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Re: LISTSERV (or equivalent) source code and documentation, pre-1991

2006-03-12 16:02:49

I'm in search of source code and manuals for LISTSERV, or equivalent
functionality, prior to 1991.

Exactly what "equivalent functionality" are you looking for? LISTSERV did a
bunch of stuff, including returning files in response to mailed in requests,
maintaining mailing lists, operating in tandem with other LISTSERVs elsewhere,
and probably some other stuff I no longer recall. There were a bunch of other
packages around back then but they differed somewhat in the functionality they
offered, and AFAIK none of them did the tandem operation stuff LISTSERV did.

In spite of LISTSERV's survival, its early code is proving quite difficult to
find.

The PMDF MAILSERV channel was, according to the copyright on the code,
originally written in 1989. This is from the PMDF V4.3 (ca 1994) version I have
online:

(*      Author:    Eric Thies (ethies(_at_)uncg(_dot_)bitnet)                 *)
(*                 University of North Carolina at Greensboro      *)
(*                 January 1989                                    *)
(*                                                                 *)
(*      Rewritten by: Ned Freed (ned(_at_)innosoft(_dot_)com)                 *)
(*                    Innosoft International, Inc.                 *)
(*                    December 1991                                *)

MAILSERV did the file distribution and list maintenance stuff but didn't handle
actual list expansion - it relied on PMDF's own expansion facilities for that.
(Basically it edited the files the list membership was stored in.) Of course it
didn't do any of the distributed stuff.

The source for V5.2 and earlier versions is in Pascal. I don't have versions
before V4.3 online and as a result I don't know exactly what functionality was
added when. (I'm not sure sources for versions prior to 4.3 exist any more -
and if they do they're probably on 9-track tape somewhere in Iron Mountain that
may or may not be readable at this point.)

I do have the original AAAREADME.TXT file for MAILSERV that Eric Thies sent me
on Wed, 18 Jan 89 20:03 EST. I also have a bunch of correspondence about the
development of this code, some private, some from the info-pmdf list.

As for printed manuals, I was responsible for PMDF documentation up to V3.0 (ca
1988) and I have hard copy of all of those in my files. After that Kristin
Hubner took over (this was around the time Innosoft took over development of
PMDF) so I don't have copies of the 4.0-4.2 manuals that would be relevant
here. They probably do exist, however - somewhere in Iron Mountain... Theory
says they can be retrieved if need be.

Does any of this help?

                                Ned