Kermit Alive and Well on the Space Station

An Ominous Cow Erred writes "Spacedaily.com reports on the use of the fantastic Kermit "program" being used to communicate with devices on the international space station. While the article's author doesn't seem to have a quite perfect grasp on what Kermit is (and effuses about how Kermit is being used to help war-torn Bosnia and advance AIDS research) it brought a smile to my face to imagine the old protocol from my BBS days (which was scorned in favor of Zmodem) being used on the greatest technological achievement of humankind."

sheeesssh...

Kermit Alive and Well on the Space Station

This place is starting to sound like the Weekly World News [weeklyworldnews.com].
"Archie disappears, Veronica suspect! Gopher dug the hole far aWAIS!"

Re:sheeesssh...

Don't knock it, man... there are tabloids, and then there is the Weekly World News.

Q: What's the difference between the Weekly World News and the New York Times?

A: The Weekly World News tells you that it makes up its stories.

Anyone else here

Immediatly have the image of a large green frog floating around in the weightlessness?

Re:Anyone else here

Nope. We all had the image of an old file transfer protocol. After all, this IS Slashdot.

Mental Picture

<ghostly announcer voice>

MUPPETS...

IN...

SPACE...

</ghostly announcer voice>

PIGS

That is all.

Re:Anyone else here

Ditto, I'm thinking, "What did, did Dr. Evil kidnap him and he wants us to give into his demands or the muppet gets shot out an airlock!?!?!"

Re:Anyone else here

"Ditto, I'm thinking, "What did, did Dr. Evil kidnap him and he wants us to give into his demands or the muppet gets shot out an airlock!?!?!"

Do you know what happens to a frog when it's exposed to the cold vaccuum of outer space? The same thing that happens to everything else.

*Straight face.*

Re:Anyone else here

>> Do you know what happens to a frog when it's
>> exposed to the cold vaccuum of outer space?

This happens [comcast.net].

Re:Anyone else here

OT, but you reminded me of this, and I must share:

What did Kermit The Frog say when Jim Henson died?





wait for it . . .





Nothing.

transfer protocols comma that suck

(which was scorned in favor of Zmodem)

With good reason. :)

IceZmodem rocked.

Re:transfer protocols comma that suck

Kermit's downfall was the defaults with which it shipped. People (myself included) switched to zmodem simply because by default it gave faster transfer speeds. Yes, by messing around with window sizes, you could get just similar performance out of kermit. But no one could be bothered when zmodem "just worked". To be fair, kermit had a different set of design goals, which probably influenced the default settings. But IMHO they should have shipped kermit with default settings optimized for the common case, rather than for older, slower connections. Oh, and not being fully open source really didn't help its cause, either...

da-da, da-da-da-da... bwaaah

hi-ho, kermit thee frog here, and welcome to thee ISS.

Re:da-da, da-da-da-da... bwaaah

and today's show is brought to you by the number "zero" and the letter "g".

wait huh?

it brought a smile to my face to imagine the old protocol from my BBS days ... being used on the greatest technological achievement of humankind."

Weren't you using it to download porn back then too?

Zmodem rules.

Zmodem allowed asynchronous communications which provided faster data transfer rates and better error detection. In particular, Zmodem supported larger block sizes and enables the transfer to resume where it left off following a communications failure.

In the BBS days, where the goal was to leech files... there's a reason why other protocols where replaced.

--
Kill the spammers. [si20.com] Let the irony of this sig sort em' out.

Re:Zmodem rules.

Jeebuz, man, give it a rest.

Kermit is dead. Zmodem is dead. The argument died ten years ago! Get over it!

It's not pinin', it's passed on! This protocol is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of value, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the Space Station it'd be pushing up the daisies! Its CPU usage is now zero! It's off the box! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!!

THIS IS AN EX-PROTOCOL!!

Sheesh, if you want an argument to die around here, you've got to complain 'til you're blue in the face.

Re:Zmodem rules.

THIS IS AN EX-PROTOCOL!!

There is nothing inherently wrong with the X protocol, simply XFree's implementation of it mmmkay!

Sorry, just a knee jerk reaction.

Re:Zmodem rules.

Kermit is dead. Zmodem is dead.

Is it?

I don't know if you've heard or not, but there's a rumor that Kermit's Alive and Well on the Space Station...

Re:Zmodem rules.

That's true. The purpose of ZMODEM is to transfer data as fast as possible, on a fairly modern system with clean phone lines, plentiful memory for buffering, and fast I/O that doesn't block. On a modern system, ZMODEM is the best character-based protocol out there (there were a few that were more advanced or had special purposes, like BiModem, but they are irrelevant now that everything now uses packet-based data and TCP/IP).

The purpose of Kermit is to be 100% compatible with pretty much every piece of technology, going all the way back to the earliest mainframe computers!

Different character set (ASCII, EBCDIC, UTF-8, etc.)? Kermit will translate the data as it is transferred.

Strange record length requirement (data must be transferred in units of 80 bytes or so, and can't be addressed as individual characters)? This was common on mainframes. Kermit will pad data as required to make this work.

Limited I/O that can't use the comm port and storage device at the same time? This was common on old DOS PC comm programs that could not multitask. Kermit will delay as needed in order to let data be stored before continuing with the communications, and synchronize this with the other side so that data is not lost.

Noisy phone line? Kermit will do complete error correction, without stalling or aborting the transfer (as ZMODEM was known to do).

Low memory for buffering? Kermit will do handshaking to ensure that the other side doesn't send data until the current data has been fully processed, minimizing the need for memory to buffer data.

Alien directory structure (VAX, etc.)? Kermit includes a mini-OS that can be used interactively to browse directories and initiate file transfers, and it abstracts the local storage conventions of the system's OS into a simple hierarchy that is the lowest common denominator. As an example of what this means, have you ever done a "ftp" into an old DOS system, and found yourself unable to change drive letters, because FTP (being a UNIX-based program) has no concept of drive letters? Kermit to the rescue here.

Now that computers and protocols are beginning to become standardized, thanks in part to the popularity of the Internet, the need for Kermit is fading. Still, it's good to read about interesting uses of Kermit such as this. Kermit joins the old DOS shareware program "Compushow" as having The Right Stuff.... :)

and don't forget...

Need reliability in an environment where your electrical equipment is being slowly dissolved by ionizing radiation?

You just made a great case for Kermit, but I feel it needs a bit of a summary:

in space, reliability is key

Often triply redundant systems are deployed, and their life expectancy is STILL 5-10 years at best.

Re:and don't forget...

nonono, it goes...

in space, no one can hear your modem scream

The line of Kermits

After Kermit 95, there probably will be Kermit 98, followed by Kermit NT, Kermit ME, Kermit 2000, and finally Kermit XP.

But somehow, I can't imagine Kermit Longhorn as a species... :-)

Seriously, it definitely was (is?) a great program, especially when communicating between less common platforms. It saved my day more than once when I needed to transfer files between the VAX and Amiga, both quite ancient, and without ethernet hardware on Amiga. Many thanks to the creators!

Alex

Re:The line of Kermits

But somehow, I can't imagine Kermit Longhorn as a species... :-)

That's because it goes by the nickname: "Horny Toad".

Kermit Longhorn, The Species

"But somehow, I can't imagine Kermit Longhorn as a species... :-)"

Oh really? [blacksatin.net]

That's an interesting bulk licensing scheme...

...outlined here [columbia.edu].

Quantity Discount Unit Price
100-249 84.38% 10.00
250-499 86.72% 8.50
500-999 88.75% 7.20
1000-2499 90.63% 6.00
2500-4999 92.19% 5.00
5000-9999 93.75% 4.00
10000-19999 94.84% 3.30
20000-39999 95.23% 3.05

I wonder how many bulk orders they get these days...

Re:That's an interesting bulk licensing scheme...

this might shock the hell out of you
I work for a cendant hotel..
cendant recently put in one of four PMS systems at every hotel in the chain.

the one at my location uses linux for the terminal, and uses k95 for windows clients..
when it runs, it identifies itself as part of a 10,000 piece license to cendant.

Scorned because it was slow...

And sometimes a resource hog. I was told by the admins of the public Sun boxes at UT (circa late 80's)not to use it any more since it kept using all of the CPU. Fun stuff.

What is Kermit? .. from the official website.

Kermit [columbia.edu] is an extensible file transfer protocol first developed at Columbia University in New York City in 1981 for transferring text and binary files without errors between diverse types of computers over potentially hostile communication links, and it is a suite of communications software programs from the Kermit Project at Columbia University. The Kermit protocol and software are named after Kermit the Frog, star of the television series, The Muppet Show; the name Kermit is used by permission of Henson Associates, Inc.

Over the years, the Kermit Project has grown into a worldwide cooperative nonprofit software development effort, headquartered at and coordinated from Columbia University [slashdot.org]. The Kermit Project is dedicated to production of cross-platform, long-lasting, standards-conformant, interoperable communications software, and is actively engaged in the standards process [slashdot.org].

Since its inception in 1981, the Kermit protocol has developed into a sophisticated and powerful transport-independent tool for file transfer and management, incorporating, among other things:

KERMIT PROTOCOL

The feature that distinguishes Kermit protocol from most others is its wide range of settings to allow adaptation to any kind of connection between any two kinds of computers. Most other protocols are designed to work only on certain kinds or qualities of connections, and/or between certain kinds of computers, and therefore work poorly (or not at all) elsewhere and offer few if any methods to adapt to unplanned-for situations. Kermit, on the other hand, allows you to achieve successful file transfer and the highest possible performance on any given connection.

Unlike FTP or X-, Y-, and ZMODEM (the other protocols with which Kermit is most often compared) Kermit protocol does not assume or require:

• a connection that is transparent to control characters;
• an 8-bit connection;
• a clean connection;
• big buffers all along the communication path;
• physical-link-layer flow control.

(although Kermit does not require any of these conditions, it can take advantage of them when they are available). A feature article on Kermit protocol by Tim Kientzle in the February 1996 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal [ddj.com] noted that "Kermit's windowing approach is faster than protocols such as XModem and YModem . . . What many people don't realize is that under less-than-ideal conditions, Kermit's windowing approach is significantly faster than ZModem, a protocol with a well-deserved reputation for fast transfers over good-quality lines."

Thus Kermit transfers work "out of the box" almost every time.

Frogs in Spaaaace

In space, no-one can hear you croak.

Kermit

While the article's author doesn't seem to have a quite perfect grasp on what Kermit is...

It can be hard when grasping Kermit...just ask Miss Piggy.

Kermit is a program!

The author of the article has a very nice grasp of what Kermit is. It's not just a protocol, but a program complete with scripting capabilities, modem dialing, transfers using several protocols (including Kermit of course). It can even do TCP transfers now. It's a great program, but it's a little hard to use and mostly surpassed by simpler tools now. Still, I needed to use it a few years ago to automate modem uploads to a mainframe.

It's a program, it's a protocol

Man:It's a flyswatter!

Woman:It's a spatula!

Man:It's a flyswatter!

Woman:It's a spatula!

Man:It's a flyswatter!

Woman:It's a spatula!

Announcer:Wait! You're both right!

kermit v zmodem

You need to understand the differences.

zmodem is high performance single streaming large packet size negative-acknowledgement only protocol - it fails badly in noisy or lossy style of environments.

kermit is far more robust, can interoperate with various different systems of different character encoding, had adaptive retransmission, and can perform just as well as kermit under the right circumstances.

The BBS implementations of kermit were not as sophisticated as the protocol could be, and most BBS environments didn't need the kind of features that kermit had. kermit is also of the emacs style: it's not just a protocol by an entire interactive terminal in itself: scripts, command line, etc.

Hold on, let me download the article.

rz\r


rz\r

rz\r

man screw this

^Z^Z^Z^Z^Z^Z^Z^Z

dsgkh$#@^%@26 3421lj __ 34 NO CARRIER

LeechZmodem, icezmodem, superzmodem, etc

Never forget the ultimate in thieving scum protocols.
LeechZmodem.
It was a mutation of the Zmodem transfer protocol that never sent an acknowledgment packet at the end of a transfer, allowing you to download an entire file, yet signal to the bulletin board system that you'd never received the complete file. End result: your file credits don't change.
I doubt NASA cares, though.

Re:LeechZmodem, icezmodem, superzmodem, etc

LeechZmodem.
It was a mutation of the Zmodem transfer protocol that never sent an acknowledgment packet at the end of a transfer, allowing you to download an entire file, yet signal to the bulletin board system that you'd never received the complete file. End result: your file credits don't change.
I doubt NASA cares, though.

"Yeah, ISS, this is Houston. We're not letting you download any more course correction data until you upload some more space porn! You keep forgetting that you have a 5:1 ratio to maintain..."

"And if you try that 'uploading of duplicate files' crap again, we'll revoke all of your existing credits!"

jerkcity on kermit's uses

jerkcity (webcomic) on kermit's uses [jerkcity.com]

Takes you right back

Boy, it takes me back to read the word "Kermit" when not related to a frog... I actually used to use that... but there was no Slashdot then to talk about it on.

ah the memories

Kermit, it wasn't fast, but I swear that protocol could almost talk through mud. I used it through terminal servers, over X.25, over DECNET, over a freaking IBM 7171 converter (anyone else remember these monsters?). I even used it to stress test a Sun to DECNET comm program (keep signing on back and forth between a and b back to a back to b back to a), and then doing a kermit file transfer. Easy way to simulate 40 people using the system simultanously. But a friend of mine has me beat, IP over kermit over a satellite bounce from the south poll.

Re:ah the memories

It's trivial to make a protocol reliable. You just increase the overhead A LOT by one or more of mechanisms such as ack's, checksums/hashes to verify integrity, resends, small packet sizes etc. The reason X/Y/Z modem got popular was exactly because they threw a lot of the overhead out, increased packet sizes etc. because for almost all uses it won't buy you anything.

But getting that level of reliability is dead simple - I wrote a custom protocol implementation for data transfer between two GSM handsets many years ago that had to cope with nastyness such as frequently dropped calls (due to one of the handsets being on a ship that was continuously circling over an autonomous submersible, and the other handset being on another ship, both of them well off shore :) ), and small packet sizes and predictive resends (packages would be resent automatically if it didn't get an ack or nack within a reasonable amount of time was all that was needed to make it "rock stable" (except for the delay caused by the GSM phones reconnecting).

Serial protocols aren't exactly hard to do unless you "need" to squeeze every last byte out of the theoretical maximum transfer speed available.

It's Official

Spacecraft confirms it. The Kermit protocol is dying ...

Kermit is Dying

Fact: Kermit is dying

It is common knowledge that Kermit is dying. Everyone knows that ever hapless Kermit is mired in an irrecoverable and mortifying tangle of fatal trouble. It is perhaps anybody's guess as to which Kermit is the worst off of an admittedly suffering Kermit community. The numbers continue to decline for Windows but Kermit may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The erosion of user base for Kermit continues in a head spinning downward spiral.

All major marketing surveys show that Kermit has steadily declined in market share. Kermit is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Kermit is to survive at all it will be among hobbyist dilettante dabblers. In truth, for all practical purposes Kermit is already dead. It is a dead man walking.

Fact: Kermit is dying

(Inspired by a Win98 / FreeBSD Troll)

Greatest technological acheivement

... being used on the greatest technological achievement of humankind.

You mean they are running it on Linux??? No, that couldn't be it. You couldn't possibly be referring to the ISS could you? If so exactly what about the ISS is a great achievement other than they managing to spend staggering sums to accomplish nothing. The ISS is in a close race with the war in Iraq in that category.

Ah Kermit...

I found my introduction to the BBS community when I was 8 or so and going through everything that came with our new computer. While playing with lotus 1-2-3 I came across a bunch of options I didn't understand, but one said Kermit, like the frog, so I checked that out. This brought me to the (horrible) built in terminal and gave me some options for dialing numbers. That's what gave me a clue as to what that one weird shaped port was on the back of the computer, so I hooked up the phoneline and dialed PKWare's BBS, which was the first BBS I ever connected to. After hours of long distance charges all over the country, much to my parents displeasure, I had a good terminal program (Terminate FYI :) and a decent list of local BBS.

So I guess kermit played a crucial role in my life, as now I'm a network engineer :) Of course I ditched kermit for Zmodem, and a few other nutty protocols. Anybody remember the ones that would let you play tetris and such? Those were great back in the days of 2400 baud and single tasking operating systems.

And since I'm feeling nostalgic I'll just throw these in at random.

-Annoying people by creating insanely large and annoying ANSI sigs.
-Fidonet
-KINGCOTT
-ANSI Bombs
-Legend of the Red Dragon
-TradeWars 2002
-Horrible misconfigured MajorBBS sites.
-Wardialing (ToneLoc!)
-Can I have Co-Sys?

If you understand anything in that list, you're probably a geek. If you understand everything in the list, you were probably as annoying of a punkass as I was :)

Re:The greatest technological acheivement of human

You are incorrect. The true genius of man shines through in that late 20th century innovation: cheese in a aerosol can.

It's all that separates us from the apes.