Talk:BLAST (protocol)

Article overview

OK, my beloved Wikidpedia community! This is my first Wikipedia article; and, as per Ecclesiastes, "All is vanity", i.e., I document a chapter of computer history to which I was perhaps a minor contributor -- and so "have at it". But I hope, nonetheless, to have been even-handed, and I hope to have shown no disrespect for XMODEM and Kermit, which grew out of their own contingencies. You Wikiepdians, as I well realize, include many well-versed computer historians; but consider these lines of Coleridge:

It is an ancient Mariner, and he stoppeth one of three: "By thy long gray beard, and glittering eye, wherefore stoppest thou me?"Synchronist (talk) 05:55, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Update

OK, part 2! In typical fashion, one of my former principles with Communications Research Group has objected to my treatment of the history of that company. I have therefore eliminated the second half of my original article, which deals with the commercial history of BLAST, and thus leaving only a treatment of its technical and performance aspects -- which is perhaps proper for an article focused on the protocol itself. (My wings having been singed, I have also softened the comparison with XMODEM and Kermit.)

Hopefully, there can be a separate article on Communications Research Group, which company deserves 100% of the credit for making the BLAST protocol into a quite successful commercial product.Synchronist (talk) 01:08, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

References

Hello there! Just as a small suggestion, there's a huge block of 10+ inline references in the second paragraph, and it would be great to have those broken down / repositioned, so they aren't in such a long chain. — Dsimic (talk) 14:02, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Dear Dsimic, I like the bullet format for the protocol features! But here is the situation I faced in framing the original paragraph: First, I was making some pretty strong claims on behalf of both BLAST's feature set and performance, so I wanted to cite multiple references. Ideally, there would be one paragraph focusing on protocol features, with its associated references, and a second paragraph focusing on the resulting performance, and with its own set of references. However! The sources which discussed features strongly tended to be those which also discussed performance; and so I was left with the choice of two smaller paragraphs with the same set of references, or one larger paragaph with the references cited once. So I have reverted to the latter, but now neatly articulated by your bullet items. (And note also my belief that the sentence describing the training ground for the protocol's design -- the "petrochemical belt" -- belongs with the features/performance paragraph, leaving the first sentence of the article standing alone as a general introduction to the topic.)Synchronist (talk) 01:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad you like the improvements. :) Please don't get me wrong, having more good references is always better, while my suggestion was referring only to the way they're distributed over the article. That suggestion was only about possibly rearranging the references so they're more evenly placed, ideally immediately after the backed content. In other words, instead of the current "ten references cluster," it would be great to have those ten references repositioned, so they're placed after the supported content / BLAST features. Hope it makes sense. — Dsimic (talk) 15:08, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I like it! -- Synchronist (talk) 18:51, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Re-introduction of the topic of de facto standards

Given that the Wikipedia community acknowledges the concept of a de facto standard, I would like to present some references which demonstrate -- to me, at least -- that the BLAST protocol achieved this status during the 1980s, and which would thus allow me to re-introduce this concept to my article.

These references stem from the activities of the X12C Asynch Sub-group of ANSI, which, in late 1985 and early 1986, was attempting to establish a de jure standard asynchronous protocol. This effort was ultimately to be abandoned in the face of rapid technological change in the data communications arena -- but this does not detract from the witness these documents provide as to BLAST's stature at the time.

The first is a "Discussion Paper" which includes BLAST among the four protocols under official consideration:

http://www.birds-of-the-air-press.com/bota/blast/ansi-asc-x12c-85-037.pdf

The second is the minutes of a subsequent meeting of the X12C Asynch Sub-group, and which document establishes the twin points that the BLAST protocol was under consideration despite not having been formally proposed to ANSI, nor having been released into the public domain -- this, of course, a function of its status as a de facto standard:

http://www.birds-of-the-air-press.com/bota/blast/ansi-asc-x12c-86-02-17.pdf Synchronist (talk) 03:20, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Hey Synchro. I consider myself to be fairly well known in the BBS industry (on the Mac side at least), was a "modem guru" in that era, and well versed in the basic topics of protocols (having written most of the articles here). I'd have to disagree with you that BLAST was even remotely like a de facto standard. To put this in perspective, I never once to my knowledge called a system of any sort, BBS or commercial online, that supported BLAST. Nor did any one of the terminal emulators I ever used support it. And my main term supported B+, which says a lot. I had heard of the protocol, but that was it. It was, from my perspective as a widely-travelled gadfly, practically non-existent. I suspect that it had strong regional followings, and that you may have been (over?) exposed to it because of the area you called? Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:53, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm also having a hard time with the refs. My google-fu is pretty good, and I can't find any of the ones that support the claims that blast is the "fastest and most reliable protocol". I'll accept Crabb on good faith, having known him personally this sounds like the sort of test he loved. As to the rest, the subjects reveal little of note - maybe you can email me some of them? Maury Markowitz (talk) 21:04, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Maury, you are correct in stating that BLAST had little, if any, presence in the BBS arena, but it had a huge presence -- relative to the pioneer state of data communications at that time -- in the high-end commercial, governmental, and NGO markets, in which the typical requirement was to transfer PC files to or from a host VAX, IBM, MV8000, etc. mainframe, and which of course is the reason that dominant modem manufacturer USRobotics acquired the technology. I have print copies of all the articles I cite -- and much more besides -- and as I have time, I will be scanning the relevant portions thereof (to avoid copyright infringement), posting them on line as PDF's, and adding links to them to the BLAST article. But, keep in mind that, like yourself, I have a day job! P.S. Very pleased to have attracted the notice of a Wikipedia authority such as yourself, along with AI guru Qwertyus and computing infrastructure guru Dsimic. Bear with me, dude -- I think the material I will be posting will make a good case.Synchronist (talk) 01:36, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

OK, Maury, you will be pleased to see that I have made the first of a long series of edits to provide web access to my citations -- in the present case to citation 9, the Computerworld article "Xmodems - the right blend?" And the point here is not that XMODEM breaks down under severe noise conditions -- Ward Christensen has never claimed that it was anything but a quick hack -- but rather that BLAST showed in this test, as in many others, that it could indeed "take a licking and keep on ticking." You will also be pleased to see that I have softened my claim regarding BLAST's performance, by saying that it had the best "combination" of speed and reliability. Certainly, under ideal conditions of clean lines and zero propagation delay, XMODEM was faster than BLAST -- but these were not conditions that the typical mission-critical user of dial-up modems could depend upon. Stay tuned, and thanks for your patience. P.S. I will also in the near future be further documenting BLAST's widespread adoption in the commercial, governmental, and NGO arenas.Synchronist (talk) 23:35, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

OK, next installment, citation 8, "Maritime Satellite Communications" from the British journal Computers in Defence is now online. This is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Computerworld in terms of readership, but probably more authoritative in terms of who did the testing -- the British maritime establishment. Also note on the second page the 1988 partial list of European BLAST users. Pretty impressive list, I would think, and note a few more things: 1) the international aspect; 2) the fact that all these companies paid good money for BLAST, i.e., it was not acquired as hobbyist freeware; and 3) the BLAST customer base was still undergoing rapid growth at this point, which would continue for the next several years. Synchronist (talk) 01:32, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Great document, it brings back old memories. :) Let's recall that the BBS arena wasn't the only user of modems, and mainframes of the era were complete worlds of their own. Do you remember those mysterious terminal servers and such stuff? :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 03:20, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Dsimic! And now that you have a proper user page, I see that you, too, are a guru, and have therefore appropriately updated my original response to Maury. And yes, the communications controllers were mysterious, and especially the IBM 3705, especially considering that asynchronous was always a second thought for IBM. Given that an IBM mainframe was one of the very few machines that did NOT pass through our shop at one point or another, it took quite a while for us to get it sorted out. Synchronist (talk) 14:47, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, but I'm just a guy spending too much time at his computer screens, books and stuff – nothing more. :) My own experience with the "old era" computers was pretty much limited to smaller boxes, like MicroVAX and HP 9000 (like this one); still, they were full of proprietary stuff, and attached terminal servers were a part of that mystery surrounding the whole thing. By the way, as a small digression, I'd say that only the people seeing Thick Ethernet installations in person can really appreciate the technology which is now available. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 19:28, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, yet another document placed on line, but this time, by way of sharing the credit, the citation has been added to the Wikipedia article Communications Research Group. The document in question is a partial list of BLAST users as of Sept. 1, 1985. Again, I think, a quite impressive list; again, the BLAST user base would continue rapid growth for several more years; and again, all these folks paid good money for the product.Synchronist (talk) 03:09, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks again, Dsimic (may I call you Dragan?), and this time for the portal link. In reference to which, your English is superb, but there may be a few typically American idioms which you will be delighted to review, and which I am sure have equivalents in your own native language: your latest edit has put my article "on the front burner"; "run it up the flagpole"; "cast a spotlight on it"; "polished the apple"; "put a spit shine on it"; "put it front and center"; "cast a glow over it"; "sounded the trumpet"; "made everyone stand at attention"; "created some ripples"; "put a fresh coat of paint on it"; "spanked the baby"; "hit the buzzer"; made it "the cat's meow"; made it "lead the parade"; put it "over the top"; "made everyone stop and stare"; "turned on the spigot"; "put the pedal to the metal"; "shoveled on the coal"; "fired up the boilers"; "cracked the whip"; "turned people's heads"; "lifted the curtain"; "put some lead in the pencil"; "swung a big stick"; "put all of the wood behind one arrowhead"; "cleared the decks"; "opened the gates"; "fired a warning shot"; "put up the tent pole"; "opened the wallet"; "put things in capital letters"; "made the case"; "summoned the jury"; "made the fat lady sing" (this in reference to Wagner); "delivered the knockout blow"; "rolled out the carpet"; "laid the cards out"; "opened the kimono" (this actually from the Japanese); said "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition"; "fired the starting gun"; "greased the wheels"; "cried 'Havoc' and let slip the dogs of war" (this actually from Shakespeare); "greased the flagpole" (and here I am getting a bit silly -- but perhaps not!); "opened Pandora's box" (see what I mean?); "borrowed from Peter to pay Paul" (Glenn -- stop it!); "blind hog found an acorn" (this a good north Louisiana expression); "the camel's nose under the tent" (d*mmit, Glenn, stop!); "put a nickle in the juke box" (ah, now we are getting back on track); "keep your powder dry" (see what I mean?); "don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes"; "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" (Admiral Farragut at the Battle of Mobile); and - finally: "Don't cheer boys -- the poor devils are dying." (Captain John Philip during the Battle of Manila Bay).Synchronist (talk) 05:53, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Hehe, sure thing, please feel free to use my real name. Well, I wouldn't dare to call my English more than very good, as I'm still learning more of it almost every day – and it's a never-ending game. :) Regarding my last edit, I'd simply say that it "gilded the lily". :)

This is an awesome collection of idioms, thank you very much for listing so many in one place! Should've seen the smile on my face while going through the list. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 06:11, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, excerpts (to avoid copyright infringement) from yet another source article placed on line: these from Gilbert Held's March 1986 article "Evaluating Microcmputer Communications Software" for McGraw Hill's Data Communications magazine, which was, at the time, the flagship publication in its field.Synchronist (talk) 00:17, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, excerpts from the Steve Magidson review of BLAST for Unix Today! now online.Synchronist (talk) 02:54, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, time for the testimony of a book as opposed to an article; and not just any book, but one from reputable tech publisher John Wiley & Sons: "Desktop Communications", by David A. Honig and Kenton A. Hoover. Synchronist (talk) 20:00, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

OK, excerpts from the Alan Southerton review of BLAST for Unix World now online. Note that this review, while confirming BLAST's performance and interoperability, also confirm's Maury's point regarding its absence from the bulletin board arena. Synchronist (talk) 02:43, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Ah, my friend Dragan, I have followed your example in adding the PDF format identifier to a couple other identifiers. (You, as a brilliant student of language, will be interested to see in the previous sentence an instance, in extremely casual English between friends, of dropping the "of" in the already casual phrase "a couple of". [But perhaps "phrase" is not the best term for this common grouping of three words? Doesn't really have the stature of a phrase, does it?]) Synchronist (talk) 01:30, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Hey, how are you? :) I'm glad you like the additions to Wiki code for inline references! And of course, thank you for pointing out this example of informal "compression" in spoken language! At the same time, maybe "a couple of" could be called a language construct? It's pretty much a quantifier, but again, quantifiers should be single words... Hm. :) As I wrote on my user page, Wikipedia is quite good when it comes to learning or improving written English, but that approach also takes a lot of time – the proverbial "no pain, no gain" instantly comes into mind. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 02:26, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Damn, Dragan, you're good! How do you know that phrase, "No pain, no gain", which I thought to be the exclusive province of American high school football coaches?!? And my God, man, do you never sleep? (Or have you perhaps moved to California?!?) But speaking of American high school football cliches, here are some others which you will be delighted to be acquainted -- or re-acquainted -- with: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." "It's all about 'intestinal fortitude': guts." "Three yards and a cloud of dust." And this my favorite, given to me by my now deceased college roommate Jack Guzzardo, who played high school football for the Amite, Louisiana Warriors, as a quote from his coach: "I want my players to be mobile, agile, and hostile!" Speaking of which, Dragan, there has been much interest in on-line, multi-player games; and I am wondering if the ultimate such game might be based on language, and take the form of a random particle travel; i.e., someone throws out a cliche, or saying, or expression; the next player throws out a related expression, which might "kick the can down the road", or send it off in an unexpected direction(!), and so on; and it might be supposed that this game would eventually encompass the sum total of human wisdom and humor. Mortal combat, to be sure -- but one based on connectivity and even humor. And I am even wondering if Wikipedia would tolerate the creation of such a primary page, to be added to ad infinitum! And of course there is also the connection with Turing's punched tape machine: the only rule is that you can only add your contribution to the end of the list. I am half-assed serious about this, and you and I might be the perfect "strangers in the night" to initiate it. And thus the only two remaining questions: 1) What would the Wikipedia article be called? 2) What would be the seed quotation be? Synchronist (talk) 04:50, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Hehe, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" is a good one – I think I've heard something similar, but I'll make sure to remember it. :) "Kick the can down the road" is also good and a new one to me, I'll make sure to remember it, too. Regarding "no pain, no gain", there's a similar saying in my native language, so I simply had to look for its equivalents. Speaking about sleeping, let's simply say that I don't follow usual sleep patterns, while the background is unfortunately a long and not-so-interesting story. Well, things shouldn't be bad until "form [takes] over function". :)

While thinking about (theoretical) possibilities for having multiplayer games based on language, some interesting facts arise... I clearly recall that about 17 years ago (or so) I was playing something similar with my friends, and everybody was happy about doing that. The actual game we've played was about continuing a stream of words, thus it was a bit simplified, but it was quite similar to what you described. Comparing those times and present, I'd dare to say that very few high-school people would enjoy playing such games – they would prefer to endlessly (and pointlessly) poke their cellphones, "liking" the same crap over and over while dreaming about some "exotic" stuff. Or they would simply prefer to fire up their favorite multiplayer shooter and slaughter a few dozens of zombies or whatever. :) Please don't get me wrong, but all that pretty much goes back to "no pain, no gain", at least in my opinion. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 06:06, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Dragan, you make me laugh! But there are still some thoughtful people out there. And your comments make me think that this [referent(s) purposely ambiguous] might work, and be more appropriate, as a stand-alone game rather than some Wikipedia-based structure. My email address is gsmith@space-machines.com should your thoughts on any of this become really expansive. Synchronist (talk) 13:29, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll let you know if (or when) my thoughts on this grow big enough. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 05:17, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Or -- eschewing all this crazy on-line game stuff -- you would perhaps like to take the traditional path of writing something that will actually bring solace to others -- like that crazy Polishman Joseph Conrad, who knew the English language like few others; and if so, our little Birds-of-the-Air Press stands ready to put your work into print [basically] free of charge, and to contribute one of our purchased block of official ISBN numbers . . . Really, Dragan, you have a true gift for language. Synchronist (talk) 05:15, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for such a generous offer, I'll feel free to contact you when the size of my thoughts reaches what would be enough to fill an entire book. :) However, I'd humbly say that I'm (still?) far, far away from who and what someone like Joseph Conrad was. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 10:44, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

OK, adding link to PDF of PC Week article on BLAST -- BLAST grabs the headline in the "News of the Week" section! Synchronist (talk) 15:11, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, again, Dragan, for improving the reference format. Synchronist (talk) 19:34, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

You're most welcome. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 19:48, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, adding link to PDF of an article which I myself co-authored (with Paul Charbonnet, Jr.) for Computerworld. And for the first time -- following Dragan's example -- I think I have a decent citation format. Synchronist (talk) 20:56, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for one more reference! The wiki code is fine, a small cleanup is all that was needed. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 06:41, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

And to think that we met over a flexible multi-column layout!!! Synchronist (talk) 03:53, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

All journeys, no matter how big or small they are, start with the first step. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 06:15, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

OK, adding link to PDF of an article from the major New Orleans daily newspaper -- the venerable Times-Picayune -- which talks about the origins of BLAST. Synchronist (talk) 01:01, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Adding link to PDF version of MacWeek Don Crabb article, and PDF version of screen capture of Google book search for occurrence of "BLAST" in Held textbook, and indicating its thorough coverage therein. Synchronist (talk) 12:51, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

OK, having spent four years adding references and web-accessible copies of same (and I'm still not done), I'm taking the step of upping the claim level for BLAST's significance -- and I think the weight of these references, and the variety and prestige of the computer industry trade magazines and textbooks in which they appear, easily bears out the contention that the BLAST protocol was a major player in the 1980s asynchrononous communications market. Synchronist (talk) 00:50, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Merge Communications Research Group into BLAST

The company was notable for successfully commercially marketing BLAST, and neither article is especially long. The CRG article is a stub, and the resultant REDIRECT will retain for both the CRG article and the company name a trail for Google to follow, while adding some pertinant historical information to the BLAST article. Pi314m (talk) 09:54, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Addition of company info box

Dear Yoodaba, your addition of a company infobox to the BLAST (Protocol) article is appreciated; however, the intention of this article is to focus on the protocol itself as opposed to the companies involved in its commercialization, inasmuch as there have actually been at least five such companies -- AMP, Data Systems of Baton Rouge, and Communications Research Group, all of Baton Rouge; US Robotics of Chicago; and BLAST, Inc. of North Carolina -- and and whose complete story would fill a book. (In fact, I had started a stub article on the chief such company, Communications Research Group, but no one else bothered to add to it, and so another Wikipedia editor folded it back into the protocol article.) As such, the current infobox is rather misleading, as it would take an amazingly complicated company infobox to truly and completely represent the commercial, as opposed to the technical, history of the protocol. In fact, it would be kind of like doing a company infobox for, say, Unix! So would you be very upset if I restored the article to its previous state? Synchronist (talk) 20:28, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@Yoodaba:, I left this same message on your talk page. Synchronist (talk) 20:33, 18 August 2020 (UTC)