[ih] questions on arpanet

[Mike Padlipsky]

At 11:24 AM 9/22/2004, Chris Edmondson-Yurkanan wrote:
>You need to realize that the email applications used FTP to transfer the 
>email messages,

it's also important to realize that rfc's weren't distributed over the 'net 
until some point in time which i'll leave as an exercise to the scholarly 
but believe i know was after november of 1974, since that's when rfc 666 
was published, 'off-line', as was the then-prevailing modality to the best 
of my recollection.  [and as regular readers of this list will perhaps 
recall, it still hasn't been placed 'on-line' ... unless, of course, the 
well-known bottleneck has finally done so and lacked the courtesy to inform 
me he has; or -- just as a purist's point -- given the state of my 
middlemiddleaged memory, perhaps it _was_ published on-line and the 
bottleneck removed it, but in fact i rather doubt that.]

indeed, not only weren't the rfc's 'on-line' during the formative years, 
but most of the key protocol design work [host-host, telnet, and of course 
ftp] was done at the various protocol committee/working group meetings, 
sometimes based on discussions we might have had with our local colleagues 
before the meetings but that was probably the exception, but certainly not 
via what was called netmail at the time, since it all took place before 
netmail was available [other than by telneting in to a guest account and 
using intra-host mail, which doesn't really count].  granted, we might well 
have e-discussed when and where to have the 'new' telnet meeting over the 
'net, but i wouldn't vouch for it -- and i was heavily involved in the meeting.

sure, it's 'only' anecdotal evidence and others' recollections might well 
differ, but my own is that we 'always' relied primarily on meetings for 
hammering out the design consensuses [or consenses, if you prefer] that 
were the protocols, not net- or e- mail.  certainly on both versions of the 
host-front end protocol [the later of which was in 1984, repeat 19_8_4], 
and 'neted', but that might be cheating because i chaired both groups.

speaking of exercises for the scholarly, b/t/w, does anybody know who's 
responsible for the noxiously cutesy 'e-mail' locution, and when?  '73 
feels awfully early to me, dr. dandi's reported referenced study to the 
contrary notwithstanding [though perhaps the study was a retrospective one 
... and probably an inaccurate one anyway, since in '73 i suspect that at 
least half the traffic consisted of host-host protocol 'eco' commands, 
thanks to the perversity of the bbn 'ncp'].


cheers, map

[whose shoulder problems caused him to break down some time ago and create 
a 'signature' file to apologize for the lack of his formerly customary 
e-volubility -- and who's been employing shiftless typing for a long time 
now to spare his wristsnfingers, in case you didn't know ... and who's 
further broken down and done http://www.lafn.org/~ba213/mapstuff.html , 
rather grudgingly]