==================================================================== P I G U L K I an occasional electronic collection of news analysis, press reviews, and humor from/about Poland and the Polish community abroad __________________________________________________________________ July 20, 1991 No. 7 __________________________________________________________________ In this issue: Editors' Note Networks ONE YEAR OF EARN NETWORKING IN POLAND by Andrzej Smereczynski (part 2 of 2) CONNECTING WROCLAW TO THE WORLD by Andrzej Sokalski CONNECTING THE WORLD TO WROCLAW by Marek Samoc WROCLAW FROM MSK TO EARN by Jozef Janyszek INTERNET IN POLAND by Krzysiek Heller POLAND - ELECTRONIC CONTACTS POLAND - CURRENT LISTSERV LISTS Polish Affairs PERSPECTIVES ON CORPORATE COMPUTING INITIATIVES IN POLAND by Jack Tuszynski The Back Page The Myth of Lighthorsemen by Jurek Klimkowski Notes on Contributors About PIGULKI ===================================================================== EDITORS' NOTE With this issue, PIGULKI completes its first year. Founded last July with the intention of stimulating discussion of the fast-breaking events in Poland, PIGULKI has evolved by virtue of its readership's interests into a chronicle of one of the more rapid developments in post-communist Poland: the beginnings of Poland's electronic integration into Europe and, through that gateway, the rest of the world. Not only have Poland's universities started out on this path of connecting up with EARN/CREN and (more recently) Internet, but private bulletin boards have proliferated and FIDONet offers an alternative means of connecting those not blessed with access to academic facilities. We're hopeful that next year will see not only an improvement in Poland's overall well-being, economically, but also a sharp jump in the number of Poles outside of academia capable of accessing the "global village." In the new "market economies," where there remain steep financial (although lower political) barriers to entry in the mass media, it is important that many in the broader population can access information and other people in order to inform their business, political and even social activities. There remain barriers (cost of hardware, software and know-how) to similar access in the U.S. and Europe, but there appears to be a secular decline in these costs, and a greater participation in electronic forums and exchanges despite these barriers. Lack of access to information is one of the impediments to the working of democracy. And improving this access, and extending it to more people, is essential to making Poland's democracy permanent. Let's shoot for full-blown Internet by mid-1992! See you in September! ===================================================================== ONE YEAR OF NETWORKING IN POLAND - PART 2 OF 2 DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLEARN NODE From the beginning we assumed a reasonably fast growth of the user's demands for networking facilities. We were aware that our computer equipment is inadequate and must be changed to a more efficient one; the IBM's Academic Initiative was our hope for a modern computer. However, the fame of PLEARN spread out very quickly and the number of users grew faster than we could expect. The number of transmitted files grew even faster. The first step in solving this problem was installation of the Netserv software. Until then Swedish SEARN provided netserving for Polish network. In November 1990, during the meeting of the Network Operation Group and EARN Board of Directors in Cairo, I met Ulrich Giese, the EARN Network Master Coordinator (NMC). He told me about the particulars of installing Netserv and how we would cooperate in changing Netserv from SEARN to PLEARN. Ulrich told me also that Berthold Pash - the former NMC - was going to visit Warsaw University as the representative of IBM, to act in the IBM's steps in Academic Initiative, and to learn, how is the Polish academic community computerized. Berthold came to the Informatics Center on 27 November 1990 with a dump tape of the Netserv. Installation was easy, it was only necessary to define the Netserv virtual machine and to unload the tape. Berthold modified the various Netserv tables and Execs and we were ready to go. The users in every Polish node were advised to register themselves in Netserv at PLEARN using its User Directory Service command. I think that with those actions we satisfied all people from abroad who searched for contacts with EARN users in Poland. They simply can reach our Netserv at PLEARN and get info about sought people. The next development of the PLEARN was the installation of Listserv, in the middle of December 1990. I have to admit that there was two week delay, because Turgut Kalfaoglu sent me the Listserv package just before my trip to Trieste for the First International School of Networking, and at the same time he registered our Listserv as existing in network with the proper register number. I could not make it in time before Trieste. That is why some people were surprised, when tried to get something from Listserv, and Listserv "barked out" that they had the closest Listserv at PLEARN, but it wasn't there yet. Anyway, the Listserv started without any problem and immediately processed couple of files waiting in the queue for its facility. Now the node was completely equipped with the EARN software. Many people at PLEARN and in the other nodes look for more functions of networking than electronic mail only. Some of them got in touch with users in another nodes, or simply used Listserv facilities to bring more sophisticated software which they considered useful. Some are writing their own programs in REXX: the useful ones will be put into the Listserv library after upgrading the system. The physicists suggested to install HEPVM as soon as possible, in order to create the common CERN- like system environment for them. They want to have a comfort of the similarity of the system everywhere whether they are in CERN, in PLEARN or somewhere else in Europe. So we got some contacts with HEPVM project group and we work on it to satisfy our physicists also. The system was overloaded because of a very poor performance - it was only a 0.6 Mips processor 3 Megabytes of storage, burdened with mismatched release of the VM/SP - too high for such processor. That is why we finally managed to exchange it to IBM4341, leased for 6 month from a second hand computer dealer here in Poland. Also, we bought another IBM3880 disk controller. It has remarkably improved the system performance and the response time to our users. Our other purchase is the second IBM3705 TCU which will be maintaing our internal University remote lines and separate them from the EARN backbone lines. ABOUT ORGANIZATIONAL MATTERS EARN-Poland is managed by the Director: Prof. Tomasz Hofmokl (FDL50@PLEARN) a physicist from the Institute of Physics of the Warsaw University. He cooperates with Tadeusz Wegrzynowski (OAK01@PLEARN) -the Director of the Informatics Center in Warsaw University were the main Polish EARN node - PLEARN is located. I was recommended by Prof. Hofmokl to Hans Deckers - the Director of The EARN Office, as the EARN Network Country Coordinator (NCC) for Poland. In November 1990 my nomination to this position was officially announced, together with NCC's from Czechoslovakia and Hungary. My tasks as NCC are strictly defined in EARN documents, written by Berthold Pasch, and I hope I am doing my best in this area. There is also another position, occupied by Mr. Andrzej Zienkiewicz, which was created by Prof. Hofmokl: "Koordynator Krajowy Sieci EARN", which translates to English as "EARN Network Country Coordinator", if you like. It is little strange, isn't it? His work is to supervise the wire connections provided by PTT and he employs couple of guys from Polish PTT. Despite of it, there are still long delays in connecting other nodes. Let me introduce other people involved intensively in EARN activity: Bogumila Rykaczewska (RNK01@PLEARN) does documentary work on EARN, translating and verifying the EARN Users Manuals and Instructions and editing the Polish EARN Bulletin; Danuta Burzynska (ODK10@PLEARN) has set-up the User Supporting Group. She very quickly translated the "Manuel d'utilisation EARN sous systeme VM/SP" by Dominique Pinse, so that our users could get it almost immediately after starting PLEARN; The Group managed by her provides consultations and helps users in such matters as: - transferring files from PC to VM via Kermit, - how to use terminals of various layout of keyboards; - how to use Mail/Mailbook commands, and so on; This Group consists of young people, who are very enthusiastic and professional in their work. Such help is sought very much by our users, whose number exceeds 1200 in PLEARN itself. Jolanta Tuszynska and Malgorzata Grabowska - doing Postmaster's work as POSTMAST@PLEARN. All the mis-addressed mail lands with them and they try to find out were the error is and to forward the letters to the addressee (or return to sender). Wiktor Krzanowski (OSK01@PLEARN) is our expert in caring for the connections provided by PTT. He works with our hardware engineers in installing modems on these lines and testing them. Anka Olszewska and Janek Janczyk are my system programmers. Jerzy Poplawski is managing a group of hardware engineers who do all the installations and maintenance and search for the best ways to upgrade the existing system. And they succeed. In the future there will be somebody devoted to maintain Listserv, as we expect an increase in the user's interest with Listserv file distribution functions. Also there is a huge interest in creating discussion lists. At the moment there are active five such lists. We expect new organizational problems which will come with IBM's Academic Initiative. It can happen even this year and affect the EARN situation here, as well. All funding for EARN activity comes directly from the central budget of the Government Committee of the Scientific Research, which differs substantially from the Italian or French models. In Italy the money come from various institutions, both governmental and non-governmental, which voluntarily subsidize italian EARN. and make Italian EARN dependent on them. In France a membership structure is in place and all the nodes contribute a fee related to the type and size of the computer. The French EARN depends only on its members and has more constant and predictable budget. The organization of the Management of the Polish EARN is expected change this year from one-person to collegial management. Professor Hofmokl has nominated ten people from various regional Universities to positions of Regional Community Coordinators. They are supposed to cooperate with Mr. Zienkiewicz in "taking common decisions in local activity in the matter of getting lines from PTTs and elaboration of the optimal access to the network from the local site." In most cases these are the same people who had equivalent positions in KASK. The KASK project ended with almost null result however, and we have to hope that they will not screw EARN now. Meanwhile, Mr. Zienkiewicz begun a cooperation with a Swedish company DATA DELECTA, offering a protocol converter N1500, part of a bigger system "NETLAN" also offered by this company. He has left unfinished the project of Network Processor which was supposed to work in KASK, and offers the Swedish solutions in a Joint Venture with DATA DELECTA. The last idea coming from Mr. Zienkiewicz is to setup another Joint Venture with DATA DELECTA under the banners of the KASK and PLEARN and call it The Academic Computer Networks Ltd. He is going to provide service for modems, PADs, concentrators and other network equipment and take money for consultations, advice and so on. It can turn into a kind of the monopoly favoring these dealers of the networking equipment in our market, which will pay better. But I hope that I am wrong. In my opinion, the Management of EARN-Poland should keep EARN Association clear and away from the dirty marketing manipulations. WHAT NEXT IN POLISH EARN? The answer is in the drafting documents from the EARN meeting in Cairo last year. We have to provide, as soon as possible, the periodical statistical data about activity of our nodes in EARN network. It is important problem, because the data coming to the Statistic Coordinator from all EARN nodes could determine the traffic on the particular lines and could help in making decisions about eventual reorganization of the network on international connections. In the last meeting the Routing Project Group decided to initiate works on opening 5 new intercon- tinental links from various nodes of Europe to USA because existing ones are overloaded in both directions. In this problem I see a very close cooperation between fellows from BITNET and EARN. The future in Europe belongs to X.25 transmission protocol and to X.400 mailing protocol and OSI standard. The temporary solution is the International X.25 Infrastructure Project (called IXI) to connect all the existing european academic networks via so called access points built on special conversion units named G-BOX for DECNET and E-BOX for EARN. Together with increasing EARN activity in Poland there are arising problems with software required for connecting UNIX computers and VAX machines, and even ordinary PCs to EARN network. Owners of Unix machines usually have in their operating systems a built-in software supporting TCP-IP. But this is the song of the future, although hopefully not a far future. At the moment, attempts to obtain the UREP software emulating NJE protocol in Unix gave no results. It seems that we have to wait for the IBM's Academic Initiative hoping that it brings the VMNET and TCP/IP technology. Similar situation is with VAX'es, but the main reason lays in incompatibility of the hardware originating from Yugoslavia, announced by dealers as fully compatible with VAXes. The software emulating RSCS for VAXes is provided by its inventor Michel Jouvin. We can see a large effort of people with LANs and WANs to get a golden solution in connecting them to EARN or to create a new network based on INTERNET principles, which could appear even easier and could happen very soon. People expect some advice from the Western countries, but the TCP/IP technology appears to be still under COCOM license restrictions which may explain the silence from that side. NETWORKING SCHOOL IN TRIESTE The TCP/IP technology was an important topic in Trieste during the First International School of Networking. This School was organized specially for professionals from Eastern Countries, considered as neglected in this fast developing field knowledge. Prof. Alvise Nobile was the initiator of this School, organized in International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste. Lot of efforts in organizing and running the School was put out by Krzysztof Heller from Jagiellonian University who took special care of Polish participants. The lecturers were invited from famous institutions - leaders in the up-to-date networking technology: DEC, IBM, Centro Studie Laboratori Telecommunicazioni from Torino, CERN, Surfnet, Rutherford Laboratories and Dortmund Universitaet. Participants came from: Iran(1), Sri Lanka(1), Mexico(1), Saudi Arabia(1), Peru(1), Hungary(7), Czechoslovakia(9), Yugoslavia(7), Bulgaria(1), Romania(1), USSR(1)1 and from Poland(7). Polish participants were professor Daniel Bem from Wroclaw Technical University, Jacek Kotur from Warsaw Technical University, Roman Markowski from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Wojciech Miller from University of Lodz, Tadeusz Wegrzynowski from Warsaw University, Jerzy Zienkiewicz from Nicholas Copernicus University in Torun and me. There were lectured the following subjects: - Introduction to Computer Networks, - Communication links, telephone lines, packet switching networks, - COSINE/RARE, - HEPNET, - a case study on Network Planning and Management, - NJE-RSCS and Their Management, - DECNET Structure and Management, - EARN, - EASINET, - SNA basics, - Electronic Mail: Structure of the Network, - The TCP/IP Protocol Suite, - Communication links: satellite lines, - UUCP, - Services available on networks, - Structure and management of the mail routing programs. I think, that everything was covered what was necessary to create the picture of the trends in the existing and future networking. We also got a lot of advice from our teachers, tutors and consultants. It was a great opportunity for us, because we could compare our situation with our neighboring countries. And it appeared to be not so bad, anyway. Also, we could find out what is necessary to follow fast steps in the implementing TCP/IP technology in the World, and where to join in order to be present in works on future OSI standards. We brought to our sites lot of instructional materials, especially from exercises on small network consisting of IBM 9370, RISC 6000, VAX and Packet Switching. Those two weeks spent in ICTP were useful and will be very fruitful for developing our country networks. SOME CLOSING REMARKS One year anniversary of EARN networking in Poland we have celebrated by switching PLEARN to a better computer - IBM 4341, which improved PLEARN node performance and our Polish network as well. There were no opening celebrations when PLEARN started on 17 July 90, it was very quiet event. However we were very proud of what happened that time, and happy that we did something very important. It is a pity, that those historical moments were neglected by the VIPs in Poland and probably more noise was made when Big Blue came to Poland with its IBM Academic Initiative. Moreover most people would eventually be convinced that it was IBM who begun the EARN era in Poland. In order not to forget the efforts and importance of the deeds of people engaged in bringing EARN to Poland it is the right place to mention them. Let us give an appreciation to: Dave Phillips, Elisabeth Porteneuve, Darius Bartlett, Frode Greisen, Allain Auroux, Michael Hebgen, Hans Deckers, Krzysztof Heller, Marek Samoc, Marek Zielinski, Tomasz Hofmokl, Bogumila Rykaczewska, Tadeusz Wegrzynowski, Andrzej Zienkiewicz, Jerzy Klimkowski, Jacek Ulanski, Wojtek Chudoba, and to many, many others involved in this great work. Thanks to all of them for their contribution. Andrzej Smereczynski. Warsaw, 14 April 1991 ========================================================================== CONNECTING WROCLAW TO THE WORLD My personal experience with using electronic mail dates to years 1985 - 1987. I exchanged then e-mail with researchers in USA and in Western Europe during my Summer visits to the Johns Hopkins University and University of Pisa. I even managed to make one of my papers solely by e- mail. This was remarkable experience for somebody who used to wait several weeks for an answer by "express" snail mail. Besides, I learned that in my field (computational chemistry) most of researchers are accessible by electronic mail and several journals started to accept manuscripts via e-mail, so bringing BITNET/EARN to Poland would tremendously boost productivity and potential for international cooperation, ending our isolation from worldwide academic community. In the meantime the advantage of having access to e-mail had become one of the survival skills: some sponsoring agencies started to accept grant applications via e-mail and thanks to e-mail the process of submitting and reviewing papers in some progressive journals has been shortened to days now. However, before 1988, due to cold war spirit present at many higher levels of the bureaucracies involved, such idea was still politically hopeless on both ends of the virtual wire. A letter from Canada In Fall 1988 I received a letter from our former Canadian exchange student (currently a graduate student of Nobel Laureate Prof. Michael Polanyi), who has spent more than semester in our laboratory at Politechnika Wroclawska, trying to learn some quantum chemistry while enjoying exciting social and underground (!) life in Wroclaw together with his Canadian girlfriend. He wrote me that a certain "committee located in New York started to work on the proposal to bring BITNET to Poland". Now I realize that it was probably slightly distorted echo of EARN-Poland Link Discussion Group on Relay. I should admit that I immediately went into the second triplet excited state (as the my spectroscopist friends used to say), and started to bug various University authorities for response and some action. However, I only discovered that there is nobody at the entire University (Marek Samoc was at this time in Buffalo) who had any previous experience and appreciation of worldwide e-mail services, being able to share my enthusiasm. Maybe I am not doing justice to both coordinators of national academic network (KASK) and computerization projects located then at our University. They certainly possessed at that time all the official authority, resources and access to experts with better theoretical background in computer networking than any chemist, even well traveled, could have. However, I discovered to my horror that in the bombastic future KASK plans the connection to the outside world was planned some years ahead, only after completing the still nonexistent national network ! "BITNET Committee" I should admit that situation with computer network standards in western Europe was at that time very confusing, due to parallel existence of non compatible standards adapted in various neighboring countries. However, due to dominance and advancement of American networking solutions, these petty national rivalries were doomed for extinction and our best choice was to follow the most popular American examples. For example, at one time Scandinavian and Italian networks were not able to communicate directly and the traffic between them had to go through USA. In my persistent attempts to convince network coordinators, only one of them created impression of some interest in the idea of immediate connection to EARN. I also tried to address this topic during the annual national meeting of researchers supported from Polish Academy of Sciences Basic Research Project in Chemistry (CPBP 01.12) in December 1988. With the Project Leaders from all major Universities assembled in one room I tried to present the idea of connecting to worldwide computer networks. Nobody seemed to share my enthusiasm then. I can only note now with satisfaction that once the EARN link has been made available most of the Polish quantum chemistry groups happily joined PLEARN and established numerous e-mail addresses. However, in Autumn 1988 I managed to convince Professor Jaroslaw Juchniewicz, then Vice-President of Wroclaw Technical University, to sign official application letter drafted by myself to mysterious "BITNET Committee in New York" and mail it to the above mentioned graduate student in Toronto with request to forward it through his friend in Pittsburgh to mysterious "BITNET Committee" (address unknown). I still do not know where and when this letter arrived, but on December 2, 1988 Prof. Juliusz Sworakowski got a telephone call from Marek Samoc (then on his sabbatical in SUNY at Buffalo) that this letter has been received and should be resubmitted with more technical details to EARN President, Dr. Dennis Jennings in Ireland. As I was boring everybody with tales about BITNET, Julek had no doubt to whom this message had to be transferred. VAX clones In the meantime Politechnika Wroclawska received one of the first three VAX 750 clones (DELTA ISKRA 8000 made in Yugoslavia under DEC license), and I managed to enlist Jozef Janyszek, Director of our Computing Center and obtain his commitment for future technical help. As for the VAX clone, the deal with Yugoslavia was rather bad. Due to some surplus in trade with Yugoslavia, somebody in the Ministry of Education bought three such clones at the price of about 600 000 "clearance dollars" each (about 300 000 real dollars). What a waste of resources it was - one could get now several modern and powerful superminis or workstations for this money. However, due to COCOM regulations DELTA ISKRA 8000 was probably the only available choice at that time. The delivery of these machines to Wroclaw and Krakow was considerably delayed, due to lack of agreement on who would get the third machine assigned to Warsaw. Finally Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) prevailed over Warsaw University. Due to extraordinary sacrifices of the Computing Center technicians, and in spite of extremely poor manufacturers service our VAX was the first to become fully operational. I am still very grateful to Mr. Moron for his kind help in installing our quantum chemical software and Cambridge Structural Database for the use of Wroclaw chemists, so our Quantum Chemical Group from I-4 became one of major users of this machine during its first year of operation. However, due to user charges introduced at the later time our preference shifted to our own 386 PC. Using old WASC leased telephone line we managed to use our oldest IBM PC clone connected through ancient 1200 bps modem as VAX terminal. Our remote link to Computing Center dates back to 1974, when we were connected via a teletype to ODRA 1305 (perhaps the best East European computer of its time designed by ingenious Thanassis Kamburelis in early 70' and manufactured in Elwro-Wroclaw before infamous RIAD-IBM 360/370 era killed the Polish computer supremacy in Eastern Europe). Our terminal room is located in Stara Chemia building (in this building where Bunsen invented his burner) in even more historic room 408 frequented by noted conspirators of the eighties. This way at the end of 1988 our Quantum Chemistry Group was ready to communicate with the rest of the world, provided there was further connection from our Computing Center to EARN. Letter to EARN At that time I was quite busy, and it took me some time before I prepared the final version of Politechnika Wroclawska official application to EARN. After signing it by Prof. Jaroslaw Juchniewicz it was mailed on February 14, 1989. As it become clear much later, this was the first official application to EARN from Poland. I still have the historic copy of this letter with me, so when somebody will ever open a museum of Polish Networking, remember where to look for it! The final letter drafted later by Marek Samoc is under the custody of Mr. Janyszek. Physicists from Warsaw University managed since early 1989 to call periodically CERN and up- and download e-mail. This was, however, semi-official and very expensive operation resulting in million zloty telephone bills for the Institute of Physics at Hoza Street. I would like to express here a lot of respect to all the computer gurus from Hoza, then the Mecca for all IBM PC enthusiasts from entire Poland. Whenever I visited Warsaw in the eighties I always tried to drop in to Hoza. However, as an old Polish adage says "Najciemniej jest pod latarnia" - roughly: 'you can't see the forest for the trees'. I recollect now that Jacek Gajewski has sent on April 21, 1989 e-mail from Hoza addressed to Marek Samoc in Buffalo (and forwarded to me at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore) asking for information on how Wroclaw applied to EARN and mentioning lack of Professor Phillips' e- mail address. Dave, have you seen how much respect your efforts to help creating Poland-EARN link won in the eyes of title loving Poles ? I also do remember now that in early 1989 somebody mentioned to me in the KASK coordinator office, without giving me more specific information, a recent visit of Dr Gajewski from Warsaw, who probably was looking there for help and advice. So at that time we were kept in ignorance about parallel grass-root efforts in Wroclaw and Warsaw and we really needed a coordinator in USA to get us together! This is also a wonderful example of the increasing importance of new, more global ways to communicate, similar to many other given in the recently published important book "Powershift" by Alvin Toffler. (I strongly recommend this book to everybody). RELAY meetings Soon after arriving in March 1989 for my sabbatical in the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, I joined Relay Discussions on POLAND-BITNET LINK and I learned that our first Polish application got stuck in EARN due to political considerations originating from US Department of Commerce (DOC). The ball was then in US court. It was made in highly diplomatic way. First, without rejecting our first application from October 1988, BITNET authorities advised to reapply to European Academic and Research Network (EARN), and then due to lack of US consent EARN was not able to accept it. It seems to me that there was no one in DOC willing to take the responsibility for such decision. Much later, when such decision was finally issued, it was written in such elaborated "lawyers new-speak" that it took some time to interpret it with the help of other lawyers as official approval. Coincidentally, somewhat earlier I received an offer to start cooperation with National Institute of Standards and Technology (former National Bureau of Standards) operating for the same US Department of Commerce and we were then in process of applying (successfully!) for a grant from Maria Curie-Sklodowska Foundation. As I met NIST official engaged in managing polish-american scientific cooperation I also asked about BITNET/EARN connection to Poland and I learned that the people at lower DOC bureaucratic level were very supportive and helpful. They told me that before me, Prof. Turski from Warsaw tried to do something in this direction, before he left for Poland. They even expressed their willingness to sponsor a visit of a polish scientist at NIST to work on testing network protocol standards and start some sort of cooperative project. Realizing that it was very timely and useful offer and I immediately forwarded this message to one of coordinators, in whose good will and intentions I still believed at that time. Months passed to no avail. Suspecting lost mail I tried to write one more time to him and later directly to Vice- President of our University, but apparently nobody was interested in such offer or it was purposefully trashed. From that moment it become clear to me that official channels for connecting Poland to world are useless and the only chance is the grass-root action. In the meantime the government in Poland has been changed and President Bush was going to visit Poland in July 1989, so the chances for obtaining a consent from DOC were high, but again nothing happened. Perhaps, nobody in Mazowiecki government asked about it. Therefore, it is quite possible that much more important travel in respect to bringing EARN to Wroclaw was Marek Samoc return from his sabbatical to Wroclaw in Autumn 1989. I first met Marek during finals of nationwide Chemical Olympic Games in 1966 when we were both high school students from different cities. In 1967 he won the first prize and I am very glad that I managed to influence his choice of Politechnika Wroclawska for further studies. During his sabbatical in US between 1987-8 Marek also become an enthusiast of computer networking, and upon his return to Wroclaw he directed his talents and energy to make it true there. Here follows his story. Andrzej Sokalski electronically known as CAMBPRMS@UBVMS.BITNET ======================================================================= CONNECTING THE WORLD TO WROCLAW This is the story of a bystander who had some opportunity to watch the action which finally resulted in BITNET/EARN coming to Poland, and, in particular, to Wroclaw. February 1987 For me everything started just then. After long skirmishes with passport and political authorities I finally succeeded in getting a permission to go to United States. In New York I was greeted by my good friend Marek Zielinski. He showed me a few tricks on his lab computer which (that was a novelty to me!) was equipped with a modem and could communicate with the NYU VAX as well as with BBS's. " When you come to Dartmouth, first thing you should do is opening an account on DARTCMS1, that's the computer that has access to BITNET!" Dartmouth College is virtually unknown in Poland, but in USA is often put in the same category as Harvard, Yale and Princeton. It was at Dartmouth that the first multiuser academic computer system was created, and BASIC was created there by professors Kemeny and Kurtz together with a bunch of undergraduates. No wonder that today's Dartmouth is fully computerized and each freshman is expected to buy a MacIntosh (at Dartmouth, PCs are not considered worthy dealing with) and everybody at a dorm has a wall outlet with a direct, hardwired link to computing services in the Kiewit Computing Center. Professors often use the computer network for assigning homework and collecting students' papers. So, my interest in computer communication, awakened by Marek Zielinski in New York, found a very fertile ground at Dartmouth. I opened accounts on several computers and found, to my amazement that all of them had access to several networks: BITNET, ARPANET, UUNET, you name them... Learning about the networks and ways to transfer information to and fro took me many long nights in front of a terminal. I simply fell in love! Spring 1988 After a year at Dartmouth I moved with my family to Buffalo, NY. Staying in touch with my coworkers at Dartmouth as well as with friends in various parts of North America was not a problem. A PC with a modem at home (not to mention ones in the lab) allowed for an easy communication with computers of my employer - State University of New York at Buffalo and INTERNET provided an almost instantaneous link with DARTCMS1 where I could still use my account. By the way, this account is active to this very moment (Jozef, do you read that? I hope you will not close my PLWRTU11 account earlier than they do it at Dartmouth!). One starry night I found an interesting article in NETMONTH (a network newspaper edited at YALE) with an attractive if a little frivolous title: "Let's bring BITNET to USSR!". The author (from Alaska, of all places) went as far as to propose that, to help detente, the network community should act towards connecting the Soviet Union to BITNET. My first reaction was to treat that article as something very detached from reality. Not long afterward, however, the SUNY VAX Bulletin brought an article signed by a Dave Phillips, who quoted the Alaskan's article and presented a concept to skip the USSR for the time being but to concentrate on Poland as a working example instead! This article really made me jump! I added some comments to Dave's letter and forwarded it to several friends. Well, the enthusiasm came only from Marek Zielinski... Together with Dave we started an exchange of information and concepts. We used RELAY for brain storms and e-mail for everyday communication. A small but growing group of activists was formed, centered around Buffalo geographically, but certainly around Dave personally. At that time we believed that the greatest obstacle would be in getting the go-ahead from the communist authorities. We were obviously wrong. Through a Canadian graduate student, St.John who once spent some time in Wroclaw, Andrzej Sokalski learned about our small group and forced the Wroclaw Technical University authorities to apply for a link to BITNET. That was the first official application from Poland sent to Dr Jennings, at that time the president of EARN. A copy of the letter was sent to POLAND/EARN discussion group c/o myself :-) :-). Fall 1988 A friend's friend (that is a friend, too), Witek Trzeciakowski, spent some time in Buffalo. He informed Warsaw physicists about our group. I got an e-mail letter with a strange return address: WarZeus at somewhere in Switzerland? It appeared that the Warsaw physicists have been using for some time a mailbox at CERN. They prepared another letter to Jennings with a very strong support from Warsaw University authorities. Soon after that there was another letter from Lodz. So, it appeared, there no formal obstacles at the Polish end. We learned, however, that the obstacle were not at EARN headquarters, either. The main problem was the stand of the US Department of Commerce which was strongly against exporting any technologies prohibited by COCOM. We learned that delicate talks were under way but it seemed that we were against a wall of red tape... Summer 1989 Those were the times! So much was happening almost overnight! Much later I have learned about creation of DONOSY which were the answer to the hunger of Poles abroad for fresh news. However, I did not get the first issues. In August 1989 I returned to Poland. The day before I left Buffalo, Dave and I prepared a letter to president Bush asking his help in overcoming the Department of Commerce objections... Good bye, America! Winter 1989/90 Adapting back to Polish realities took me some time. I was completely out of touch for a couple of months. But there was at least one person at Wroclaw Tech who did not forget about the EARN/BITNET application: the director of Computing Services, Jozef Janyszek. We composed together a letter to the new president of EARN, Frode Greisen. I suggested also that we could really gain a lot by staying in touch with the action abroad if we could get a guest account at some European node for the use of Wroclaw Polytechnic (no, dialing USA to get to any of my accounts there was certainly out of question!). After several weeks we finally got a reply! Greisen did not have any news from the US end, but he was full of optimism and, how nice of him, set out a guest account for us at his VM system in Denmark! Getting a PC, a modem and an outside line was accomplished lightning fast. After several tries I finally heard a welcome sound: a whistle of a modem in Denmark. As UNIPOL1@NEUVM1 I sent out first messages. The replies came fast. Dave Phillips created a new discussion list PLEARN-L@UBVM that was to facilitate exchange of information between volunteers abroad and Poland. The list and letters forwarded from New York allowed us to find out what was going on, especially in Warsaw :-) :-). Spring 1990 The Department of Commerce finally agreed! At the same time, intense work of people in Warsaw provided government backing for the link idea and the funds for a leased line to Copenhagen. Although in our talks in Wroclaw we often considered putting the first node of PLEARN in Wroclaw, we were certainly behind schedule as compared to Warsaw. So, we started planning connection to Warsaw. Finally, the big meeting in Warsaw. Frode Greisen officially welcomed Poland as a member of EARN. Plans were made for PLEARN (the computer): the first node of PLEARN (the network) and connections to other cities. From our side we were determined to be the first. From what we learned it appeared, however, that the pseudo-VAX which the Politechnika owned was a far cry from being a suitable system for PLEARN connection. Jozef Janyszek decided that the best idea was to buy a second-hand IBM 4341. Summer 1990 A few days after the meeting in warsaw I was back in the USA. All the evenings were again spent in front of a terminal. How different the world became! Every morning one could read DONOSY, their address list brought contact with quite a few of old friends, there was the terror and excitement of POLAND-L. But PLEARN-L was hardly active. Everybody was awaiting the great news from Warsaw that the link was operational. Finally, one day in July, my routine command from VAX : SEND @PLEARN CPQ USERS did not bring the reply from DKEARN that the link was inactive. PLEARN admitted having four users! At once I sent a line: SEND OPERATOR@PLEARN Dzien dobry, klania sie Marek Samoc z Buffalo! That was a great moment when I got a reply from Andrzej Smereczynski and finally could talk online through half the world. I still do not know if I was really the first user from USA who contacted PLEARN, but I sure was among the first ones. Fall 1990 And what about Wroclaw Polytechnic? The use of the mailbox in Denmark (how convenient!) was growing as an avalanche but the promised IBM 4341 did not appear for a while. After I returned to Poland I found plenty of e-mail users in the Polytechnic, but no link! A UUCP node has been created, but this did not help much as UUCP mail was also routed through long distance calls. Finally, the machine arrived. By accident I found about the big day when the first connection was to be made. In the Computing Center everybody was excited. The system programers: Andrzej Smereczynski of Plearn and our Jarek Kurowski were configuring the system. Finally, the link became operational! The first TELL command sent to Warsaw by Andrzej Smereczynski brought an immediate reply. That was an occasion for celebration. We all had champagne. But when the pros were satisfied that the link is working, they admitted a plain user to the operator console. As SAMOC@PLWRTU11 I sent out first communiques to PLEARN-L. In a couple of minutes I got the first reply. It was of course a sheer accident that it came from Buffalo, NY, from Michal Prussak. Marek Samoc ================================================================= WROCLAW FROM MSK TO EARN Building the Academic Computer Network in Wroclaw was begun in the end of seventies. An ambitious goal of setting up an Inter-University Computer Network (Miedzyuczelniana Siec Komputerowa MSK) using the X.25 protocol was undertaken. In the middle of the eighties this network consisted already of 3 packet switching nodes, 3 Odra 1305 hosts and 1 R-32 host. These computers were connected through leased telephone lines Wroclaw-Warsaw and Wroclaw-Gliwice. The network had little practical significance, though, since there were no useful computer resources to share and the political situation in the country made it impossible to gain access to any international networks. Since 1985 the MSK program was continued under the name of National Academic Computer Network program (Krajowa Akademicka Siec Komputerowa KASK). At the end of the eighties this network has reached a satisfactory level of reliability, especially after R-34 computers with IBM 3350 disks and DELTA 8000 (VAX 750) computers were incorporated. The practical significance of this network was again minimal for the reasons similar as in the case of the MSK network. At that time there was also one international link between Warsaw and Moscow but the attempt to link KASK with the Soviet network was unsuccessful. The link owner - Institute of Fundamentals of Informatics (Instytut Podstaw Informatyki) PAN had a terminal which allowed one to access Soviet databases. First approaches to EARN At the end of the eighties several scientists from Wroclaw Technical University, after returning from appointments abroad, suggested attempting to incorporate Poland into the BITNET/EARN network. The most active person here was Dr. Andrzej Sokalski. On his prompting the University authorities sent two letters to the Bitnet Committee and the president of EARN, Dennis Jennings. In both letters I was named as a person responsible for the link technical matters. These letters did not bring any effects. The stand of the West with respect to the Eastern Europe was still the same. I believe the breakthrough came in 1989. At the end of this year one could hear voices that the stand of the West would change. Danish mailbox In January of 1990, encouraged by Dr. Marek Samoc who returned from USA, I sent a letter to prof. Frode Greisen, the current president of EARN. One should add that Marek also drafted the letter. This letter brought a reply. Prof. Greisen informed us that, apart from Wroclaw Technical University, the applications for a link had been received from the Warsaw University, Polish Academy of Science, Lodz Technical University and University of Nicolaus Copernicus in Torun. Anticipating the consent of the US Department of Commerce for linking Eastern Europe to EARN, prof. Greisen kindly allowed us to use a mailbox on his computer in Denmark: UNIPOL1@NEUVM1. In February 1990, with the help of Marek Samoc we made the first access to EARN using switched telephone lines. At first I did not inform the headquarters of KASK about our experiments. It was known to me that people from KASK did not support experiments of computer communication using any other protocol than X.25. In the meantime the circle of people interested in access to EARN was growing very fast. At one of the meetings of regional KASK networks (I was a director of the Lower Silesia Academic Computer Network -Dolnoslaska Akademicka Siec Komputerowa DASK) when it was already known that Warsaw wants to install the national EARN node, I informed that we have a limited access to EARN. Through the UNIPOL1 mailbox the directors of KASK made contact with the secretariat of EARN. But at that time any attempts to make Wroclaw the national EARN node were already much overdue. Professor Hofmokl of Warsaw was already named the Polish EARN coordinator by the Polish government. As the Computing Services director I suggested to the Wroclaw Technical University authorities that e-mail should be introduced as a service to university employees. Users brought their letters on diskettes to the Computing Center and received their incoming mail back on the same diskettes. Connections to Denmark were performed by Computing Center operators. I had to wait a full month for the reply but e-mail was a fact in Wroclaw Technical University. Poland joins EARN In the meantime Poland was admitted to EARN. In July 1990 national node PLEARN was started. I tried to get funds for purchasing a computer which would allow us to join EARN. The DELTA 8000 which we had was not suitable for that matter and additional hardware and software was needed. Additionally, the Yugoslav company Delta Iskra which sold the computers to Poland (for about 600,000 "clearance dollars" which, although it was in Polish currency, was comparable with the price of an R-34 - about 300 mln zl) ceased to exist. The University authorities were not very helpful. The times were not suitable for any action: the elections of new authorities were coming. Finally, I was able to get the funds from the KASK project which allowed me to buy an IBM 4341, the IBM 3705/J4 teleprocessor and IBM 3880/3350 disks. I also paid from these funds for the air fare for our systems programmer to fly to Paris for the course organized by Elzbieta Porteneuve. 4341 arrives In the second half of October the computer finally arrived in Wroclaw, brought on a truck coming from former East Germany. A big problem to overcome was to transport the computer upstairs to the Computing Center. The building in which the Computing Center is situated on the second floor does not have a proper elevator. The transport services of the University were engaged in distributing sacks of potatoes to the University employees (typical for a super-welfare state!), and would not hear of transporting anything heavier than a book cabinet. We decided to transport the computer ourselves. During lifting the processor IBM 4341 we were not far from an accident. My leg behind the computer saved it from falling down from the stairs! I am still shaky when I remember this! We were completely exhausted afterwards. The next day we finished the transport. In several days we went through the installation, configuration and... on October 25th, 1990 at 13:14:00 our computer was linked to EARN. This fact was presented in mass media (TV, newspapers). We became the second node of EARN in Poland: PLWRTU11. In a very short time we had several hundred mailboxes. Our computer was also used by scientists from the University of Wroclaw and Wroclaw units of Polish Academy of Sciences. Teething pains At the beginning of 1991 the Silesian University (PLKTUS11), Cyfronet Krakow (PLKRCY11) and Marie Curie University in Lublin (PLUMCS11) joined the network and suddenly we were in trouble: Polish EARN ceased to function. The longest break was for almost a week. The queue of letters reached 3000 and more. To break the deadlock we brought two magnetic tapes with mail from Warsaw to Wroclaw using a low-tech solution: a train trip. At a meeting Warsaw promised improvements. Finally, April 15th the troublesome BASF7 in Warsaw was replaced by an IBM4341. From this time on the Polish EARN functioned without much of a problem. Lately we have introduced some cosmetic changes: we brought the speed of our link to Warsaw to 9600 bps, divided the line into 4 logical channels, introduced data compression. We are now open on different protocols: X.25, TCP/IP, SNA. Final reflections Many people in Poland and abroad contributed to the success of connecting Poland to EARN. We were the first among former "real socialism" countries. Personally, I am thankful to Dr. Marek Samoc for his help in establishing PLWRTU11. Words of thanks also are directed to prof. Frode Greisen. I should not also overlook the KASK program which helped tremendously in financing the project. KASK laid technical foundations which brought fruit in fast implementation of EARN in Poland. Universities of Poznan and Silesian Technical University are connected to EARN through KASK. KASK can be used for communication with other X.25 networks. Elements of a regional KASK network in Warsaw are used for communicating with the Swedish X.25 DATAPACK network. KASK is a fully Polish endeavor. Some elements of this network like the packet switching node, network management station speak well of Polish programmers and engineers. The isolation of Poland and lack of hardware and international links did not give KASK any opportunities to develop further. One should realize that bringing EARN to Poland was an administrative task that was not devoid of mistakes. But more about that at some other time. Jozef Janyszek ========================================================================== INTERNET IN POLAND The idea of Polish Internet begun to take shape already a year ago or more. At the beginning it was proposed as inexpensive means of offloading main EARN nodes, to be built internally in Poland. At that time it was difficult to count on the real worldwide connection. Mainframe-based EARN nodes can support only a limited number of interactive users, much smaller than the actual demand, and it was suggested that relatively cheap UNIX machines can be used as Internet nodes, providing for preparation and expedition of mail, which would be gatewayed by EARN nodes into the EARN network. Now it seems that the situation is much better and that there is a possibility of connecting us to the real Internet. Let me describe briefly what is the current status of our efforts, what are our plans and problems. First, however, let me make one disclaimer. Due to the fact that the development in this area is very fast, the information contained here will become outdated very soon, in fact it is probably outdated even now. Anyway, let me at least try to capture the emerging picture and present the trends. Internal TCP/IP networks Although Novell LANs are the most popular in Poland, in the last few months a substantial growth of TCP/IP LANs, both in number and size, can be observed. This is correlated with a shift towards multiuser systems, either 386 UNIX or UNIX workstations, and VAXes with VMS. All this constitutes a good environment for building Internet, by connecting existing (or emerging) LANs. Since Novell NetWare offers also TCP/IP, it should be even possible to connect such networks too. Since mid-May there is a connection between Warsaw and Krakow, between LANs of the Institute of Physics, Warsaw University; Warsaw Academic Computer Center; Krakow Academic Computer Center and Institute of Physics, Jagellonian University Krakow. Four Ethernet TCP/IP LANs, containing together about 40 computers, among them 6 UNIX machines, are connected. For the Krakow-Warsaw connection one channel on the multiplexed EARN line is used. At the moment IBM PC/AT computers running KA9Q public domain package are used as routers. KA9Q package implements TCP/IP services in MS-DOS environment; packet routing, telnet, ftp, SMTP are supported. On serial lines asynchronous SLIP protocol is employed. It works, although the effectiveness is not the best. It should be stressed, however, that these connections are done at a minimal cost. In future we hope to use more professional routers. International link As far as connecting to the international net is concerned, we are working on obtaining it. NIC has assigned Class B Internet addresses for both Warsaw and Krakow nets. Formal application for the permission to join both european and worlwide Internet is being processed. The technical side of this connection is as follows: we plan, at least for the time being, to use the existing Warsaw-Kopenhagen line, again multiplexing it (statistically) to obtain an IP channel. There are three possibilities of connecting, one (fastest, cheapest, and technically the worst) using SLIP, second with a 3Com IP3000 router, and third, the most preferable, using Cisco router. These possibilities are determined by the equipment available in Kopenhagen. Domain name server for the .pl domain is in Kopenhagen now, and will be run from there until we develop our own servers. At the moment an experimental server is started on a Sun workstation in Warsaw, and another one will soon be operational in Krakow. Recently an administrative body for managing the Polish backbone was created (a Users Group headed by prof Noga and a three-member Advisory Commitee: professors Bem, Kreczmar and Dr. Kozlowski). Within this body operates a group which coordinates IP connectivity, assigns IP numbers within B classes alocated by NIC, registers domain names and provides technical help for those willing to connect to the network. Plans for the future The shape of our present IP net was dominated by the desire to start the net with minimal cost and in the fastest manner possible. There was very little extra cost involved, practically only existing equipment was used (with an exception of an extra pair of modems or so). We realize, however, that in order to effectively serve our community, certain specialized equipment will have to be added. In particular, we want to install Cisco routers in the main nodes and increase connectivity. Since the number of LANs and centers willing to connect to the net is growing continuously, we expect a big demand for services of this kind. Also, there is the question of protocol used for TCP/IP connections. With multiplexed lines HDLS or X.25 between routers can be used, and eventually migration towards X.25 is considered, in agreement with the migration strategy of the whole Polish Academic Network. It is also planned to switch the Krakow-CERN line to IP as soon as the necessary equipment and software (Cisco router and Multinet TCP/IP package for VMS) will be in place. This will, hopefully, happen within next few months (CERN is waiting for the export license, and the equipment is sitting in Geneva), and will give us an auxiliary international line. The speed of our links, both international in within the country, is rather low (9600 bit/sec) and we would like to improve this. That task, however, is rather difficult at the moment, considering the state of Polish PTT. There is a possibility of obtaining a satellite link to Stockholm, which would both shift the connection towards main hub of NORDUNET and raise speed to 64k. - Krzysztof (Chris) Heller ======================================================================= GLOSSARY (see also a dictionary of network terms in PIGULKI #4, line 176) Cisco, 3Com, Novell, Proteon ... brand names of network hardware and software companies SLIP = Serial line IP, a simple protocol for IP communication on asynchronous, serial lines. HDLC - another protocol for the sunchronous serial lines. NIC = Network Information Center (US), which assigns Internet addresses and coordinates its activities. Class B - In the domain addressing scheme of Internet, the name has its associated 32 bit number, usually expressed as 4 decimals <128.122.128.11>. The TCP/IP software uses only numbers to establish a connection, and the translation of a name is provided by 'nameservers'. NIC assigns groups of addresses to institutions, which then distribute them internally. The largest networks (there can be at most 255 of them) obtain 24 bits of the address for internal distribution, which allows 16M addresses each. The Internet address classes are defined as follows: Class A: 8 bits for network; 24 bits for host Class B: 16 bits for network; 16 bits for host Class C: 24 bits for network; 8 bits for host Class D: 28 bits for network; 4 bits for host (rarely used) - the editors. ======================================================================== POLAND - ELECTRONIC CONTACTS updated by Marek Zielinski 1. Active EARN/BITNET nodes --------------------------------------------- PLEARN Warsaw University [Uniwersytet Warszawski] Informatics Center (central EARN node in Poland). Can be also addressed as 'plearn.pl'. contact: Andrzej Smereczynski, node administrator postmasters: - Jola Tuszynska, also and Malgosia Grabowska, also PLKRCY11 Cyfronet (Academic Computing Center), Krakow contact: Witek Witkowski, node administrator PLKTUS11 Silesian University [Uniwersytet Slaski w Katowicach], Computing Center contact: Kasia Stephan, node administarator. Krzysztof Kurczynski, operator PLUMCS11 Uniwersytet Marii Curie Sklodowskiej, Lublin contact: Andrzej Resztak, node administrator. PLWRAE51 Wroclaw Academy of Economics [Akademia Ekonomiczna we Wroclawiu] PLWRTU11 Wroclaw Technical University [Politechnika Wroclawska] Informatics Center postmaster: contact: Jarek Kurowski, node administrator. PLWRUW11 Wroclaw University, Informatics Institute. contact: Bogdan Bromirski, node administrator. PLPUAM11 Informatics Center of the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan postmaster: Przemyslaw Stolarski PLPOTU51 Poznan Polytechnic [Politechnika Poznanska] PLTUMK11 Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika [Nicolaus Copernicus University], Torun - Academic Computing Center. contact: Zbigniew Szewczak, node admin. PLWATU21 Informatics Center of the Warsaw Technical University postmaster: Janusz Pelc 2. EARN/BITNET nodes known to the network, but not active yet ----------- PLSZUS11 University of Szczecin, Informatics Center postmaster: J. Kolasinski PLWAAN51 Institute of Informatics, Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw postmaster: ????@plwaan51 - Romuald Zawodniak PLWRTU51 Wroclaw Technical University [Politechnika Wroclawska] Informatics Center postmaster: Jarek Kurowski PLWAUW12 Informatics Center of Warsaw University contact: Andrzej Smereczynski, node administrator 3. Other networks ----------------------------------------------- ict.pwr.pl Instytut Cybernetyki Technicznej [Institute of Technical Cybernetics], Wroclaw Technical University contact: Marek Kisielewicz, system administrator %sand.decnet@uxplgw.cern.ch Jagiellonian University, Krakow %chopin.decnet@uxplgw.cern.ch -"- contact: , a group account of High Energy Physics Laboratory, UJ ---------------------- Fidonet nodes Node: Name: Location: Sysop: Phone: 2:48/2 Kremlin Fido BBS Moscow Tadeusz Radiusz 7-095-2053554 2:480/4 Month BBS Warszawa Andrzej Bursztynski 48-22-291578 2:480/5 drQ BBS Krakow Tomasz Polys 48-12-119645 2:480/5.3 Peters BBS Piotr Walczak 48-12-562086 2:480/6 HorNET BBS Poznan Zbigniew Borowiec 48-61-773976 2:480/7 KLON BBS Debica Arthur Klisiewicz 48-146-3291 2:480/8 RoMan BBS Opole Roman Mandziejewicz 48-77-39225 2:480/9 MafNET BBS Koszalin Marek Filipiak 48-94-33923 2:480/10 Home of PCQ Warszawa Jan Stozek 48-22-410374 2:480/11 Snoopy BBS Lodz Jan Waliszewski 48-42-336573 2:480/12 B&BNet Bydgoszcz Mariusz Boronski 48-52-417352 2:480/13 Spectrum BBS Warszawa Tomasz Bursze 48-22-256965 2:480/14 Click BBS Warszawa Pawel Miasojedow 48-22-199969 2:480/15 Technical University Gdansk Mariusz Matuszek 48-58-472109 2:480/17 Next BBS Warszawa Marcin Benke 48-22-205955 Information on the Fido network in Poland was provided by Jan Stozek. The node addressing is given in Fido style, . Mail is gatewayed to internet, and the equivalent domain style address is where xx,yy,ss,tt are the corresponding point, fidonode, network and zone numbers. The point is optional and defaults to p0 if not specified. For example an address to the user Jan Kowalski with an account in drQ BBS in Krakow is: . ------------------------------------ 4. On-line directory of computer networks in Eastern and Central Europe. Barbara Hardy maintains a continuously updated list of electronic contacts (nodes and BBSes, associated administrators, postmasters, etc.) in Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, and the Soviet Union. It will be posted monthly on BITSERV lists such as POLAND-L, SLOVAK-L, HUNGARY, etc. as well as USENET groups such as soc.culture.polish. It will be accessible via anonymous ftp (still in the works), and may also be located in an appropriate LISTSERV list. If you have any information that should be added to the list, or updates or corrections, mail them to Barbara at one of the addresses: or . ========================================================================= SUMMARY OF POLISH-BASED LISTSERV LISTS, JUNE 1991 (all at LISTSERV@PLEARN) AGENCJA A TOP MANAGEMENT OF THE POLISH EARN AGENCJA CHEM-L AFFAIRS OF CHEMISTRY DEPT. AT WARSAW UNIVERSITY, CHEM-L CIUW-L DISTRIBUTION LIST OF THE NEWS CIUW-L MIMUW-L Affairs of Warsaw U. Fac. of Math., Informatics and Mech. MIMUW-L NASK-BOD AFFAIRS OF THE MANAGEMENT OF ACADEMIC NETWORKS IN POLAND NASK-BOD PL-BOD AFFAIRS OF THE MANAGEMENT OF EARN NETWORK IN POLAND PL-BOD PL-NOG Polish network operation group affairs PL-NOG TEST-L A TEST LIST FOR EXPERIMENTS WITH THE NETNEWS SOFTWARE. TEST-L WROCLAW DISCUSSION LIST OF ALUMNI OF WROCLAW UNIVERSITIES WROCLAW You may obtain an updated, annotated list by mailing the following message to Listserv@plearn: list detail ======================================================================== PERSPECTIVES ON CORPORATE COMPUTING INITIATIVES IN POLAND Recently people on the international computer network in Poland have been voicing their opinions about what could be perceived as misinformation by certain computer companies which claim to be intimately involved in Polish computing initiatives, when in reality, they do nothing or very little in Poland. Specifically, public complaints have been made about Sun Microsystems' and IBM Corporation's bulletins regarding Polish computing initiatives. What's in it for the Polish network community to be part of a corporate initiative? Would an independent computer system model better serve the needs of Poland's connectivity to international computer networks? Corporate initiatives tend to publicize how a company is helping implement it's computing system in Poland. Below is a mecca model of the computing systems offered by several vendors. IBM DEC HP/APOLLO SUN 1.) HW PS/2 VaxStation Vectra PC Sparc IPC AS/400 MicroVax DN Sparc 2 370 Vax HP 9000/7X0 3090 2.) SW VM VMS Domain/OS Sun OS MVS Ultrix HP/UX Mt Xinu AIX 3.) Comm SNA DECNET DDS TCP/IP TCP/IP TCP/IP TCP/IP Technet 4.) Service YES YES YES YES 5.) Maint YES YES YES YES Consider if Poland's government or office of education picks one of these companies to be their provider of hardware, software, communications, service, and maintenance for a particular job. For example, Poland's education department chose IBM to function as the University of Warsaw Academic network, which links all Polish universities, and which connects to the international network via IBM's EARN. Also, Poland's education department chose Sun computers and PC clones with ethernet cards to function as internal (not international yet) TCP/IP network installations. And supposedly CERN work in Krakow is connected to Switzerland by means of DEC's Decnet. This sounds like a good combination. The Polish academic community chooses a company to work with to develop their communications system. As partners, they overcome all odds to build a stable, and solid foundation for the Polish academic community. The downside of this equation is that the education department becomes totally dependent on one company to provide them with computing resources. And what if that company doesn't deliver? The people in Poland's government or office of education become very frustrated with the situation. The reasons for a company not to deliver in Poland are plenty. For various reasons, companies don't quickly and easily want to get involved in the Polish computer situation. To name a few reasons, there is COCOM, clone mainframes and minis, pirated and bootlegged software, dilapidated communications systems, expenses of doing business in Warsaw, the PTT monopoly, European and Polish import/export customs, etc. It is becoming apparent that this corporate partnership is not working out in Poland. The companies get the publicity and the pat on the back for the good job that they are doing. While the university community in Poland pays twice the going rate for hardware, receives no technical support, and martial law is imposed by the companies on their copycat clone hardware, and unethically copied software. In contrast, Poland should think of a vendor independent computing model. By adopting the vendor independent OSF (Open Software Foundation) standard, the Polish academic community would free itself of the unfulfilled corporate initiative promise. The best of all possible solutions would then be available to all Polish computer scientists. The /.../narod=Polska Plan -------------------------- 1.) Hardware - Would not be limited to one particular manufacturer. Any platform that runs OSF/1 would be sufficient. Also, with OSF/DCE, Personal Computers could be integrated into this computer environment (important because much of the computing base in Poland is based on PC's) 2.) Software - The cost of open software is low, and maybe even free, depending on agreement. The software is top quality, state of the art, and would be thouroghly tested. The software would consist of OSF/1, OSF/DCE, and OSF/Motif. 3.) Comm - /.../narod=Polska would be the root of the Polish system. OSF/DCE (Distributed Computing Environment) serves as the communications base of the OSF network. DCE's PCIS integrates Sun's PC-NFS connection, HP/Microsoft's LAN Manager, and Locus' PCI and Merge products. OSF/DFS (Distributed File System) maintains file systems on various machines, independent of hardware. Since OSF is language independent, the system below this root would be genuinely Polish. Polish fonts would also be available under this system. Hardware for OSF communications depends on compatibility with IEEE standards for TCP/IP communications, which are generally accessible on most all hardware platforms. 4.) Service - Each hardware manufacturer should work out its own scheme. Local OSF software experts should be developed in order to reduce Polish reliance on outside corporate help. 5.) Maint - Each hardware manufacturer should work out its own scheme. Updated copies of software depend on agreement, but should not be a problem, since OSF is an international organization. No need for confusing and frustrating Software maintenance contracts which do nothing but cost a lot of money and slow down the development process. In conclusion, the corporate initiative is not working out in Poland. It is creating an ugly and uncomfortable situation which may get worse in the future if expected promises are not kept. Deadlines like September 91, when the IBM 3090 is expected at UofW for the new school year put pressure on both the company and the academic community. In contrast, vendor independent computer systems would offer the Polish academic network community some much needed help. The system would be hardware independent, which would reduce reliance on a single company to provide the machine. This is important when dealing with COCOM restrictions and extra complex prices and delivery schedules. PC's, the current computing base in Poland, would be an integral part of the network system. The software would be open and free of restrictions, which means that by adopting it, in one move, Poland would eliminate it's need for pirated or bootlegged versions of software to operate its networks. The communications would be localized, in Polish, and run on a IEEE standard TCP/IP base. And although hardware service and maintenance would not be improved much, software service and maintenance would be much much much better than what is available in Poland now. Problems with technical expertise and access to information seems to be one of the most annoying problems to face the new network community in Poland. This can be solved by developing local OSF software experts who specialize in this one system, and impart the knowledge to local talent. Availability of the right software, often difficult in far away Poland, and which also seems a topic of concern on the Polish network information bulletin board (PLEARN-L) would also be eliminated. The proposed vendor independent OSF computing system seems to be a be a better alternative than the corporate initiative program for helping Polish universities establish computing and networking facilities. - Jack Tuszynski ========================================================================== PIGULKI'S BACK PAGE The myth of lighthorsemen The violent attack dispersed the Spanish defenders. Lighthorsemen broke through. In few minutes they gained control of the ravine of Samosierra. Remnants of Spanish battalions climbed the steep slopes of the ravine escaping long sabres of the hormone-crazied young cavalrymen. Lancers were venting their fury slashing on barrels of abandoned guns. Way above the smoke and the destruction of the ravine two peon- soldiers were trying to catch up with an officer ahead of them. The fatter one, Pablo, was truly afraid. "Maria dos Santos will kill me! All of her chicken are dead, now. Her beloved donkey, Estrella, is pregnant for sure..." "Pablo, how was this possible?" asked the other soldier. "Well, you know Maria dos Santos, she's my wife's sister, told me to take good care of her donkey. This is why I tied Estrella to the fence, and then these devil horsemen attacked. They don't use mares..." "Mierda, Pablito!" his companion was mad, "How did they break through?" "Pancho, this is what I am trying to tell you. Madre de Dios, you are so impatient! Maria dos Santos make me take care of her chicken too. She said: `they will be safe on the rampart'! So I build a pen for them, but some stray projectile hit the pen and through all the feathers flying in the air devils came running. They wouldn't stand a chance otherwise." "Devils they are, Pablo. I was eating my tortilla when one of them jumped over the parapet, on a horseback, as if it was nothing, and he cut my meal to pieces, didn't even see me! My tortilla looked like a tossed salad. Pablo, what do they want from poor campesinos like us? Tell me, did any of Maria dos Santos' chicken survive?" "Nada, zilch, zero, zip!" lamented Pablo. "Maria dos Santos will be furious, she can really be mean." "I know," said Pancho sadly, "I married that woman, remember? The war is not over yet, we will have to find some other chicken. Campesino's got to own chicken. We're not coming back without any! Don Anselmo, don Anselmo!" Pancho called the officer who was now just a few paces ahead of them. "Jeffe, are you hurt?" "No I am not, this is watermelon. Do you cojones know where all these feathers came from? Devils wouldn't stand a chance against our guns." "No, no senor, we have no idea!" came the almost simultaneous response. "Major told me these were Poles not French. Must be. I never saw such a crazy bunch before. When lancers came in the forefront, I tried to reach one of them with my epee. He ducked, but his stirrup was cut and I was ready to pin him down. But the Devil must have been on his side, because he just kept on going using his lance as a pole vault." "Don Anselmo on the ground we didn't even see their faces," said Pancho, "only loud voices warning cavalrymen of curves ahead of their horses. That I actually don't understand, because the ravine is straight." * * * * Ney and Kozietulski pulled their horses in front of a small farmhouse. The Emperor invited them for a little private dinner. They were supposed to be casually dressed and relaxed. Napoleon wanted an intimate tete-a-tete. Suddenly the doors of the house opened. Napoleon was standing there. He was wearing an apron; an indescribable headgear donned on his large head. "Mi'amicci, que cosa? I am preparing some delicioso pasta for us! Do you like corvo?" Kozietulski was baffled. Not knowing what to say he answered with a question: "Sire?" "Oh stop it, you wild Pole, just call me `Nappie' and ease up. I'll teach you all there is to know about corvo. By the way, how come your horse is so much taller then mine?" Indeed, the Emperor's white stallion all of a sudden looked heavy and fat next to Kozietulski's gracious Arab. The French percheron had this quiet demeanor of a workhorse, to which it was related, the other one was showing his temper. His spotted coat shined in rays of the afternoon sun. "I brought it from Poland. I look great on this horse, that's for sure, S...N..pie." answered the Polish commander. They went into the house. "Nappie" was an excellent host. He was enter- taining his guest with delectable stories, while they drunk delicious corvo. All three stayed in the kitchen, where on a large skillet Napoleon sauteed some shallots, garlic and carrots. Than, he started on some herbs, which he described to the Pole: "oregano, sage, nutmeg, parsley and tarragon". He surprised his guests with "tomatillos" which a cousin of Josephine sent him from New Orleans. Smelling this unusual fruit, and Ney and Kozietulski had to slice it, Emperor said: "This Josephine woman drives me wild! We have a great sex life together. Quaterones make great lovers. I am an old artillery man, so I should know." After a while, he added sadly, "Too bad she's such a tramp." Ney was told to remove all fried vegetables and add fresh herbs. He obeyed his commander, then he begun frying tomatoes. Kozietulski worked on a large pot in which a lot of water had to be boiled, while "Nappie" selected various kinds of pasta. Next, they begun grating cheeses: Romano, Parmesan and some farmers' white. The Pole was disturbed, he could hardly believe his eyes. Napoleon, sensing his guest's anxiety, pulled out a little note pad and said: "We caught one of the Spanish commanders: Don Hernando Maria Jesus Ibarra Esteban," he read from his notes. "He is in bad shape, though." "Did he reveal any important information?" asked Kozietulski. "Not really, he is hallucinating. He claims to have been bitten by a horse and a horseman from the Polish Lighthorsemen contingent." "I hope," said Ney, jealous of the success of the Polish horsemen, "the raider was not rabid. In any case, don Hernando is badly bitten, but we cannot ascertain if your cavalryman was involved in the actual biting. By the time we found them, your soldier had run out of ammunition, broke his lance and sabre. This young brave of yours was beating on don Hernando with a corpse of a dead chicken!" "Marvellous fighting spirit," said the Emperor, "I will give him `Legion d'Honneur'! Returning to don Hernando, his scare seems to be more of a psychological nature. Ever since the encounter with the Polish Lighthorsemen he keeps mumbling some strange words, which I even noted down." Here, both Frenchmen looked into the note pad. "Bigos, brzoza, barszcz, bitwa, brzemie i Bogurodzica!", they recited, "Do you know what does it all mean?" "I have no idea!" responded Kozietulski. Napoleon added shallots, garlic, carrots and spices to the fried tomatoes, and stirred the mix. Then he poured in sour cream and topped it with lots of grated cheese. Ney boiled pasta and filled the glasses with Rioja. Each of them served himself a copious amount of food. All three started eating, but their conversation stalled. Sensing some uneasiness Kozietulski began: "I am surprised, a warrior like you, Sire..." The Emperor had just about had it, so he interrupted: "Listen Pole, and listen to me good. This charge of lighthorsemen was at best medieval. They had no real chance against all these guns. I am an old artillery man, so I should know. Simple coincidence, incredible luck, or whatever, but you should never attack "on faith" when technical marvels are arrayed against you! Organization, talent and education are the name of the game. Look, now you will have to deal with a myth, a medieval myth of errant knights, which will permeate your history, which is medieval to begin with. This will make whole generations of Poles look for another Kozietulski to lead them against insurmountable odds. Blind, Asian dependency, that's what it is!" Bonaparte reached for a bottle of brandy, he meant to say what was nagging him for some time. "I read your history. Great stuff, but it is void of people. Looks like not a simple Pole ever had a teenage daughter, or a halfwitted heir. None had a mortgage to pay, every wife was naively faithful and only happy to wait for her husband's returns, and Copernicus was more or less a rebel and a soldier. This is undoubtedly a result of more recent wars, but for God's sake, there are so many of you, that no other nation could possibly swallow you. Besides, as prince Pepi tells me, ruling Poles is like pushing on a rope..." "Prince Poniatowski said that?" asked Kozietulski wryly. "Him and everyone else. You will get your country back, after some time. But don't look for dragons, look for people. None of the common wisdom is preserved in your fabulous tales. Reverence for warriors, kings and priests results in surrendering individual initiative to someone else's hormonal imbalance. I am an old artillery men, so I should know. Look, you always adopt western ideas within your medieval mindset, rather than taking them on their face value, which is practicality. Great ideas are diluted in strange romanticism and dragons bite your asses once again. "Just about the only instruction you people pass from generation to generation is this terrible cabbage stew you all eat. And even that is not passed as a recipe, but instead, you add more of the very same ingredients when the pot is getting empty." "You are one of these legends politics is feeding on, Nappie. Aren't you, at least in part responsible?" counterattacked Kozietulski. The Emperor was easing up, the brandy making him well disposed toward this brave, honest, handsome and naive Pole. "Io sono Corsicano, so my options were limited. I became a professional soldier, but soldiering for these Bourbons, Thermidorians and Jacobins was, after all, a losing proposition. I had to take things into my own hands. Nevertheless I am a man of the Mediterranean. We have seen that the best the Roman empire left for us was the Roman Legal Code and excellent food, which both spread far beyond the lands Rome has ever reached. Needless to say, this is what people really wanted. We also learned something about sensuality from ancient Greeks... The point is that when you build the myth of great wars, you produce history, when you pass these other notions, you produce culture." "Is that what should we do next, Sire?" asked Kozietulski ironically. "You should think of it. By the way, I bought a puppy for my four-year- old niece, wanna see it ? ..." The conversation was drawing to a close. Napoleon liked to invite people for private parties, but he was always under time constraints. Besides, this table talk was becoming very serious but not very brilliant. Two choices were presenting themselves; either to extend borders of western civilization east of the German Reich or to keep silent about such a possibility. Well, making Poles happy was not at the top of the Emperor's agenda, so at the first occasion he bade his guest goodbye. He never talked to the commander of lighthorsemen again. - Jurek Klimkowski ============================================================================ NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Krzysiek (Chris) Heller is a physicist turned computer specialist, working at the Jagellonian University in Krakow. While in the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, he helped to organize the First International School on Computer Network Analysis and Management. His address is Jozef Janyszek is an engineer working as the director of the Computing Center of the Wroclaw Technical University. He graduated from Wroclaw Polytechnic in 1970 and has been working in the Computing Center since 1973; for the last 10 years he has been interested in computer networking. Jurek Klimkowski lives in Glen Allen, VA. His "travelogues" graced the POLAND-L list in 1990. He is Pigulki's Back Page Editor. Dave Phillips is a doctoral student in geography (urban and regional analysis) at SUNY-Buffalo. He helped found the EARN-Poland link discussion group in 1987 and started the PLEARN-L discussion list in 1990. He's a contributing editor of Pigulki, and assis- tant masterop of Buffalo's Relay. Marek Samoc is a physical chemist from Wroclaw Polytechnic. Recently he shared time between Wroclaw, Dartmouth College and SUNY at Buffalo, where you can find him now as chemarek@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu or CHEMAREK@UBVM. He does not like settled life, however, and we are looking forward to see what his new E-mail address will be. Andrzej Smereczynski of Warsaw, Poland is the Head of the System Programming Group in the Informatics Center of Warsaw University and EARN Network Country Coordinator for Poland. He is The network guru in Poland; after setting up the PLERN node he now travels around the country and prepares computers in other cities to be connected to the network. He is called 'papa Smurf' by his friends and collegues at the Informatics Center. Andrzej Sokalski is a computational chemist from Wroclaw Polytechnic. Presently he is spending his sabbatical at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo. Besides modeling intermolecular interactions and catalytic activity of enzymes, he is also teaching Biophysics to graduate students from RPCI and SUNY at Buffalo. Jack Tuszynski is a Systems Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Labora- tory. He received his B.S. in Computer Science from Cal State Los Angeles in 1984, and his M.S. in Computer Science from Cal State Northridge in 1990. He has worked in private industry with Locus Corporation Los Angeles (subcontractor on IBM's AIX project), for Locus Company of Japan (OS/2-Unix merge project), and as a programmer. He is fluent in Polish, English, and some Spanish and Esperanto. Marek Zielinski of Rego Park, NY is a chemist and a contributing editor of Pigulki. He was a founding member of the EARN-Poland link discussion group in 1987, and was co-founder and editor of POGLADY, Solidarity magazine of Lodz (1980-81). ========================================================================= ABOUT PIGULKI Editors Jerzy Klimkowski (Glen Allen, VA, VA) email: jleleno@oliver.vcu.edu Dave Phillips (Kenmore, NY, USA) email: davep@acsu.buffalo.edu Jacek Ulanski (Lodz, Poland) email: julanski@plearn.bitnet Marek Zielinski (Rego Park, NY, USA) email: zielinsk@nyuacf.bitnet Distributors ___Name_______ ___Service Area___ ____Net_Address_______ Dave Phillips - N.America - davep@acsu.buffalo.edu Marek Zielinski - W.Europe/Poland - zielinsk@nyuacf.bitnet Wojtek Chudoba - Sweden/Poland - d87-wch@nada.kth.se BACK ISSUES: * To obtain Pigulki issue 4, for example, mail the following message to netlib@mthvax.cs.miami.edu: send pigulki.004 from poland * Unix users and others with uncompress s/w may use the anon. ftp at mthvax.cs.miami.edu (weeknights and evenings US Eastern time only, please) to obtain back issues from subdirectory poland. The PIGULKI editors are grateful to Andrew Mossberg, editor of the South Florida Environmental Reader, for making space available to archive Pigulki on this facility. NOTE: PIGULKI is distributed free of charge to masochistic readers who request it (send requests to an authorized distributor above). All signed articles are Copyright (c) 1991 by their authors. PIGULKI may not be copied or retransmitted without prior permission by the editors and notification of your local public health authorities. Your articles, letters, threats, denunciations are welcome; please send them to any editor you can find who'll admit being one. We reserve the right to edit for brevity. ==========================================================================  .