Archie, the Internet's First Search Engine, Is Rescued and Running (arstechnica.com) 35
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It's amazing, and a little sad, to think that something created in 1989 that changed how people used and viewed the then-nascent Internet had nearly vanished by 2024. Nearly, that is, because the dogged researchers and enthusiasts at The Serial Port channel on YouTube have found what is likely the last existing copy of Archie. Archie, first crafted by Alan Emtage while a student at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, allowed for the searching of various "anonymous" FTP servers around what was then a very small web of universities, researchers, and government and military nodes. It was groundbreaking; it was the first echo of the "anything, anywhere" Internet to come. And when The Serial Port went looking, it very much did not exist.
While Archie would eventually be supplanted by Gopher, web portals, and search engines, it remains a useful way to index FTP sites and certainly should be preserved. The Serial Port did this, and the road to get there is remarkable and intriguing. You are best off watching the video of their rescue, along with its explanatory preamble. But I present here some notable bits of the tale, perhaps to tempt you into digging further.
While Archie would eventually be supplanted by Gopher, web portals, and search engines, it remains a useful way to index FTP sites and certainly should be preserved. The Serial Port did this, and the road to get there is remarkable and intriguing. You are best off watching the video of their rescue, along with its explanatory preamble. But I present here some notable bits of the tale, perhaps to tempt you into digging further.
And still not to be found (Score:2, Insightful)
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But no sources - so nobody can really preserve this unless the entire environment is preserved.
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If you click on parent directory, then the beta directory, you find the source tarball.
Re:And still not to be found (Score:5, Informative)
Do people not know how directory traversals work?
Here is the documents he posted:
https://files.serialport.org/a... [serialport.org]
Click on "orig" and you see the original LaTeX docs. Neat.
But what's that little thing above it? "Parent Directory"? What could THAT possibly do...?
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Yay! (Score:2)
Can we have gopher, ftp and alt.binaries.* over nntp back as well?
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FTP? I'm pretty sure there are still plenty of servers serving FTP around.
Gopher? Try http://gopher.quux.org . If you gave a decent Web browser (Chrom* doesn't qualify, try Mosaic or Netscape 1/2/3/4) go directly to gopher://gopher.quux.org:70/1/ .
the end of the world, or at leasJohn Goerzen (Score:2)
Try http://gopher.quux.org/ [quux.org]
THE FORM OF THE DESTRUCTOR HAS BEEN CHOSEN. John Goerzen will appear as a huge gopher.
Who you gonna call?
Maybe those UK EMP bobbies with the unlicensed nuclear reactors on the backs?
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If fusion is okay, I can provide a very safe experimental one in early stages of development.
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Can we have gopher, ftp and alt.binaries.* over nntp back as well?
NNTP binaries will never come back in any scale because of the platform's reputation as a refuge for kiddie porn.
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Hm, and here I was thinking they won't come back because downloading a torrent is a lot easier than fucking with uuencode/uudecode and split.
finger (Score:2)
Would be good to bring back an extended finger protocol also ... ...that would work for close family and friends who consent to share information. It's provide information like like GPS coordinates, estimates of whether they are busy or not (e.g., using ambient and body-worn sensors)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Finger doesn't need a server dedicated to that task across domains. Any machine can run finger. I could easily run finger for all my domains email addresses for example just by myself. If you own on domain, you can setup your own finger service for your users / email addresses. So, it's up to each domain/machine/internet host to run a finger service if they wish to. You basically need to open the finger port and activate the finger service in each of your hosts yourself.
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Yes -- 'finger user@domain' connected to 'domain' port 79 and used to returns the login status and '.plan' file for 'user'.
But an extended and modernised finger protocol would:
- work only for close family and friends who consent to share information.
- optionally provide information like GPS coordinates
- optionally estimates of what the user is doing using ambient and body-worn sensors. For example, its lunchtime and a wristwatch accelerometer data indicates to fingerd that the user is feeding himself. Or it
Re: finger (Score:2)
Mmm.. I am more in favor of "let's improve X11" than "let's invent Wayland".
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shouldn't any new finger implementation include support of teledildonics?
Re: finger (Score:2)
I hope not.
You'd only want your GP giving you the finger, and that too when absolutely necessary.
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Access control ("work only for close family and friends who consent to share information") aside, the rest of that stuff could just go into the ~/.plan file that is shared. The user could decide what to put in the .plan file (IE: what they want to share), and tools could be used to automate updates to the .plan file, but the protocol would not necessarily need to be changed for that stuff.
Working with 3rd parties... I don't see a big difference between "finger user@domain" and "finger user@gmail.com". Maybe
Re: finger (Score:2)
I like the way you think - why extend the protocol when you can reuse it, .plan and all.
I agree: just use .plan or .project to send back location, contact details, availablity and upcoming availability using one of a dozen information exchange formats.
In fact I see massive use case in booking appointments with someone you've not corresponded with before, nor exchanged calendars with.
The only problem is establishing circles of trust. How much to disclose when you don't know the identity of the finger client
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I really don't recommend telling admins in America that an extended finger is good.
*runs away and hides under a rock
Re: finger (Score:2)
Back In My Day (Score:2)
Back in my day, we used to have to drive our mainframes uphill both ways with hamsters on a wheel to get it to add a couple of numbers.
When we got Archie, it was all the rave. FTP had never been so k-rad.
It was great to have a search like this instead of collecting links off of 'boards'.
--
What is the world coming to? -- Ozzy Osbourne
Whoot! Next up... (Score:1)
.. let's bring back RAM limits of 1KB... and GeoCities... and ... punch cards and..
You know what. Memberberries are for chumps.
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Somewhere around here, I'm pretty sure I have a couple of my old college programming assignments saved in the form of paper tape...
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I've definitely still got handwritten copies of the programs I had to delete from my calculator before I was allowed to take it into exams.
Can they get the domain name back? (Score:3)
Australian Archie ran on a.au. About the shortest possible global DNS-based host name. Was great when you needed to test your net connection and wanted something quick to type! ping a.au. And you were away!
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I just pinged it. a.au still exists.
Veronica (Score:3)
In a name that always gave me a chuckle, there was a search engine called Veronica as well.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
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Veronica worked with Gopher, IIRC.
As best as I can remember, WAIS didn't need a search engine.