I'd Like to Speak to the Bellcore Manager

Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago

Bogdanp

17 points

6 comments

ninakalinina.comTechstory

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BellcoreTelecom HistoryVintage Tech

Key topics

Bellcore

Telecom History

Vintage Tech

The author shares their experience trying to contact the manager of Bellcore, a now-defunct telecom research company, and sparks a discussion about the history and legacy of Bellcore.

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01Story posted
Oct 12, 2025 at 10:14 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Oct 12, 2025 at 1:24 PM EDT
3h after posting
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Oct 13, 2025 at 11:13 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Discussion (6 comments)

Showing 6 comments

bediger4000

3 months ago

1 reply

I got mgr running on a SPARCStation 10 running SunOS 4.13 in 1995. It worked OK, until it crashed the machine, which upset me. We were having an office "uptime" competition.

One thing this article, which is very thorough, and very good, doesn't mention is that all the signalling is in-band via control/escape sequences. Mgr had no analog to xterm. You telent'ed in to some other machine, your shell script did some control sequences, and presto, a new window with a shell on the remote machine showed up.

I believe this article touches on mouse button use. I think Stephen Uhler, the major author of mgr, was left handed, as the default button arrangement definitely was more ergonomic for your left hand.

nkali

3 months ago

1 reply

Indeed, the signalling is implemented in a really, really clever way.

I had no idea that the author was left-handed; it would be interesting to try MGR with remapped mouse controls, I suppose!

bediger4000

3 months ago

1 reply

I don't know for sure, but I distinctly remember that mgr on SunOS was default left handed. Could be the version you had was compiled for right handers.

I think I got mgr source off a free software CD, maybe Walnut Creek brand. I did have to fiddle to get it compiled and working.

bediger4000

3 months ago

Walnut Creek did issue a free software CD-ROM March, 1994, that has mgr on it.

https://archive.org/details/Source_Code_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_...

I can't find an overall mgr version, that seems to not have been a concept. The entire distribution is on 61 "shar" files, which can be undone even today, 37 years after the code appeared on Usenet:

SOME NOTES ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MGR AS DONE THROUGH THE USENET NEWSGROUP COMP.SOURCES.UNIX

    --Rich $alz, Thu Nov 17 20:59:01 EST 1988

    This is the largest posting to ever appear in comp.sources.unix;
    I think it's worth it.  Stephen has been very patient about getting
    this out. .....

suhler

3 months ago

1 reply

Yes, I can verify the author is left handed. I had a command line flag to remap the mouse buttons for you right-ies.

The $HomeMovie video encoding format was quite MGR specific, and designed to run on a Sun 2/120 over a 14.k-baud modem (for typical MGR windows) in real-time; it was possible to transfer MGR sessions to remote workstations.

Nice article, by the way.

nkali

3 months ago

Thank you! MGR (and other projects you shared on your home page) are very fun!

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