{
  "id": 97352,
  "title": "Celebrating 45 Years of Kermit: The Protocol That Refuses to Die, Now Reborn in C",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/03/celebrating-45-years-of-kermit-the-protocol-that-refuses-to-die-now",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-08-03T19:11:51.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/kaixintelligence/celebrating-45-years-of-kermit-the-protocol-that-refuses-to-die-now-reborn-in-c-5f54"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In 1981, Frank da Cruz and Bill Catchings at Columbia University crafted Kermit, a file transfer protocol designed to operate over any serial connection regardless of hardware, operating system, or network. This portability was Kermit's standout feature in an era of incompatible systems like CP/M, Apple II, TRS-80, Unix, and DEC VMS. The protocol's design was minimalistic and resilient, utilizing a packet-based system with checksums and adaptable to link constraints. It supported both text and binary transfers and was easily extensible. Initially written in C, the reference implementation enabled Kermit's portability across many platforms. Born during the heyday of mainframes, minicomputers, and personal computers, Kermit became the de facto standard for transferring files among them, finding applications in academic, government, corporate environments, and even with the US Navy for ship-to-shore communications. Its popularity peaked in the 1980s and 1990s, but it never fully faded away. In 2026, a new open-source project emerged, bringing Kermit into the modern age with a brand-new, fully-featured C implementation named kermit-c. This project, spearheaded by a long-time Kermit enthusiast, aims to maintain the original protocol's simplicity and reliability while embracing contemporary software engineering practices. The new version is modular, thread-safe, and cross-platform, supporting serial, TCP, and Bluetooth transports. It features a modern API and a comprehensive test suite, ensuring compatibility with the original Kermit 95 reference implementation. The library's simple API closely mirrors classic Kermit functions but offers a refreshed approach. Notable for its backward compatibility, kermit-c ensures seamless communication with older systems while providing thread-safe concurrent transfers—a feature the original protocol couldn't easily achieve. This modern version preserves Kermit's simplicity and reliability, appealing to embedded systems, industrial controllers, retrocomputing enthusiasts, and those needing to transfer files to or from vintage machines.",
  "summary": "Celebrating 45 Years of Kermit: The Protocol That Refuses to Die, Now Reborn in C In the pantheon of early network protocols, few have enjoyed the staying power of Kermit. Born in the early 1980s at Columbia University, Kermit was a simple, robust file transfer protocol that conquered the world of dial-up modems, serial ports, and heterogeneous computing. As we mark its 45th anniversary in 2026,…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}