fdc@columbia.edu

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Frank da Cruz, formerly:
Director, Communications Software Development
Columbia University Information Technology (CUIT)
Columbia University
612 West 115th Street
New York NY 10025
USA
Retired since 1 July 2011.

Before that: US Army, musician, NYC yellow taxi driver; programmer, sysadmin, etc.
BS Columbia 1970; MS Columbia Engineering 1977. War baby, not boomer.
Presently: National Associate (for the Bronx), Living New Deal, University of California at Berkeley.

ACCESS TO MY PAGES: Until 8 May 2024, some of my popular pages like Columbia University Computing History and Columbia University 1968 Student Uprising were on a file system that was accessible only by HTTP: (and not HTTPS:). There's no reason why these pages would need to encrypted, but even so, they have become unreachable by an increasing number browsers — notably Google Chrome and Apple Safari — that have begun to bar access to non-encrypted pages. Effective 8 May 2024, Columbia has changed its web server to honor both HTTP and HTTPS URLs, so if you request a connection to (say) http://columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/, you'll get an unencrypted ("not secure") connection if the browser allows it. If you request a connection to https://columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/ you'll get an encrypted ("secure") connection.

RECENT:

Bombing of Caldetas, Spain, 1939 (photos by my Dad from USS Omaha)
Berlin 1959 photogallery (pre-Wall)
Bainbridge Avenue businesses, Bronx NY: COVID epidemic 2020; four-alarm fire October 2023
Portions of my Columbia University Computing History research appeared in "Physicists and the first computing revolution" by Iulia Georgescu, published in Nature Reviews Physics, 21 July 2023.
Translations of Kermit, New Deal, and computer history pages into many languages (2013-2024)
C-Kermit 10.0 progress: Unix, VMS, Windows (updated periodically).
Frankfurt, Germany, Jazzkeller gallery, 1950s-60s (April 2023).
Save St. Brendan's School, an essential neighborhood resource in the Bronx (March 2023)
28-minute interview with me about the New Deal origin of Oval Park in the Bronx, 15 March 2023 (filmed 24 July 2021; the May 22 video has a lot of other stuff in it).
Montefiore Hospital nurses strike, Bronx NY, January 2023.
C-Kermit 10.0 for Microsoft Windows (replaces Kermit 95) in Beta test, 15 December 2022.
Белое злато - 1 September 2022, updated 6 June 2023.
NYC New Deal Highlights photomontage (loads much faster as of 7 July 2022).
The Columbia University Kermit website FTP links converted to HTTP, May-October 2021.
The Columbia University Computing History website — all 700+ pages of it — has been brought into compliance with current HTML and "responsiveness" standards (6 April 2021)
The Washington DC National Mall in World War II (19 March 2021)
Kermitproject.org website is now "secure" (16 February 2021)
Hall's Hill, Arlington VA, 1956-61: The Segregation Wall (19 January 2021)
Now Or Never: A New New Deal (10 November 2020) ← Apparently it's "never"
Victor Grossman books, review of two books about East Germany (3 September 2020).
Frankfurt, Germany: Prewar, wartime, and postwar image gallery (6 May 2020).
Aymar Embury II — Forgotten architect of the NYC New Deal (November 2019)

Security Notice: As of 21 December 2023, this site can be accessed securely as https://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/. It remains accessible via non-encrypted http: links, which, in this case, are not (and never were) "insecure" because all of the pages are read-only; no login or password is required, no information is collected. Web browsers like Chrome now support only HTTPS and until recently if you clicked http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/ in Chrome, it would change "http:" to "https:" and the result would be "https://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/ not found". But now clicks on either type of link to this site should work.

The Kermit Project

Data communications protocol and software project founded at Columbia in 1981:

C-Kermit development: C-Kermit 10.0 Beta.10 (3 July 2023)
Kermit's Fortieth Anniversary, 19 April 2021: https://kermitproject.org/fortieth.html
At the Computer History Museum:: Kermit Project Oral History Panel (Jeffrey Altman, Bill Catchings, Frank da Cruz)
MS-DOS Kermit Oral History (Joe Doupnik)
Kermit Project Document Archive (16 boxes of fun)
Other computer museum contributions
Online Archive of California: Guide to the Frank da Cruz Kermit records
The New Open Source Kermit Project (2011-present): Home page: https://www.kermitproject.org
What Is Kermit?: https://kermitproject.org/kermit.html
Timeline: https://kermitproject.org/timeline.html
Current software archive: https://kermitproject.org/archive.html
C-Kermit for Unix and VMS: https://kermitproject.org/ckermit.html
Kermit 95 for Windows: https://kermitproject.org/k95.html
E-Kermit for embedding: https://kermitproject.org/ek.html
The Kermit scripting language: https://kermitproject.org/ckscripts.html
Books: https://kermitproject.org/books.html
Bibliography: https://kermitproject.org/biblio.html
The Original Kermit Project - Columbia University (1981-2011): This site was frozen by Columbia U in 2011.
Home page: http://columbia.edu/kermit/
Complete software archive as of 2011: http://columbia.edu/kermit/archive.html
C-Kermit binaries versions 5A–9.0: (1992-2011) http://www.kermitproject.org/ckbinaries.html
Brief history: https://kermitproject.org/dec20.html#kermit
International Kermit Conference, Moscow USSR 1989: Gallery: http://columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/ussr/.

I was laid off from Columbia U in 2011. My last day was June 30th, 2011, and then I spent the next 3 months cleaning up:

Disposing of my books, manuals, and other historical items, a surprisingly big job. The list alone was a big job... The historical records of the Kermit Project are now at the Computer History Museum, along with some artifacts.
Releasing open-source versions of C-Kermit, E-Kermit, and Kermit 95.
Cataloging the Kermit software archive.

Columbia University Computing History

History of Computing at Columbia University (1879-2022): http://columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/
Computing at Columbia (Columbia 250, 2004): http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_perspectives/write_history/61.html
Wallace Eckert, Computer Pioneer (Columbia 250): http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/your_columbians/wallace_eckert.html
The DECSYSTEM-20 at Columbia University (1977-1988): https://kermitproject.org/dec20.html
Watson Lab Conduit Trenching (May 1985): http://columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/conduit

New York City

New Deal Projects in New York City (2012-present): https://kermitproject.org/newdeal/
Photo galleries, tables, narrative. Mainly the Bronx but also some sites in other boroughs, with side trips to Virginia and New Mexico.
Williamsbridge Oval Park — 80th Anniversary of a WPA creation (2017): https://kermitproject.org/bronx/ovalpark80/
Aymar Embury II - The real Master Builder of the Great Depression: https://kermitproject.org/newdeal/embury/article.html (profile)
https://kermitproject.org/newdeal/embury/ (list of projects)
https://kermitproject.org/newdeal/embury/gallery/ (photo gallery of projects)
Bronx Photo Gallery (2012-present) (Also available as a slide show): https://kermitproject.org/bronx/
Bronx Day Parade and Festival galleries (2014-2019): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/bronxday/
University Food Market (1957-2003): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/ufm.html (English)
http://columbia.edu/~fdc/ufm-es.html (Spanish)
Samad's Deli (photos from 2012-14): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/Samad
La Rosita (December 2006): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/larosita.html
Upper Manhattan Running Zone (last update: July 2014): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/running/
Columbia University Area Photos: http://columbia.edu/~fdc/uws20120914/ (September 2012)
http://columbia.edu/~fdc/uws20120915/ (September 2012)
http://columbia.edu/~fdc/cu/200204/ (April 2002)
http://columbia.edu/~fdc/cu/200212/ (December 2002)

Countries, Languages, Character Sets

Translations of Kermit, computer history, New Deal pages into different languages: https://kermitproject.org/translations.html
Frank's Compulsive Guide to International Postal Addresses (1988-present): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/postal/
UTF-8 Sampler (text in many languages and scripts) (2000-present): http://www.kermitproject.org/utf8.html
Say PEACE In All Languages! (March-April 2003): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/pace
Representing Middle English Manuscripts on the Web with UTF-8 (August 2002): https://kermitproject.org/st-erkenwald.html
Interchange of Non-English Computer Text (1994): https://kermitproject.org/accents.html
HTML (Web-page) sample and tutorial (for making simple Web pages "by hand"): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/sample.html

Germany

Frankfurt American High School, Army-brat history from the 1950s and 60s (2003-present): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/family/frankfurt.html (narrative: work in progress, currently about 62 pages)
http://columbia.edu/~fdc/frankfurt/ (gallery, mostly from 1959-61)
Berlin 1959 Gallery: http://columbia.edu/~fdc/family/berlingallery1959/
Berlin 1961-62 Gallery: http://columbia.edu/~fdc/family/berlingallery1961/
Army - Kaiserslautern and Stuttgart: http://columbia.edu/~fdc/army (photo gallery 1963-66)
http://columbia.edu/~fdc/family/army.html (narrative: 2019-2024)
East Germany Reconsidered - Books by Victor Grossman: http://columbia.edu/~fdc/germany/grossman.html
Messerschmitt Kabinenroller (und andere Kleinwagen) (1954): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/frankfurt/messerschmitt.html
BMW R-26 (1956): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/frankfurt/bmw-r26.html

Politics

Note: I'm a Viet-Nam era Army veteran as well as a military brat, and both my parents were World War II veterans.

Now Or Never: A New New Deal (10 November 2020).: https://kermitproject.org/newdeal/newnewdeal.html
Columbia University 1968 (the student uprising): http://columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/1968/index.html
Recent USA elections: The 2022 midterms; http://columbia.edu/~fdc/election2020.html
Don't Trust Anyone Under 50! (Columbia 250, 2004): http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_perspectives/write_history/282.html

Virginia

Chesterbrook, Virginia, 1947-55 (narrative, work in progress, about 14 pages ): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/family/chesterbrook.html
Photos of Chesterbrook, Virginia, 1947-55 (gallery, 2014): http://columbia.edu/~fdc/virginia
New Deal Projects in Virginia (2017-2020): https://kermitproject.org/newdeal/virginia/

Family history

International research project into my Portuguese, Norwegian, and German/Swiss families, my ex-wife's African-American family, and my cousins' Lebanese and Palestinian families, with a large family tree going back many generations:: http://columbia.edu/~fdc/family/
Index to individual chapters:: http://columbia.edu/~fdc/family/#chapters

Books

Kermit, A File Transfer Protocol, Digital Press (1987), 379pp; with Foreword by Donald Knuth. In print for 14 years. A Russian edition by the USSR Academy of Sciences was in preparation when the Soviet Union collapsed and was therefore never published (see sample chapter).
"Using C-Kermit" (with C. Gianone), Digital Press (1992, first edition), 514pp.
Using C-Kermit (with C. Gianone), 2nd Ed, Digital Press (1997), 622pp.
C-Kermit: Einführung und Referenz, Verlag Heinz Heise, Hannover (1997). With Christine M. Gianone, German translation by Gisbert W. Selke.
Kermit 95 (with C. Gianone), Manning Publications (1996), 88pp. Reissued periodically until 2003 in updated electronic editions.

Other publications (and semi-publications)

Also see: Kermit Bibliography and Kermit Project Books Online.

What's The Difference?, with Charles Harris, Reading is Fundamental (1970).
Countless articles in the Columbia University Computer Center Newsletter (which changed its name about 100 times over the years) and other Computer Center publications, 1975-2003.
DECSYSTEM-20 Assembly Language Guide (with Chris Ryland), July 1980 (unfinished).
Numerous articles in Kermit News, the journal of the Kermit Project, 1986-93.
Kermit, A Simple File Transfer Protocol for Microcomputers and Mainframes (with Bill Catchings), BYTE Magazine, June and July 1984.
A series of articles about digital PBXs in McGraw-Hill Data Communications magazine (with C. Gianone), 1987-88.
“Circumnavigating the Web with MS-DOS Kermit”, On The Internet, Internet Society, Vol.1 No.2 (May/June 1995), pp.48-52.
"Columbia 1968", Columbia Librarian, V.XXVII, 1-2, Fall-Winter 1999, and on the Web (in much-expanded form) at http://columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/1968.html.
Forewords and Prefaces in various data communication and networking books, e.g. Quarterman's The Matrix, and listed in the acknowledgements of many others, e.g. McNamara's Technical Aspects of Data Communications and The Unicode Standard Version 3.0, The Unicode Consortium, Addison-Wesley (2000).
Supplemental Terminal Graphics for Unicode, UTC Document L2/00-159 / ISO WG2 Document N2265, 31 March 2000: 18 characters added in Unicode 3.2 and ISO/IEC ISO 10646-1:2000/Amd.1.
Internet RFC 2839 (with J. Altman), May 2000.
Internet RFC 2840 (with J. Altman), May 2000.
A photo credit in Fortune Magazine (Jaquard loom), China edition, August 2001.
"Columbia University Computing History", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, V24#2, April-June 2002 (Abstract) and on the Web at http://columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/
Credits in Stand Columbia, Columbia University Press (2003), a history of Columbia University by Robert McCaughey, for contributions on computing and the 1968 student uprising.
A photo credit in the book John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth by Elizabeth Partridge (2005) (for this photo).
Pictured on front page of ComputerWorld, July 4, 2005, (mis)quoted in accompanying article "Love that Legacy" by Gary Anthes).
Feature article in Frankfurter Neue Presse, 22 July 2006: "Warum Frank aus N.Y. nicht von Frankfurt lassen kann" by Inga Schulze
Photo credit in the book American Military Communities in West Germany by John W. Lemza, McFarland and Company (2006), p.42.
A photo credit in the book Berlin Mitte und die Welt – wie sie einmal war 1914-1989, P.J. Ortmann (self-published 2009).
Photo credit, front page, Norwood News, December 10-23, 2015.
“The History of the World in One Mural”, Living New Deal, University of California at Berkeley, August 28, 2015.
“Discovering New Deal New York”, Fall 2015 Newsletter, Living New Deal, University of California at Berkeley.
“Fifty Years Ago”, The Veteran, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Vol.46, No.1, Spring 2016.
New Deal New York — fold-out map of New Deal sites in New York City, The Living New Deal, University of California at Berkeley (2017), with Richard Walker, Evan Kalish, Shaina Potts, Linda Herman, Molly Roy, and Susan Ives (Evan and I supplied most of the data). Also available as a poster.
“Acknowledge Oval Park's Milestone”, Norwood News, Vol.30, No.13, June 22 - July 5, 2017 [HTML] [PDF] [Original]. This article resulted in the Park's 80th Annniversary celebration on September 9, 2017, and the first public recognition by the Parks Department of the WPA's role in creating the park.
Photo credits: Brechin, Gray, “Playing Through: Recreation and the New Deal”, Summer 2017 Newsletter, Living New Deal, University of California at Berkeley.
New Deal Art Experts Say Painting Over Mural Was Vandalism, Associated Press article in the New York Times, 16 June 2018, relating to the New Deal mural at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx that had been partially painted over, result of a half-hour AP interview with me (among other interviews), plus photo credits. Also at NBC News, ABC News, the Washington Post, the London Daily Mail, the Chicago Tribune, LA Times, and several thousand other sites.
A historic decades-old mural was painted over at a New York high school during a repair project, CNN, based on a June 18, 2018, interview.
De Witt Clinton HS painters destroy major art piece, Bronx Times, 24 June 2018, by Alex Mitchell, based on interviews with Gray Brechin and me (unfortunately, it says "PWA" everywhere it should say "WPA").
The main thread of the early part of my Columbia University Computing History forms the basis for the bulk of an article, "Physicists and the first computing revolution" by Iulia Georgescu, published in Nature Reviews Physics, 21 July 2023.

Recipes

http://columbia.edu/~fdc/recipes/

Miscellaneous

Milestones in the Annals of Junkmail (July 2002): http://columbia.edu/kermit/george.html
No Wax Please!: http://columbia.edu/~fdc/nowax.html

Frank da Cruz / fdc@columbia.edu