[ih] Origin of 'talk' command

[Perry E. Metzger]

Brian Dear <brian at platopeople.com> writes:
> Does anyone know the date that the Unix "talk" command originally
> appeared, and on what version/platform of Unix, and also if there's an
> RFC on it (I've not been able to locate one)?

There is no RFC on it. The program originally appeared in BSD Unix --
I am almost certain it was in 4.2, though it might have appeared in an
earlier interim release. You could track down the initial date on it
pretty easily by looking at the online BSD sources at tuhs.org

By the way, if you are looking into this as a way of attacking the
stupid AOL IM patent, there is another good precedent -- the SEND
command in SMTP and the programs that used it to produce an exact
analog of AOL style IM. That one is indeed documented in RFC
821. Zephyr is also an excellent precedent, though much later.


-- 
Perry E. Metzger		perry at piermont.com