[ih] Tell me about host names and 3com

[Greg Skinner]

On Jan 16, 2024, at 11:37 AM, John Levine via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> The domain in an e-mail addresss after the @ sign has to be a
> hostname. RFC 1035 says that a hostname contains letters, digits, and
> hyphens, with the first character being a letter.
> 
> RFC 1035 was published in November 1987, but 3com.com was registered
> in December 1986. It is my vague recollection that the initial letter
> rule was inherited from HOSTS.TXT, but since everyone knew Bob
> Metcalfe, they said, oh, all right, a leading digit is OK so long as
> it's not all digits.
> 
> Does anyone remember the details? RFC1035 is still the official
> standard for hostnames, and the initial letter rule has been wrong for
> a long time.
> 
> R's,
> John
> 
> PS: This came up as we are finally trying to update RFCs 5321 and 5322
> to match reality.
> -- 
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history

I don’t know the answer to your question, but it came up on the namedroppers list, so perhaps that’s a good place to start.  Try the thread started by this post:

https://marc.info/?l=namedroppers&m=95837781926844&w=2

—gregbo