On 05/09/2018 09:51 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote: I see them in the context of Usenet via UUCP, so rnews. The best that I can tell is that they are simply the messages that need to be sent written into a single file that is then transferred via some mechanism, ftp being a common one. It looks like it might be the output of nntpsend or send-nntp. Or perhaps output of downstream / related UUCP commands. I often see it mentioned in close proximity of DNews. -- Grant. . . . unix || die

Stargate did not use anything called "bags".  I just checked the source code to confirm. It also didn't use D news.  Stargate required B news. Remember - Stargate was in the 1987 time frame.  Googling for Dnews turns up a CNet page saying it was released in 2004.     Mary Ann On 05/09/2018 10:03 PM, Bakul Shah wrote:

On 5/10/18 12:53 AM, Grant Taylor via TUHS wrote: Yes. Bag files are a file format used to transfer news via uucp, popularized by dnews. I think they originated with satellite news systems. "Setting up a UUCP feed into DNEWS addsvc -del dposter addsvc -add dposter dposter.exe "dposter -dir c:\uucp\in -to news.here.com" This will search for files called *.bag in the directory c:\uucp\in and after processing them it will delete them. It's your job to write a batch script to get the files in this directory and uncompress them if necessary. You may also need to add ihave access to your own machine: news.here.com:read,post,ihave:::* The BAG/UUCP file format is: #! rnews nnnn ...(article, exactly nnnn bytes, counting each end of line as one byte) #! rnews nnnn ...(next article)... Setting up a UUCP feed out of DNEWS In newsfeeds.conf add a feed, e.g. site site1.name.uucp groups * Add a service (or process to run xmit and dposter) addsvc -add dxmit1 xmit.exe "dxmit1 site.name.edu -at *5 * -uucp c:\dnews\site1 " This will create files called news000n.bag in the directory c:\dnews\site1 It's your job to uucp copy these to the destination sites, and delete them. If you want you can compress them first. :-) The format of the file is: #! rnews nnnn ...(article, exactly nnnn bytes, counting each end of line as one byte) #! rnews nnnn ...(next article)..." -- ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU chet(a)case.edu http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

On Thu, May 10, 2018, 11:28 AM Grant Taylor via TUHS <tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org> wrote: Totally hazarding a guess, but I'd imagine the etymology comes from a news bag, as in the thing slung over the should and hauled around by the neighborhood kid who delivers newspapers in the morning (that holds the to-be-delivered news). - Dan C.

I asked Dave Nowitz, one of the authors of HoneyDanBer UUCP (the others being Peter Honeyman and Brian Redman) if he knew what bag files were. He said Never heard of bag files. Maybe whoever wrote the linux version did it? On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 11:51 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon(a)orthanc.ca> wrote:

So calling them "uucp bag files" is akin to calling something an "ed editor file" because the ed editor was able to update them? On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 7:38 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon(a)orthanc.ca> wrote:

On 05/10/2018 05:38 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote: Not if there's also email / commands / files transfers in the batch. ;-) -- Grant. . . . unix || die

On 05/10/2018 09:58 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote: Agreed. Those were all discrete jobs and associated files in the UUCP queue. It's my understanding that bag files were an aggregation / collection of what uucico (or something closely related) would typically write to the modem connected to the remote system. This output was redirected to a single, monolithic file, called a bag. At least that's my understanding. This bag would then be transferred some means out of band. The last time I did this, someone would periodically ftp the bag files off of the server. (I don't remember why he wanted bag files instead of standard UUCP.) I've heard of people using bag file(s) to put news (et al) onto a flash drive / tape and sneaker net it across to other disconnected systems where the process was done in reverse. That's typical UUCP. That's distinctly different than my understanding of bag files. Yep. -- Grant. . . . unix || die

On 05/10/2018 10:18 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote: Well, I don't know what to say. After a LOT of research, extracting old archives, digging through a LOT of things, I can only come to the conclusion that what have been called "bag" files in the circles that I've traveled in are in fact the output of batcher, thus standard "#! rnews <length>" files. I think part of my confusion was that I was working with using UUCP at the same time to transport files via sneaker net using something similar to batcher / rnews files. I guess I conflated the two things. I'm sorry for the confusion. They might not have been a different format (like I thought) but there were most definitely referred to as "bag" files in the circles that I've traveled. I have repeatedly found reference to them, around DNews, and being called "bag" files because of the ".bag" file extension that they had. I haven't been able to find anything to indicate if the nickname came from the file extension or if the file extension came from the nickname. chicken ("bag") <-> egg (.bag extension) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Thank you all for your input. I'm sorry for the confusion. -- Grant. . . . unix || die