The Frank da Cruz Kermit records consist of materials related to Columbia University’s 30-year Kermit project. Spanning 1968 through 2011, with the bulk of the material dated between 1977 and 1988, the collection contains subject files that provide context to the Kermit project, articles and papers published in magazines, newsletters, newspapers, and professional journals, correspondence, publicity material, books on Kermit written mostly by da Cruz and his colleagues, including some drafts and early proof material, software, including different versions and platforms, updates, and utilities, material related to character and data-set standards, user guides and course material, manuals for various terminals and modems, and guides, directories, and instructional materials related to APRANET.
Biographical/Historical Note
Francis (Frank) da Cruz was born in Washington D. C. on November 10, 1944. Da Cruz, whose parents were both in the military, grew up in rural Virginia as well as on Army bases in Germany. He was first exposed to computer programming while a member of the US Army in the early 1960s. He began attending Columbia University in 1966 and received a BS in Sociology and later a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Da Cruz was an employee and faculty member of Columbia from 1974, when he began in the Computer Center, until his layoff in 2011. In 1981 da Cruz began working on the 30-year project known as Kermit. Kermit is a file transfer and management protocol, and communications software tools set which was initially developed by da Cruz and Bill Catchings. Kermit was intended to facilitate the ability of Columbia’s students to save their work and move those files between diverse computers on campus that used different character sets, file systems, and communications. Conversion between EBCDIC and ASCII character sets was one of the earliest functions built into Kermit. The first file transfer with Kermit occurred in 1981 and Columbia University coordinated the development of Kermit for many different computers both inside and outside of the University, and distributed the software for free. In 1986 the University officially founded the Kermit Project which took over version development and started charging a fee for commercial use. By 1988 Kermit was available on more than 300 computers and operating systems. Columbia University ceased supporting the Kermit Project in 2011 and released it to open source. The project was named after the fictional character in The Muppet Show television series with permission from Henson Associates, Inc.
Level of description
Collection
Date
1968-2011 (Made), 1977-1988 (Bulk)
Extent
32.64 linear feet in 21 record cartons, 5 manuscript boxes, and 1 newspaper box
This folder contains professional and personal correspondence from around the world addressed to Frank da Cruz, Christine Gianone, and the Kermit Project.
Contents:
Columbia University Kermit distribution MS-DOS Kermit (2 disks);
Columbia University Kermit distribution MS-DOS Kermit version 2.29 (1 disk);
Columbia University Kermit distribution MS-DOS Kermit version 2.29B (1 disk);
Columbia University Kermit distribution MS-DOS Kermit version 3.01 (1 disk).
Contents:
CC-DOS/MS-DOS Kermit version 2.32/A (1 disk);
CC-DOS/MS-DOS Kermit version 2.32/A assember source code (3 disks);
12 July 1991 letter from Quanfang Zhang, Computer Network Lab, Zhejiang University to Christine M. Gianone, Center for Computing Activities, Columbia University transmitting a Chinese version of Kermit.
Contents:
One disk with handwritten label entitled "Independent Television News ACT Apricot Kermit : aprict.asm, aprict.exe, VT52.kb";
April 12, 1985 letter from Paul Sherwin, Independent Television News Limited to Daphne Tzoar, Center for Computing Activities, Columbia University transmitting a conversion of PC-Kermit 1.18 for the ACT Apricot and VT52 keypad.
These folders contain magazine articles and clippings about Kermit's PC and Mac capabilities, Columbia University Record articles, and professsional journal writings on Kermit.
Contents:
One disk with handwritten label "CP/M 2.2 release 7 03/18/1986 Kermit.com bootable"
Memorandum about Kermit performance on the Vector 3 emulating a DEC VT52 and a list of files on the disk.
Contents:
One disk with handwritten label entitled "C86 Kermit source code C86*.*";
August 18, 1987 letter from Patrick C. Helbach to Christine Gianone, Center for Computing Activities, Columbia University.
Contents:
One disk with handwritten label entitled " TR11 SJ Kermit boot, RT11 SJ for PDP-11 boots RT 11 SJ version 5.04B contains KRTMIN";
One disk with handwritten label entitled " TR11 SJ Kermit boot, XM11 XM for PDP-11 boots RT 11 SJ version 5.05 contains KRTMIN";
May 24, 2005 email from Alan Segal, University of Vermont to the Kermit Project, Columbia University offering KRTMIN disks bootable on RT-11 operating systems RT11SJ and RT11XM on a PDP-11;
undated letter from Alan Segal to Frank da Cruz transmitting two PDP-11 bootable disks.
Contents:
One disk with handwritten label entitled "Apple UCSD Kermit RUG/PT version 1.0 : source text front KERTEX1 back KERTEX2 (P. Terpstra)";
One disk with handwritten label entitled "Apple UCSD Kermit RUG/PT version 1.0 : user files + documentation (P. Terpstra)";
January 11, 1986 letter from P. Visser, Rekencentrum der Rijksuniversiteit, Groningen, Netherlands to the Center for Comuting [sic] Activities, Columbia University transmitting two disks of a Kermit version for Apple IIe and Apple II+;
One disk labelled "Apple II Kermit version 1.0 July 25, 1986" from the Computer Center of the National Institutes of Health.
Contents:
One disk with label entitled "UNIX Kermit C code PC-DOS 2.1 format 05/01/1985";
One disk with handwritten label entitled "Kermit for CMX/BIMIX hardware OS9 operating system";
July 11, 1985 letter from Christopher Kennington to Frank da Cruz enclosing two disks pertaining to RML Kermit.
Contents:
One disk with handwritten label entitled "Kermit VT180?";
One disk with label entitled "VT180 Kermit 3.8";
One disk with label entitled "V3.8 Kermit VT180";
One disk with handwritten label entitled "VT180 Kermit (Mac80) 3.8".
