF. Just to liven things up a
bit, DKIM is also patent-encumbered.

Then there's ARC which attempts to mitigate various deliverability problems
caused by DKIM making mail more brittle. No doubt further layers of gaffer
tape will follow when that breaks something.

And to what end? So the odds of a hypothetical message sent to a GMail user
ending up in their spam folder drops from 99% to 98%? Here's a nickel kid,
get yourself a better mail provider.

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Bill Degnan via cctalk]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 10:19 AM Chris Zach via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> > Attempting to pull in this thread a tad, there are relatively simple
> > measures that can be taken to bring a private mail server into compliance
> > with gmail, Amazon, Microsoft level mail server protocol and
> > authentication.  Its not just gmail.  The simplest measures are done with
> > DNS and TLS.  Most of the mail that I see routinely falling into spam
> > folder is from what appears to be spoofed domains.  Many of these are
> legit
> > messages that dont have a properly configured DNS record, preventing the
> > receiving server from authenticating the FROM domain as owned by the
> > sender.  A simple fix.
>
> Well, even with proper DKIM mail and SPF records, Google still sometimes
> shafts my mail. No idea why, no one to talk to on how to make it better,
> no options other than "Get a Google mail account".
>
> Life like that.
>

There are some pretty good email test utilities on the web.   A test email
is sent to the utility and results as to what's good/bad are returned with
suggested remediation.
Bill

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Chris Zach via cctalk]

Attempting to pull in this thread a tad, there are relatively simple
measures that can be taken to bring a private mail server into compliance
with gmail, Amazon, Microsoft level mail server protocol and
authentication.  Its not just gmail.  The simplest measures are done with
DNS and TLS.  Most of the mail that I see routinely falling into spam
folder is from what appears to be spoofed domains.  Many of these are legit
messages that dont have a properly configured DNS record, preventing the
receiving server from authenticating the FROM domain as owned by the
sender.  A simple fix.


Well, even with proper DKIM mail and SPF records, Google still sometimes 
shafts my mail. No idea why, no one to talk to on how to make it better, 
no options other than "Get a Google mail account".


Life like that.

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Bill Degnan via cctalk]

>
> Of course. It makes trouble to other net users and tries to preserve
> itself by hiding complaints. Life would be easier for it if it
> actually tried to imitate poorly working spam catcher.
>
> Now imagine that there is no "off switch". It can only be persuaded by
> sending email to it, but since nobody knows the address, the only way
> is to actually send spammy messages to other people... on gmail...
>
> --
>

Attempting to pull in this thread a tad, there are relatively simple
measures that can be taken to bring a private mail server into compliance
with gmail, Amazon, Microsoft level mail server protocol and
authentication.  Its not just gmail.  The simplest measures are done with
DNS and TLS.  Most of the mail that I see routinely falling into spam
folder is from what appears to be spoofed domains.  Many of these are legit
messages that dont have a properly configured DNS record, preventing the
receiving server from authenticating the FROM domain as owned by the
sender.  A simple fix.

Bill

>

Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail

[Tomasz Rola via cctalk]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 11:25:13AM -0500, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
> >Google need to review their motto and start living by it.
> 
> Google ditched their "Don't be evil" motto a long long time ago. Now
> it's "what is best for google?".

Well, I do not think goog needs to do anything other than what a
business is supposed to be doing, i.e. money, by whatever means the
law permits.

Like, making ear catching motto to suck in all good-but-naive devs
from the market and in such way deny them to other businesses.

> If google became a sentient AI (quite possible) it's a pretty damn
> selfish one.

Of course. It makes trouble to other net users and tries to preserve
itself by hiding complaints. Life would be easier for it if it
actually tried to imitate poorly working spam catcher.

Now imagine that there is no "off switch". It can only be persuaded by
sending email to it, but since nobody knows the address, the only way
is to actually send spammy messages to other people... on gmail...

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.  **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home**
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...  **
** **
** Tomasz Rola  mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **