Simtel (sometimes called Simtelnet, originally SIMTEL20) was an important long-running archive of

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

and shareware for various operating systems. The Simtel archive had significant ties to the history of several operating systems: it was in turn a major repository for CP/M,

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

, Microsoft Windows and FreeBSD. The archive was hosted initially on the MIT-MC

PDP-10 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, espec ...

running the

Incompatible Timesharing System Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS) is a time-sharing operating system developed principally by the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, with help from Project MAC. The name is the jocular complement of the MIT Compatible Time-Sharing Sy ...

, then

TOPS-20 The TOPS-20 operating system by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) is a proprietary OS used on some of DEC's 36-bit mainframe computers. The Hardware Reference Manual was described as for "DECsystem-10/DECSYSTEM-20 Processor" (meaning the DEC PDP- ...

, then FreeBSD servers, with archive distributor

Walnut Creek CDROM Walnut Creek CDROM Inc. was an early provider of freeware, shareware, and free software on CD-ROMs. The company was founded in by Bob Bruce in Walnut Creek, California, in August 1991. It was one of the first commercial distributors of free softwar ...

helping fund FreeBSD development. It began as an early mailing list, then was hosted on the

ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...

, and finally the fully open

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. The service was shut down on March 15, 2013.

History

Simtel originated as SIMTEL20, a software archive started by Keith Petersen in 1979 while living in

Royal Oak, Michigan Royal Oak is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An inner-ring suburb of Detroit, Royal Oak is about north of Detroit's city limits. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 57,236. Royal Oak is located along t ...

. The original archive consisted of CP/M software for early

8080 The Intel 8080 (''"eighty-eighty"'') is the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. It first appeared in April 1974 and is an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibil ...

-based microcomputers. The software was hosted on a

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

that also ran a CP/M mailing list to which Petersen subscribed. When access to the particular MIT computer was removed in 1983, fellow CP/M enthusiast Frank Wancho, then an employee at the

White Sands Missile Range White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a United States Army military testing area and firing range located in the US state of New Mexico. The range was originally established as the White Sands Proving Ground on 9July 1945. White Sands National P ...

, arranged for the archive to be hosted on a

DECSYSTEM-20 The DECSYSTEM-20 was a 36-bit Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10 mainframe computer running the TOPS-20 operating system (products introduced in 1977). PDP-10 computers running the TOPS-10 operating system were labeled ''DECsystem-10'' as a ...

computer with

access, accessible via FTP at simtel20.arpa, later known as wsmr-simtel20.army.mil. At this time, Simtel began archiving MS-DOS software in addition to its archive of CP/M software. Over time, the SIMTEL20 archive added software for other operating systems, user groups and various

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

s, including the

Ada Ada may refer to: Places Africa * Ada Foah, a town in Ghana * Ada (Ghana parliament constituency) * Ada, Osun, a town in Nigeria Asia * Ada, Urmia, a village in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Ada, Karaman, a village in Karaman Province, ...

Software Repository, the CP/M User's Group, PC/Blue, SIG/M(icros), and the

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...

/ C collections. In 1991, Walnut Creek CDROM was founded by Robert A. Bruce, which helped distribute the Simtel archive on CD-ROM discs for those not wishing, or unable, to access the archive online. In 1993, the SIMTEL20 archive at White Sands Missile Range was shut down due to budget constraints. From 1993 on, the Walnut Creek CDROM

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

server and (later on) Web site became the focal point for online Simtel access. For much of its life the Web site and primary mirrors were located at www.cdrom.com, www.simtel.net, and oak.oakland.edu at Oakland University. In July 1998, the Simtel FTP server set a record for overall traffic with a total transfer amount of 417 GB of data in one day. In May 1999, the Simtel FTP server surpassed its own record by transferring, in one day, a total of 873 GB. In the same year it served 10,000 clients at a time, showing that the

C10k problem The C10k problem is the problem of optimizing network sockets to handle a large number of clients at the same time. The name C10k is a numeronym for concurrently handling ten thousand connections. Handling many concurrent connections is a differe ...

was tractable on contemporary systems. Due to a mirror licensing dispute situation with Coast to Coast Telecommunications in 1995 (now Allegiance Telecom, part of

XO Communications XO Communications, LLC (previously Nextlink Communications, Concentric Network Corporation and Allegiance Telecom, Inc.) was an American telecommunications company. Before being purchased by and later absorbed by Verizon Communications. XO provid ...

), archive maintainer Keith Petersen left his employment with CCT and moved on to Walnut Creek CDROM. In October 1999,

Digital River Digital River is a private company that provides global e-commerce, payments and marketing services. In 2013, Digital River processed more than $30 billion in online transactions. Digital River is headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Compan ...

purchased Simtel from Walnut Creek CDROM for US$1.0 million and 143,885 shares of common stock. Mr. Petersen contracted with Digital River, along with small business owner and son Kurt Petersen of Petersen Business Management, to manage the Simtel collections and continued to do so until January 15, 2001. The service was shut down on March 15, 2013. Some mirrors may still be available.

References

External links

* {{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130315145600/http://www.simtel.net/, date=2013-03-15, title=www.simtel.net File hosting Internet properties established in 1993