To the extent possible under law, the author(s) of Qodem have waived
all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.
| Qodem : |
The Qodem Project is an effort to retain some of the best concepts of the BBS era on modern systems.
Qodem was started in 2003 when Autumn Lamonte had the desire for a program that could:
After some searching, she determined that no open-source programs existed at the time that filled that need. Good ssh clients either required X11 or lacked keyboard macros; good console applications lacked scrollback and capture support; and almost no one had re-implemented Zmodem. She realized that what she ultimately wanted was to be able to use her favorite BBS-era communications program Qmodem on Linux. So she started writing her own version and along the way tried to show how the ideas of Qmodem continue to provide a great user experience on today's systems.
Qodem was originally thought to only require 20,000-ish lines of code
(measured with 'wc') to replicate the key features of
Qmodem™. lrzsz was supposed to handle the file
transfer protocols; command-line clients would handle the actual
connections; Qodem would be more glue than anything else. However,
each key feature turned out to be much more extensive: VT100 required
a lot of testing; file transfer protocols had to be implemented inline
to provide proper reporting and user control; eventual Win32 support
required code to handle telnet/rlogin/etc.; host mode required
server-side code for the protocols, and integrating with UPnP was an
obvious needed feature; the list goes on. Today qodem exceeds 99,000
lines of code. The point now is to go far beyond feature parity with
Qmodem™ and instead strive to be an excellent client for all
servers, including both modern and vintage: Linux/BSD, VMS, and of
course BBSes. A general project
post-mortem is available here. A far more
detailed work log of the long slog from day 1 to
1.0.0 is here.
Qodem was originally Copyrighted (c) 2003-2015 Autumn Lamonte. Versions 0.0.1 through 1.0alpha (spanning the years 2003-2012) are licensed under the GNU Public License version 2 or later.
As of Tuesday, May 26, 2015, Qodem has been dedicated to the public domain. To the extent possible under law, Autumn Lamonte has dedicated all copyright and related and neighboring rights to this software to the public domain worldwide. This software is distributed without any warranty. For jurisdictions that do not recognize the public domain, Qodem is also available under the terms of the CC0 license.
Qmodem set a very high bar for PC communications software. For many years the standard response to "What comm program should I use?" was "Get Qmodem, it's the best." Qmodem was more than a terminal emulator, it was one's window into the wider online world. Web browser features like bookmarks, history, saved passwords, and user-side scripts can trace their lineage at least in part through Qmodem.
Some of Qmodem's history is outlined on its Wikipedia page. Some other references to Qmodem in hardcopy books include:
For years, PC-TALK has reigned supreme as the most popular user support communications software among owners of IBM/PCs and compatible computers. And with good reason: It's an excellent program. But now there's a challenger on the horizon that goes PC-TALK several turns better. The program is called Qmodem, and it is offered by John Friel III, a systems programmer with the John Deere Company in Cedar Falls, Iowa, under the user supported concept pioneered by PC-TALK and Andrew Fluegelman. Written in Turbo Pascal, Qmodem is 30% to 40% faster than PC-TALK's compiled BASIC version...
Among other outstanding improvements, Qmodem offers 12 windows that pop up and disappear at your command ... where PC-TALK lets you strip or convert three incoming characters, Qmodem lets you fiddle with all 255 characters in the extended ASCII code set.
The dialing directory will accommodate 200 phone numbers, compared to PC-TALK's 60, and Qmodem will dial up to ten different numbers in sequence until it gets an answer for each one. There is also a split-screen mode and the option to "back-scroll" up to 250 lines of text that scrolled off the screen while you are online. There are many other nice features as well. In short, this is one nifty program.
If you're using a crummy modem program and want one that's more friendly to use, you can download — or order via voice phone — a test-drive version of the Qmodem telecommunications program. A number of excellent communications programs are out there, so if you get one of them instead, you'll be in good hands. However, since I had to pick one (the program is so big it is broken into two files), I selected my personal favorite and the one that's easiest to download.
This page archives as many versions of Qmodem releases as possible, and related utilities.
Mustang Software was allegedly contacted at some time regarding Qmodem sales and responded with the statement "Get the crack file from the internet. We have washed our company from the product." Autumn Lamonte contacted Santronics (the purchasers of Quintus, who purchased Mustang Software) in 2003 and the representative said much the same thing. Qmodem appears to legally be "abandonware": it appears that no parties with the legal right to control its copyright desire to do so.
The following versions are still missing in action:
Below are the versions of Qmodem and related utilities found so far:
| Filename | Description |
|---|---|
| qmodem23.zip | Qmodem 2.3 - Also includes Turbo-Term 0.96 by Wayne Bell |
| qm40dsk1.zip | Qmodem 4.0 Disk 1/5 |
| qm40dsk2.zip | Qmodem 4.0 Disk 2/5 |
| qm40dsk3.zip | Qmodem 4.0 Disk 3/5 |
| qm40dsk4.zip | Qmodem 4.0 Disk 4/5 |
| qm40dsk5.zip | Qmodem 4.0 Disk 5/5 |
| qm40new.zip | Qmodem 4.0 - new features announcement |
| qm40fmts.zip | Qmodem 4.0 - Pascal source description of file formats |
| qm41dsk1.zip | Qmodem 4.1 Disk 1/5 |
| qm41dsk2.zip | Qmodem 4.1 Disk 2/5 |
| qm41dsk3.zip | Qmodem 4.1 Disk 3/5 |
| qm41dsk4.zip | Qmodem 4.1 Disk 4/5 |
| qm41dsk5.zip | Qmodem 4.1 Disk 5/5 |
| qm41b1.zip | Qmodem 4.1B Disk 1/5 |
| qm41b2.zip | Qmodem 4.1B Disk 2/5 |
| qm41b3.zip | Qmodem 4.1B Disk 3/5 |
| qm41b4.zip | Qmodem 4.1B Disk 4/5 |
| qm41b5.zip | Qmodem 4.1B Disk 5/5 |
| qm41bjiv.zip | Qmodem 4.1B - "JIVE" emulation support |
| qm42_1.zip | Qmodem 4.2 Disk 1/4 |
| qm42_2.zip | Qmodem 4.2 Disk 2/4 |
| qm42_3.zip | Qmodem 4.2 Disk 3/4 |
| qm42_4.zip | Qmodem 4.2 Disk 4/4 |
| qm42a_1.zip | Qmodem 4.2A Disk 1/4 |
| qm42a_2.zip | Qmodem 4.2A Disk 2/4 |
| qm42a_3.zip | Qmodem 4.2A Disk 3/4 |
| qm42a_4.zip | Qmodem 4.2A Disk 4/4 |
| qm42c_1.zip | Qmodem 4.2C Disk 1/4 |
| qm42c_2.zip | Qmodem 4.2C Disk 2/4 |
| qm42c_3.zip | Qmodem 4.2C Disk 3/4 |
| qm42c_4.zip | Qmodem 4.2C Disk 4/4 |
| qm42d_1.zip | Qmodem 4.2D Disk 1/4 |
| qm42d_2.zip | Qmodem 4.2D Disk 2/4 |
| qm42d_3.zip | Qmodem 4.2D Disk 3/4 |
| qm42d_4.zip | Qmodem 4.2D Disk 4/4 |
| qm42e1.zip | Qmodem 4.2E Disk 1/4 |
| qm42e2.zip | Qmodem 4.2E Disk 2/4 |
| qm42e3.zip | Qmodem 4.2E Disk 3/4 |
| qm42e4.zip | Qmodem 4.2E Disk 4/4 |
| qm42e2f.zip | Patch to upgrade Qmodem 4.2E to 4.2F |
| qm42f-1.zip | Qmodem 4.2F Disk 1/4 |
| qm42f-2.zip | Qmodem 4.2F Disk 2/4 |
| qm42f-3.zip | Qmodem 4.2F Disk 3/4 |
| qm42f-4.zip | Qmodem 4.2F Disk 4/4 |
| qm43_1.zip | Qmodem 4.3 Disk 1/4 |
| qm43_2.zip | Qmodem 4.3 Disk 2/4 |
| qm43_3.zip | Qmodem 4.3 Disk 3/4 |
| qm43_4.zip | Qmodem 4.3 Disk 4/4 |
| qm431-1.zip | Qmodem 4.31 Disk 1/4 |
| qm431-2.zip | Qmodem 4.31 Disk 2/4 |
| qm431-3.zip | Qmodem 4.31 Disk 3/4 |
| qm431-4.zip | Qmodem 4.31 Disk 4/4 |
| q43to431.zip | Patch to upgrade Qmodem 4.3 to 4.31 |
| qm45lite.zip | Qmodem 4.5 Lite. This is almost identical to Qmodem 5.0, minus script support. It has no nag screen or installer, it is ready to just unzip into a directory and go. |
| qmod45td.zip | Qmodem 4.5 Test Drive |
| qm452td.zip | Qmodem 4.52 Test Drive |
| qm46-td.zip | Qmodem 4.6 Test Drive |
| qm5.zip | Qmodem 5.0. This is the version Qodem is modeled after. |
| qm5new.zip | Qmodem 5.0 - new features announcement |
| qm-olx.zip | Patch to upgrade Qmodem 5.0 to 5.01 and OLX 2.1 to 2.2 |
| qm501fix.zip | A crack for Qmodem 5.01 to skip the splash screen |
| qmfix.zip | Avoid the 15-second registration pause for Qmodem 4.x |
| qmserial.zip | Registration code generator for Qmodem |
| qm_hst_c.zip | Colorized host mode menus |
| pcpl2qm.zip | Convert Procomm Plus 1.1 and 2.0 phone book files to Qmodem 5.0 and Qmodem Test Drive 4.5 format |
| pctqmd.zip | Pascal source program that converts a PC-Talk phone book file to Qmodem format |
| qmdmsort.zip | C source program that can sort a Qmodem phone book by several different criteria |
| qmfonmv.zip | C program + source that can move entries in a Qmodem 5.0 phone book |
| qmpro10_dxp.zip | QmodemPro 1.0, as a DXP self-extracting 1.44MB disk image |
| qmpro10.zip | QmodemPro 1.0 files from the DXP self-extracting 1.44MB disk image. A serial number assured to work is 41-0001. |
| qmpro150.zip | QmodemPro 1.50 |
| qmpro151.exe | Patch to upgrade QmodemPro from 1.50 to 1.51 |
| qmpro152.zip | Patch to upgrade QmodemPro from 1.51 to 1.52 |
| qmpro.zip | QmodemPro 1.53 For DOS. Currently registered to "Grim Reaper", delete QMPRO.CNF and enter a new registration code if desired (66-3454 works). This is the last version of QmodemPro for DOS. |
| qmwin.zip | QmodemPro for Windows 1.0 - new features announcement |
| qm101.zip | Patch to update QmodemPro for Windows from 1.0 to 1.01 |
| qmwin110.zip | Patch to update QmodemPro for Windows from 1.01 to 1.10 |
| qmwin111.zip | Patch to update QmodemPro for Windows from 1.10 to 1.11 |
| qwin111c.zip | Patch to update QmodemPro for Windows from 1.11 to 1.11c |
| qm2_1.zip | QmodemPro For Windows 95 v2.1. Includes a registration key and crack. This appears to be the most recent version available on the Internet. |
| qmpwin_2.zip | QmodemPro For Windows 95 v2.1. Includes a crack to avoid registration check. |
| qmcracks.zip | Serial numbers for various versions of Qmodem/QmodemPro, and a description of cracking the "Timelock" software used in QmodemPro For Windows95 v2.x. |
| qm421km.arj | Key-maker generator for QmodemPro for Windows 2.1 |
The Qmodem 4.6 Test Drive user's guide is reproduced below in several formats:
To the extent possible under law, the author(s) of Qodem have waived
all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.