Celebrating 45 Years of Kermit with the First New C-Kermit Release in 15 Years

I complied Kermit for IBM's AIX in ~1989 as a study in "how compatible is AIX to other Unixes?" Kermit source code remains the high-water mark in my memory for how many different, incompatible, non-standard platforms one piece of software can support. More than even Unix itself, as it could also run on VMS and non-Unixes of the time. I have never in my life seen so many `#ifdef`s and such complicated "Am I running on this platform or that one? Does it have this feature or that feature? No, what about this other one? Is it HP-UX maybe? HP-UX 6? No, 7? No, 8? No, what about VMS? No, how about SunOS? No, how about Unix System III?" ...on and on, seemingly endlessly.

Kermit was an extraordinary monument to portability in an era when "portable" often meant "we have individually accommodated every incompatible system anyone has ever built or might possibly still be using, however improbably."

I remember mostly ignoring Kermit back in my BBSing days; by the time "SuperKermit" came along, which could get performance competitive with ZMODEM, it alreayd seemed ancient.

Then, around 1991, a friend gave me access to his college Unix account so I could play with Gopher, Archie, and TinyFugue (the world of MUDs/MUCKs/etc.). The catch: to get to his account from my home machine, I had to call into a Florida state network that let you dial in and connect to machines on various college campuses. The network ran on some IBM minicomputer. And, it didn't connect to the Unix machine, oh no. It connected to a VAX, which was then on the same local network as the Unix machine.

So I had to dial in to the IBM machine, connect from it to a VAX, and then telnet from the VAX to the Unix box.

Incredibly, this all worked with only mildly annoying lag...but then I tried to transfer a file from the Unix machine to my personal machine. ZMODEM didn't work. XMODEM didn't work. I think I tried one or two other things that I've forgotten.

Then I remembered Kermit, and its reputation for being able to handle difficult connections. It got the file through on its first try.

Bill Catchings (the undergrad who helped Frank da Cruz with the original spec and coding) still blogs. It has been a while since he spoke specifically about kermit, but he has one or two interesting posts about the 40th anniversary of Kermit.

https://www.billcatchings.com/2012/04/frog-from-my-past.html https://www.billcatchings.com/2013/11/kermit-oral-history-pa...

and here is a link to the oral history he discusses:

https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10274641...

One cool feature is that you can use C-Kermit to do inline file transfers over the open SSH session. It doesn't work over a terminal muxer like screen/tmux, but it is pretty useful for a quick way to transfer files between the client and the remote host.

The remote host just needs kermit or zmodem (sz/rz), since at least K95 supported zmodem also.

There are paid for SSH clients (SecureCRT) that has the feature with Zmodem. Nice to have it on free software.

Good Lord. That takes me back. I ported Kermit to the Computervision CGOS environment. It was very popular in the user community. Internally, it was used to transfer files between systems over the terminal concentrator when you didn't want to walk down to the machine room, scavenge a mag tape, and put up with FUTIL.

I am a gray beard and still use Kermit regularly for embedded development. It’s very handy for automating things over a serial port console. I wonder how much adoption it sees with the younger crowd.

Why wasn’t Kermit used by BBSes? Even at the time I remember having read about it in computer magazines, but I got my first modem in ‘82 or so and I don’t recall ever seeing it in the wild. My first actual contact with it was uploading firmware I wrote to an embedded controller. But the thing it was actually designed for? Not even once.

So… why? We didn’t collectively settle on YMODEM and ZMODEM until many years later. There were lots of early protocols to choose from back then, too. Punter, anyone? No Kermit, though.

I had an Apple 2+ back in 1992. It was an old computer, even then.

The Apple 2+ only supported displaying capital letters.

I remember calling a few local BBSes using terminal software that let me press the right arrow (I think) and the character key, and it would display the character inverted (white background, black letter).

Hayes 1200 baud serial modem (I think) hooked up to a serial card.

That's how I knew I was sending a capital letter.

Not sure if it was Kermit though..

"the name Kermit is used by permission of Henson Associates, Inc."

that certainly would never happen nowadays.

I used Kermit in many projects when I was younger, including synchronising data from remote branches of a Pool equipment company using dial-up modems.

Those were the days lol.

"1981 was a different time for computing. It was expensive (both hardware and software)"

doesn't sound so different anymore...the VCs have managed to go back to the future...

ok but what's the anime 'checking if you're not a bot' gatekeeper? asking for a friend...

I'm amazed to see that Kermit is still alive and kicking. Thank you, team!

Nice and congratulations

Ages a ago I used it on Coherent OS via dial up to sign into a Sun Server at work that I used for USENET and general internet access. When I dialed in the server would hang up and call be back so I would avoid Long Distance Charges. ckermit handled that itself, fun times.

I purchased the book to help with the project, I should go and dig it out :)