[ih] Very early days of the IANA

[Craig Partridge]

Much of it is documented in the RFC series.

Informally, the IANA came into existence around 1972, e.g.
RFC 317 (1972) shows Jon Postel acting as numbers coordinator.
The first "Assigned Numbers" RFC appears to be RFC 717 of July 1976.

As to when this role was renamed "IANA", I don't know.  The first time I
could find refering to an IANA instead of "Jon" or "Joyce" was RFC 1060
(March 1990).  There's a three year gap from RFC 1010 (which still
says "Joyce").

Obviously just a starting point -- my guess is the IANA term developed
pretty early but I have no proof.  When I arrived in 1983 the wisdom was
simply, "ask Joyce or Jon for a number".  But there may well have been
a DARPA (sub)contract entitled "numbers authority".

Thanks!

Craig


> On a website recently I saw a reference to the IANA pre-dating the 
> Domain Name System -- that is, incredibly, that it was created in the 
> early to mid 70s, when of course the DNS arrived in the early 80s 
> following the ARPAnet split, and its original job was numbering and 
> protocols only.
> 
> Does anyone have any material relating to the pre-naming existence of 
> the IANA and its acquisition of naming related functions?
> 
********************
Craig Partridge
Chief Scientist, BBN Technologies
E-mail: craig at aland.bbn.com or craig at bbn.com
Phone: +1 517 324 3425