[ih] What does Telnet stand for?

[Dave CROCKER]

I remember Jon Postel's being quite insistent that it did not explicitly stand 
for anything.

When guessing, I remember "telephone network" being applied to the acronym, 
since it was replacing the dial-up function that remote terminal access usually 
relied on, in those days.

d/

On 1/11/2010 5:39 AM, Vint Cerf wrote:
> I think "telecommunication network" is probably the term I recall
> associating with the term "TELNET" -
>
> that was because it was used to make it seem as if a "terminal"
> (a fairly dumb device) connected directly to a mainframe computer
> on the ARPANET was actually just connected to a telecom network
> that linked the destination mainframe (host) to the terminal.
> The host to which the terminal directly connected was rendered
> invisible with the aid of the TELNET protocols running in both
> the client host and the server host.
>
> vint
>
>
> On Jan 11, 2010, at 8:14 AM, Matthias Bärwolff wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I found conflicting explanation: In
>> <http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=800103.803338> of 1977 they use
>> "telecommunications network"; however, Oxford proposes "computing
>> teletype network", TCP/IP Protocol Suite by Forouzan uses "terminal
>> network"; and <http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/TELNET> suggests
>> "Network Virtual Terminal Protocol".
>>
>> I briefly checked RFC 15, and 97, neither of which explains the meaning
>> of the term telnet.
>>
>> Thanks for your brief clarifications and suggestions.
>>
>> Matthias/
>>
>> /
>>
>> --
>> Matthias Bärwolff
>> www.bärwolff.de
>>
>
>

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net