From jtk at depaul.edu Sat Jun 2 08:10:38 2012 From: jtk at depaul.edu (John Kristoff) Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2012 10:10:38 -0500 Subject: [ih] email at scale In-Reply-To: <4FB1DDED.4060508@redbarn.org> References: <4FB06E9F.6010302@dcrocker.net> <4FB0B796.4090000@redbarn.org> <4FB107A7.4030906@dcrocker.net> <4FB18E54.4080004@redbarn.org> <4FB1CF4C.6040004@dcrocker.net> <4FB1D282.7010609@redbarn.org> <4FB1DAA2.3030203@dcrocker.net> <4FB1DDED.4060508@redbarn.org> Message-ID: <20120602151038.GD19140@aharp.iorc.depaul.edu> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 04:39:09AM +0000, paul vixie wrote: > noting, i'm a happy user of pgp, but i have only 2*10^3 keys in my key > ring, whereas there are 2*10^9 internet users today out of a worldwide > population of 6*10^9. i don't think we're going to get where we need > to go using pgp, nor anything like pgp. Hi Paul, You statement seems to imply a false premise of everyone wanting or even needing to have each end have a key ring of 2*10^9, but I'd like to suggest that need not be the case. We seem to have at least some success, albeit imperfect, with some well known starting point(s) like we have with X.509 certificates and are getting DNSSEC. Just as you have only a few hundred PGP keys, so to do typical HTTPS and DNSSEC ends only need to know about a subset of certificates or keys respectively. Maybe something like PGP just lacks that widely agreed upon and ubiquitous entry point into the web of trust? And maybe we just need to find a compelling way to get that part done. I'm not optimistic it can happen, because too often someone needs to come up with a business plan that will ultimately make someone some money while convincing a large population of users that they should use this technology. Unfortunately convincing people to apply some advanced authentication and crypto to their communications is just doesn't seem as important to the average user as being able to see what their high school acquaintance had for lunch yesterday. John From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 13 12:21:10 2012 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 15:21:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' Message-ID: <20120613192110.20AC918C0EF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> So Network World has a story: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/061212-noam-chomsky-disputes-email-260109.html where Chomsky is saying a student of his invented the term 'email' in 1978. Dunno if this is accurate, but FWIW I checked my collection of IENs and RFCs (admittedly, not complete) and the earliest use I turned up was RFC-1060, from March 1990. Noel From sm at resistor.net Wed Jun 13 13:47:55 2012 From: sm at resistor.net (SM) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:47:55 -0700 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <20120613192110.20AC918C0EF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20120613192110.20AC918C0EF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20120613133719.0a02e990@resistor.net> Hi Noel, At 12:21 13-06-2012, Noel Chiappa wrote: >where Chomsky is saying a student of his invented the term 'email' in >1978. Dunno if this is accurate, but FWIW I checked my collection of IENs and There was a discussion about the "invention" a few months ago ( see http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf-smtp/current/msg00152.html ). The discussion ended at http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf-smtp/current/msg00071.html The "invention" is a copyright of a somputer program for electronic mail system called "EMAIL" ( http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&ti=1,1&Search_Arg=Ayyadurai&Search_Code=NALL&CNT=25&PID=FgMj1TMBIHWxOrn8bBBj7UbwOW7&SEQ=20120220122136&SID=1 ). Regards, -sm From dhc2 at dcrocker.net Wed Jun 13 14:32:58 2012 From: dhc2 at dcrocker.net (Dave Crocker) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 14:32:58 -0700 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20120613133719.0a02e990@resistor.net> References: <20120613192110.20AC918C0EF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <6.2.5.6.2.20120613133719.0a02e990@resistor.net> Message-ID: <4FD9070A.4010807@dcrocker.net> For reference, the word 'invented' is getting bandied about quite a bit on this email history topic. For the moment, I suggest ignoring its use and worrying more about the specific thing being asked. When did the term 'email' first get used? So far, we have no solid data. We have very early use of terms like "electronic mail" and "electronic messaging" but not of the contraction. d/ On 6/13/2012 1:47 PM, SM wrote: > Hi Noel, > At 12:21 13-06-2012, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> where Chomsky is saying a student of his invented the term 'email' in >> 1978. Dunno if this is accurate, but FWIW I checked my collection of >> IENs and > > There was a discussion about the "invention" a few months ago ( see > http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf-smtp/current/msg00152.html ). > The discussion ended at > http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf-smtp/current/msg00071.html The > "invention" is a copyright of a somputer program for electronic mail > system called "EMAIL" ( > http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&ti=1,1&Search_Arg=Ayyadurai&Search_Code=NALL&CNT=25&PID=FgMj1TMBIHWxOrn8bBBj7UbwOW7&SEQ=20120220122136&SID=1 > ). > > Regards, > -sm -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 13 14:43:49 2012 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 17:43:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' Message-ID: <20120613214349.85BA218C0FF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: SM > The "invention" is a copyright of a somputer program for electronic > mail system called "EMAIL" It's pretty obvious to anyone who knows anything that this young man didn't (and couldn't) have invented email (the thing). Any such claims aren't even worth discussing here. But one of the claims that Chomsky is making, in his statement: http://www.inventorofemail.com/noam-chomsky-on-invention-of-email-va-shiva-ayyadurai.asp (which is linked to in the article I forwarded) has to do with the creation of 'email', the term. Chomsky notes: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in modern times, the date of origin of email is 1979 although I don't know what their citation is (I don't have access to the OED). But this young man's work was before 1979, so it's _conceivable_ that he's the source of the term. But it's also conceivable that it was independently re-invented elswhere, and the spread into ubiquitous usage is rooted in such a re-invention, not this young man's invention. And that's what I'm interested in - is there any validity to the claims of origin for the term. (The OED cite would be the place to start, obviously.) Noel From lyndon at orthanc.ca Wed Jun 13 14:59:14 2012 From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 14:59:14 -0700 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <20120613214349.85BA218C0FF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20120613214349.85BA218C0FF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <110C39CA-415A-4E52-AC05-83EA7D59C0F4@orthanc.ca> On 2012-06-13, at 2:43 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > And that's what I'm interested in - is there any validity to the claims of > origin for the term. (The OED cite would be the place to start, obviously.) The OED's earliest citation is: 1979 _Electronics_ 7 June 63 (heading) Postal Service pushes ahead with E-mail. From nigel at channelisles.net Wed Jun 13 15:08:02 2012 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 23:08:02 +0100 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <4FD9070A.4010807@dcrocker.net> References: <20120613192110.20AC918C0EF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <6.2.5.6.2.20120613133719.0a02e990@resistor.net> <4FD9070A.4010807@dcrocker.net> Message-ID: <4FD90F42.6080909@channelisles.net> That's basically the right approach. I basically remember sending my first email, which was to Don Woods (DON at SU-AI) begging for a copy of the FORTRAN source to ADVENT around 1977 or 1978 (He said no!). But I don't remember it being called email. In 1980, working on VAXes and PDP-11s it was called simply 'Mail'. (VAXmail, or MAIL-11). I'm not even sure whether ALL-IN-1 ever referred to it as 'email' (My recollection is that the menu said something overly verbose like "Electronic Mail" but that may be just my viewing it through rose tinted glasses (The whole point about ALL-IN-1 was it was overly verbose!!). N. On 13/06/12 22:32, Dave Crocker wrote: > For reference, the word 'invented' is getting bandied about quite a bit > on this email history topic. For the moment, I suggest ignoring its use > and worrying more about the specific thing being asked. > > When did the term 'email' first get used? So far, we have no solid data. > > We have very early use of terms like "electronic mail" and "electronic > messaging" but not of the contraction. > > d/ > > On 6/13/2012 1:47 PM, SM wrote: >> Hi Noel, >> At 12:21 13-06-2012, Noel Chiappa wrote: >>> where Chomsky is saying a student of his invented the term 'email' in >>> 1978. Dunno if this is accurate, but FWIW I checked my collection of >>> IENs and >> >> There was a discussion about the "invention" a few months ago ( see >> http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf-smtp/current/msg00152.html ). >> The discussion ended at >> http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf-smtp/current/msg00071.html The >> "invention" is a copyright of a somputer program for electronic mail >> system called "EMAIL" ( >> http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&ti=1,1&Search_Arg=Ayyadurai&Search_Code=NALL&CNT=25&PID=FgMj1TMBIHWxOrn8bBBj7UbwOW7&SEQ=20120220122136&SID=1 >> >> ). >> >> Regards, >> -sm > From jpgs at ittc.ku.edu Wed Jun 13 15:09:46 2012 From: jpgs at ittc.ku.edu (James P.G. Sterbenz) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 18:09:46 -0400 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <20120613214349.85BA218C0FF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20120613214349.85BA218C0FF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: On 13 Jun 2012, at 17:43, Noel Chiappa wrote: [snip] > And that's what I'm interested in - is there any validity to the claims of > origin for the term. (The OED cite would be the place to start, obviously.) OK, here are the relevant OED entries, with only the 1979 citation expanded. This does *not* come with permission to put this publicly online, so please do not put it on a Web page without separate permission from Oxford. email, n. Brit. /?i?me?l/ , U.S. /?i?me?l/ Forms: 19? e-mail, 19? email. Also with capital initial(s). Etymology: Short for electronic mail n. Thesaurus ? Categories ? A system for sending textual messages or files to one or more recipients via a computer network (esp. the Internet); a message or messages sent using this system. Also: an email address. 1979 Electronics 7 June 63 (heading) Postal Service pushes ahead with E-mail. 1986 Times 14 Jan. 27/5 The partnership of word processor and e-mail almost eliminate the need for paper. 1997 Independent (Nexis) 4 Mar. 6 Technology can be a ball and chain. Some investment bankers are encouraged to check their voice-mail and e-mail every six hours. 2004 Windows XP Personal Trainer 241/1 Before you break the bank and buy a plane ticket across the country, why not send the pictures via e-mail? 2005 J. Cox Around World in 80 Dates xii. 267 In the morning when I logged on, there'd be an email from him. 2009 T. Hall Something Wiccan xii. 123 We've been emailing since I was thirteen?you gave him my e-mail so I could help with some research he was doing. [citation details for 1979 reference] Electronics ? Apr. 1930?12 July 1984; 17 June 1985?27 Mar. 1995. New York: McGraw-Hill Pub. Co. ISSN: 0013-5070 email, v. Pronunciation: Brit. /?i?me?l/ , U.S. /?i?me?l/ Forms: see email n.2 Etymology: < email n.2, after mail v.5 Computing. Thesaurus ? Categories ? 1. trans. To send (a message or file) by email; to send an email to (a person, organization, etc.). 1983 Computokid in net.micro (Usenet newsgroup) 25 Aug., Young stuff interested in correspondence (via dull old paper mail) might email a letter to me to forward. 1994 Loaded Sept. 111/1 For Sonic Youth we would first e-mail them at serv at cornell.edu. 2002 R. Mistry Family Matters (2003) x. 229 I've drafted a sort of manifesta?I'll email it to you. 2008 J. Armstrong & S. Bain Peep Show (section following p. 276), I've emailed you an mp3 for you to have a listen to. 2. intr. To send an email; (also) to exchange emails, to communicate by email. 1993 UNIX Rev. Mar. 28/3 (advt.) Call, fax or email for a free demo. 2002 Total Guitar Mar. 26/3 Zap The Lizard emailed to say ?It's 8.34am on Christmas Day, and I'm still frazzled from last night's solo gig.? 2005 Apex Sci. Fiction & Horror Digest Autumn 116 A true woman of the twenty-first century, we hadn't emailed for long before I googled him. --------------------------------------------------------------------- James P.G. Sterbenz jpgs@{ittc|eecs}.ku.edu jpgs at comp.lancs.ac.uk www.ittc.ku.edu/~jpgs 154 Nichols ITTC|EECS InfoLab21 Lancaster U +1 508 944 3067 The University of Kansas jpgs at tik.ee.ethz.ch jpgs@{acm|ieee|comsoc|computer|m.ieice}.org jpgsterbenz at gmail.com gplus.to/jpgs www.facebook.com/jpgsterbenz google|skype:jpgsterbenz From randy at psg.com Wed Jun 13 15:36:51 2012 From: randy at psg.com (Randy Bush) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2012 07:36:51 +0900 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <4FD90F42.6080909@channelisles.net> References: <20120613192110.20AC918C0EF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <6.2.5.6.2.20120613133719.0a02e990@resistor.net> <4FD9070A.4010807@dcrocker.net> <4FD90F42.6080909@channelisles.net> Message-ID: 'messages' From craig at aland.bbn.com Wed Jun 13 16:22:26 2012 From: craig at aland.bbn.com (Craig Partridge) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 19:22:26 -0400 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' Message-ID: <20120613232226.8C23628E137@aland.bbn.com> Just adding here. "email" was used in an message to the header people mailing list by Dave Taylor of HP Labs on 8 January 1987. Earliest use of "E-mail" I can find is from Tommy Ericson of QZCOM on 24 May 1985. So clearly the OED needs to be updated. Craig > > On 13 Jun 2012, at 17:43, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > [snip] > > > And that's what I'm interested in - is there any validity to the claims of > > origin for the term. (The OED cite would be the place to start, obviously.) > > OK, here are the relevant OED entries, with only the 1979 citation expanded. > This does *not* come with permission to put this publicly online, so please > do not put it on a Web page without separate permission from Oxford. > > email, n. > Brit. /??i??me??l/ , U.S. /??i??me??l/ > Forms: 19??? e-mail, 19??? email. Also with capital initial(s). > Etymology: Short for electronic mail n. > Thesaurus ?? > Categories ?? > > A system for sending textual messages or files to one or more recipients via > a computer network (esp. the Internet); a message or messages sent using this > system. Also: an email address. > > 1979 Electronics 7 June 63 (heading) Postal Service pushes ahead with E- > mail. > 1986 Times 14 Jan. 27/5 The partnership of word processor and e-mail almo > st eliminate the need for paper. > 1997 Independent (Nexis) 4 Mar. 6 Technology can be a ball and chain. Som > e investment bankers are encouraged to check their voice-mail and e-mail ever > y six hours. > 2004 Windows XP Personal Trainer 241/1 Before you break the bank and buy > a plane ticket across the country, why not send the pictures via e-mail? > 2005 J. Cox Around World in 80 Dates xii. 267 In the morning when I logge > d on, there'd be an email from him. > 2009 T. Hall Something Wiccan xii. 123 We've been emailing since I was th > irteen???you gave him my e-mail so I could help with some research he was doing. > > [citation details for 1979 reference] > Electronics ?? Apr. 1930???12 July 1984; 17 June 1985???27 Mar. 1995. > New York: McGraw-Hill Pub. Co. > ISSN: 0013-5070 > > email, v. > Pronunciation: Brit. /??i??me??l/ , U.S. /??i??me??l/ > Forms: see email n.2 > Etymology: < email n.2, after mail v.5 > Computing. > Thesaurus ?? > Categories ?? > > 1. trans. To send (a message or file) by email; to send an email to (a person > , organization, etc.). > 1983 Computokid in net.micro (Usenet newsgroup) 25 Aug., Young stuff inte > rested in correspondence (via dull old paper mail) might email a letter to me > to forward. > 1994 Loaded Sept. 111/1 For Sonic Youth we would first e-mail them at ser > v at cornell.edu. > 2002 R. Mistry Family Matters (2003) x. 229 I've drafted a sort of manife > sta???I'll email it to you. > 2008 J. Armstrong & S. Bain Peep Show (section following p. 276), I've em > ailed you an mp3 for you to have a listen to. > > 2. intr. To send an email; (also) to exchange emails, to communicate by email > . > 1993 UNIX Rev. Mar. 28/3 (advt.) Call, fax or email for a free demo. > 2002 Total Guitar Mar. 26/3 Zap The Lizard emailed to say ???It's 8.34am on > Christmas Day, and I'm still frazzled from last night's solo gig.??? > 2005 Apex Sci. Fiction & Horror Digest Autumn 116 A true woman of the twe > nty-first century, we hadn't emailed for long before I googled him. > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > James P.G. Sterbenz jpgs@{ittc|eecs}.ku.edu jpgs at comp.lancs.ac.uk > www.ittc.ku.edu/~jpgs 154 Nichols ITTC|EECS InfoLab21 Lancaster U > +1 508 944 3067 The University of Kansas jpgs at tik.ee.ethz.ch > jpgs@{acm|ieee|comsoc|computer|m.ieice}.org jpgsterbenz at gmail.com > gplus.to/jpgs www.facebook.com/jpgsterbenz google|skype:jpgsterbenz > ******************** Craig Partridge Chief Scientist, BBN Technologies E-mail: craig at aland.bbn.com or craig at bbn.com Phone: +1 517 324 3425 From cos at aaaaa.org Wed Jun 13 16:26:43 2012 From: cos at aaaaa.org (Ofer Inbar) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 19:26:43 -0400 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <4FD9070A.4010807@dcrocker.net> References: <20120613192110.20AC918C0EF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <6.2.5.6.2.20120613133719.0a02e990@resistor.net> <4FD9070A.4010807@dcrocker.net> Message-ID: <20120613232643.GN335@mip.aaaaa.org> Dave Crocker wrote: > For reference, the word 'invented' is getting bandied about quite a bit > on this email history topic. For the moment, I suggest ignoring its use > and worrying more about the specific thing being asked. > > When did the term 'email' first get used? So far, we have no solid data. I see several interesting questions here. 1. First, what this thread opened with: how/when was the term email coined? Finding the earliest uses of that word is part of answering that question. However, sometimes "obvious" words get made up independently multiple times, and a more interesting and harder to answer question is, which of those 'coinings' led to the word's later widespread use? What is the lineage of the word as used today, and which coining(s) does it mostly stem from? 2. Separately, though, the tangential question brought up by this alternate claim to "invention" of email itself. Clearly there were already things we'd call "email" by any reasonable meaning of the term, for a number of years before 1978. However, this claim - as detailed at http://www.inventorofemail.com/ - seems to be based on the idea that Ayyadurai's "EMAIL" was an integrated system including all of the features of interoffice memos, and that previous email lacked some of these features. While using this to claim "invention of email" is IMO ridiculous, it still looks like a description of an email system with features not then present in other email software, and some of those features are ubiquitious in email today. Ayyadurai did make something new, even if it wasn't the first something that can be called "email". On this tangent, I think it would be interesting to: a) Identify which features of Ayyadurai's EMAIL which are now common in today's email software, did not exist in other email at the time. b) To what extent was Ayyadurai's EMAIL an actual source of some of those features spreading to the broader world of email? Did they get developed independently later on in other systems, or did some or many of them get brought over from people familiar with Ayyadurai's EMAIL, to other places or systems? -- Cos From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 13 17:07:15 2012 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 20:07:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' Message-ID: <20120614000715.6623C18C109@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Craig Partridge > Earliest use of "E-mail" I can find is from Tommy Ericson of QZCOM on > 24 May 1985. Was that to header-people, or what?a > "email" was used in an message to the header people mailing list by > Dave Taylor of HP Labs on 8 January 1987. > ... > So clearly the OED needs to be updated. They do have rules about 'public use', IIRC. I don't know if 'header-people' would count, for them. Noel From craig at aland.bbn.com Wed Jun 13 17:48:54 2012 From: craig at aland.bbn.com (Craig Partridge) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 20:48:54 -0400 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' Message-ID: <20120614004854.27F5D28E137@aland.bbn.com> > > From: Craig Partridge > > > Earliest use of "E-mail" I can find is from Tommy Ericson of QZCOM on > > 24 May 1985. > > Was that to header-people, or what?a Yep, to header-people. Even have a message ID (106044 at QZCOM) :-) > > "email" was used in an message to the header people mailing list by > > Dave Taylor of HP Labs on 8 January 1987. > > ... > > So clearly the OED needs to be updated. > > They do have rules about 'public use', IIRC. I don't know if 'header-people' > would count, for them. Dunno - a few hundred folks got the note, which presumably counts for something. Craig From mfidelman at meetinghouse.net Wed Jun 13 18:43:49 2012 From: mfidelman at meetinghouse.net (Miles Fidelman) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:43:49 -0400 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <20120614004854.27F5D28E137@aland.bbn.com> References: <20120614004854.27F5D28E137@aland.bbn.com> Message-ID: <4FD941D5.3050202@meetinghouse.net> Just a thought: Does the term "invention" actually apply to coining a term of art? Shiva seems to have: - written a specific piece of software, possibly a nice one for the time and for a 14-year old (might be worth checking into) - copyrighting both the software and the NAME of the software ("EMAIL") (though it's unclear whether he claims copyright or trademark over "EMAIL") I'm not sure there's anything controversial in these (assuming his was the first use of "EMAIL" as a product name) But... he seems to be claiming "intellectual ownership" of: - email as a term of art (to which "coining," not "invention," would apply, if he'd actually done so, which does not seem to be the case) - origination/invention of a whole slew of technical concepts that we think of as email (which he manifestly did not, as those of us here well know) Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 13 20:02:34 2012 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 23:02:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' Message-ID: <20120614030234.9711C18C113@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Craig Partridge >> They do have rules about 'public use', IIRC. I don't know if >> 'header-people' would count, for them. > Dunno - a few hundred folks got the note, which presumably counts for > something. That might do it, actually - some early books would have had press runs smaller than that. And I see that for the recent update, they're also using wills, which although they are public, were not 'publicly distributed' in the classic sense. Noel From dot at dotat.at Thu Jun 14 11:16:12 2012 From: dot at dotat.at (Tony Finch) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2012 19:16:12 +0100 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <20120613232226.8C23628E137@aland.bbn.com> References: <20120613232226.8C23628E137@aland.bbn.com> Message-ID: Craig Partridge wrote: > > Earliest use of "E-mail" I can find is from Tommy Ericson of QZCOM on > 24 May 1985. Not quite that old, but the earliest use of anything like email that I found in the RFC series is RFC 977, which quotes a USENET message dated 25 September 1985 from Man Wong who signs off "Please reply by E-mail. Thanks in advance." Tony. -- f.anthony.n.finch http://dotat.at/ Southeast Biscay: Variable 3, becoming southeasterly 4 or 5 later. Slight or moderate, occasionally rough later. Occasional rain. Moderate or good. From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jun 18 14:23:11 2012 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 17:23:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' Message-ID: <20120618212311.D35EB18C1BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Another correspondent sent in the following data: Oh, a Google Groups search produces a 19 May 1981 use of "EMAIL" in the context of discussing CompuServe -- https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!topic/fa.human-nets/1ZZF2m_S_zs Noel From eric.gade at gmail.com Mon Jun 18 16:50:21 2012 From: eric.gade at gmail.com (Eric Gade) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 00:50:21 +0100 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <20120618212311.D35EB18C1BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20120618212311.D35EB18C1BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: Hi. It seems that Network World is asking the wrong question, from a historian's perspective. It doesn't matter when the specific term 'email' was coined. What matters is the evolution of electronic mail, a topic on which Craig Partridge has written an excellent history for the transactions of the ACM (I think). Anyone have a link? On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 10:23 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > Another correspondent sent in the following data: > > Oh, a Google Groups search produces a 19 May 1981 use of "EMAIL" in > the context of discussing CompuServe -- > > https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!topic/fa.human-nets/1ZZF2m_S_zs > > Noel > -- Eric G -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jun 18 17:14:38 2012 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 20:14:38 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' Message-ID: <20120619001438.A572E18C0EA@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Eric Gade > It seems that Network World is asking the wrong question, from a > historian's perspective. It doesn't matter when the specific term > 'email' was coined. What matters is the evolution of electronic mail Right, but we already know pretty much all about that (some people here actually did some of it). The question of 'where the term came from' is thus really the only open question. Noel From galmes at tamu.edu Mon Jun 18 17:42:13 2012 From: galmes at tamu.edu (Guy Almes) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 19:42:13 -0500 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <20120619001438.A572E18C0EA@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20120619001438.A572E18C0EA@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <4FDFCAE5.2070309@tamu.edu> Noel, I agree. If you'd asked me, I'd have said I'd been using email since the mid-70s (grad school days at CMU-CS), but it might have taken several years for the term to develop. -- Guy On 6/18/12 7:14 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Eric Gade > > > It seems that Network World is asking the wrong question, from a > > historian's perspective. It doesn't matter when the specific term > > 'email' was coined. What matters is the evolution of electronic mail > > Right, but we already know pretty much all about that (some people here > actually did some of it). The question of 'where the term came from' is thus > really the only open question. > > Noel > From eric.gade at gmail.com Mon Jun 18 17:49:42 2012 From: eric.gade at gmail.com (Eric Gade) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 01:49:42 +0100 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <4FDFCAE5.2070309@tamu.edu> References: <20120619001438.A572E18C0EA@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <4FDFCAE5.2070309@tamu.edu> Message-ID: Coming from someone who wasn't alive at the time, I think it's a quite natural thing to shorten these kinds of terms in colloquial English. For example, basketball phenom Dwayne Wade is affectionately referred to as D-Wade. So I can imagine (much like someone suggested earlier) that there were multiple instances of the term being coined. On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 1:42 AM, Guy Almes wrote: > Noel, > I agree. If you'd asked me, I'd have said I'd been using email since the > mid-70s (grad school days at CMU-CS), but it might have taken several years > for the term to develop. > -- Guy > > > On 6/18/12 7:14 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > >> > From: Eric Gade >> >> > It seems that Network World is asking the wrong question, from a >> > historian's perspective. It doesn't matter when the specific term >> > 'email' was coined. What matters is the evolution of electronic >> mail >> >> Right, but we already know pretty much all about that (some people here >> actually did some of it). The question of 'where the term came from' is >> thus >> really the only open question. >> >> Noel >> >> -- Eric -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jeanjour at comcast.net Mon Jun 18 19:01:55 2012 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 22:01:55 -0400 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <4FDFCAE5.2070309@tamu.edu> References: <20120619001438.A572E18C0EA@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <4FDFCAE5.2070309@tamu.edu> Message-ID: No, I am pretty sure that very soon after we had email running, we were using the term email. I know by the time I moved to Houston in '76 and was working at Illinois and commuting over the Net, I use to speak of "living on email." We were using it before that. Even that quote from Electronics that the OED cites, indicates the term must have been use for some time to show up in a mainstream tech magazine like that. (I have see this before. (bear with me on this) I used the word "druthers" once, as in What's your druthers?" A southern or rural contraction of "I'd rather" to mean "what is your preference?" Called on it, I checked the OED. The OED says the first use is something like 1885, Mark Twain. Now you *know* it was in use for decades before that and Twain was just writing down how people talked, but no one writing in a newspaper or other outlet would have used it in print. It wasn't "proper English." ) Now email isn't in that category, but you get the idea. We were using it for a long time before it would have showed up in print. With the ubiquity of the Internet today, it is hard for most people and even those of us who were in it to remember how small that group of people was. The fact that its use didn't reach the OED scouts is not surprising. Think how much text generated in the 70s that never got archived on paper but on 7-track reels of tape that are no longer readable and lost. Or was archived on paper is sitting boxes in our basements and attics unavailable to the OED! ;-) Aren't all programmers pack rats! ;-) John At 19:42 -0500 2012/06/18, Guy Almes wrote: >Noel, > I agree. If you'd asked me, I'd have said I'd been using email >since the mid-70s (grad school days at CMU-CS), but it might have >taken several years for the term to develop. > -- Guy > >On 6/18/12 7:14 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> > From: Eric Gade >> >> > It seems that Network World is asking the wrong question, from a >> > historian's perspective. It doesn't matter when the specific term >> > 'email' was coined. What matters is the evolution of electronic mail >> >>Right, but we already know pretty much all about that (some people here >>actually did some of it). The question of 'where the term came from' is thus >>really the only open question. >> >> Noel From craig at aland.bbn.com Tue Jun 19 04:13:03 2012 From: craig at aland.bbn.com (Craig Partridge) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 07:13:03 -0400 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: References: <20120618212311.D35EB18C1BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <57F5F731-1847-4CDB-9379-53509EB3DF08@aland.bbn.com> On Jun 18, 2012, at 7:50 PM, Eric Gade wrote: > Hi. > > It seems that Network World is asking the wrong question, from a historian's perspective. It doesn't matter when the specific term 'email' was coined. What matters is the evolution of electronic mail, a topic on which Craig Partridge has written an excellent history for the transactions of the ACM (I think). Anyone have a link? http://www.ir.bbn.com/~craig/email.pdf Craig From mfidelman at meetinghouse.net Tue Jun 19 06:05:22 2012 From: mfidelman at meetinghouse.net (Miles Fidelman) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 09:05:22 -0400 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <57F5F731-1847-4CDB-9379-53509EB3DF08@aland.bbn.com> References: <20120618212311.D35EB18C1BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <57F5F731-1847-4CDB-9379-53509EB3DF08@aland.bbn.com> Message-ID: <4FE07912.40306@meetinghouse.net> Craig Partridge wrote: > On Jun 18, 2012, at 7:50 PM, Eric Gade wrote: > >> Hi. >> >> It seems that Network World is asking the wrong question, from a historian's perspective. It doesn't matter when the specific term 'email' was coined. What matters is the evolution of electronic mail, a topic on which Craig Partridge has written an excellent history for the transactions of the ACM (I think). Anyone have a link? > http://www.ir.bbn.com/~craig/email.pdf Craig... nice piece! Don't think I've seen it before. And perhaps it illustrates what's most irksome about this whole brouhaha with Shiva A. -- the folks who were REALLY involved in email know that it has many contributors. Shiva, with cooperation from the press, is pushing the lone inventor story, with a wronged inventor - plays well in the media, but so far from the truth. Sigh... -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra From dhc2 at dcrocker.net Tue Jun 19 06:56:21 2012 From: dhc2 at dcrocker.net (Dave Crocker) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 06:56:21 -0700 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <20120618212311.D35EB18C1BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20120618212311.D35EB18C1BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <4FE08505.8040504@dcrocker.net> > Oh, a Google Groups search produces a 19 May 1981 use of "EMAIL" in > the context of discussing CompuServe -- > https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!topic/fa.human-nets/1ZZF2m_S_zs It strikes me that that message uses the word in a way that looks already-established. That is, it doesn't look like someone coining a term and floating it for people's reactions. Rather it looks like it's used as if it had been getting used for awhile. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net From dhc2 at dcrocker.net Tue Jun 19 06:57:27 2012 From: dhc2 at dcrocker.net (Dave Crocker) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 06:57:27 -0700 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: References: <20120618212311.D35EB18C1BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <4FE08547.70004@dcrocker.net> On 6/18/2012 4:50 PM, Eric Gade wrote: > It seems that Network World is asking the wrong question, from a > historian's perspective. It doesn't matter when the specific term > 'email' was coined. What matters is the evolution of electronic mail, a > topic on which Craig Partridge has written an excellent history for the > transactions of the ACM (I think). Anyone have a link? That, and other nifty links, are provided at emailhistory.org. There's also a mailing list for extended discussion of email history. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net From dhc2 at dcrocker.net Tue Jun 19 07:01:47 2012 From: dhc2 at dcrocker.net (Dave Crocker) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 07:01:47 -0700 Subject: [ih] Invention of term 'email' In-Reply-To: <4FDFCAE5.2070309@tamu.edu> References: <20120619001438.A572E18C0EA@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <4FDFCAE5.2070309@tamu.edu> Message-ID: <4FE0864B.9030604@dcrocker.net> > I agree. If you'd asked me, I'd have said I'd been using email since > the mid-70s (grad school days at CMU-CS), but it might have taken > several years for the term to develop. Ayyardurai and his colleagues have re-defined the word to suit them, and they are conducting a professionally organized public relations campaign with the media naming him as the inventor of it. From the articles and interviews concerning Ayyurdai, it's pretty clear that the precept that none of us has really been using email has not been striking media folk as patently silly. d/ ps. i tossed in 'patently' to contrast with his copyrighting his code. -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net From esuarez at fcaglp.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar Wed Jun 20 21:07:09 2012 From: esuarez at fcaglp.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar (Eduardo A. =?iso-8859-1?b?U3XhcmV6?=) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 01:07:09 -0300 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? Message-ID: <20120621010709.9abc61geocgwk00s@fcaglp.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar> Hello, I want to know if anyone remembers the origins of FTP and the reason why FTP uses two ports. Thanks, Eduardo.- -- Eduardo A. Suarez Facultad de Ciencias Astron?micas y Geof?sicas - UNLP FCAG: (0221)-4236593 int. 172/Cel: (0221)-15-4557542/Casa: (0221)-4526589 ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From louie at transsys.com Wed Jun 20 21:33:07 2012 From: louie at transsys.com (Louis A. Mamakos) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 00:33:07 -0400 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? In-Reply-To: <20120621010709.9abc61geocgwk00s@fcaglp.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar> References: <20120621010709.9abc61geocgwk00s@fcaglp.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar> Message-ID: <599AAF9A-AAB5-446B-86C7-AE96DCBE520F@transsys.com> On Jun 21, 2012, at 12:07 AM, Eduardo A. Su?rez wrote: > Hello, > > I want to know if anyone remembers the origins of FTP and the reason why FTP uses two ports. You can perform 3rd party file transfers, with one client orchestrating the transfer between two different servers. > > Thanks, Eduardo.- > > -- > Eduardo A. Suarez > Facultad de Ciencias Astron?micas y Geof?sicas - UNLP > FCAG: (0221)-4236593 int. 172/Cel: (0221)-15-4557542/Casa: (0221)-4526589 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. Ha! Back in the day, IMP was a very different thing.. Louis Mamakos From jeanjour at comcast.net Thu Jun 21 03:51:08 2012 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 06:51:08 -0400 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? In-Reply-To: <599AAF9A-AAB5-446B-86C7-AE96DCBE520F@transsys.com> References: <20120621010709.9abc61geocgwk00s@fcaglp.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar> <599AAF9A-AAB5-446B-86C7-AE96DCBE520F@transsys.com> Message-ID: The primary reason for using two ports was so that FTP commands didn't get stuck behind the data transfer. Things could be a lot slower in those days and a fair amount could be buffered. If one started a transfer and then wanted to abort it, the command would get there and be acted on rather than wait behind the data transfer which might have queued quite a lot. Secondarily, it enabled 3rd party transfers. Third, on the TIPs, you were the FTP user process. You were typing the commands and getting the replies. (This is why FTP commands are text and why FTP uses Telnet and why FTP replies have a number (for a program to act on) and an arbitrary string of text for the human to see.) The TIP could hardwire sockets to a printer or card reader so that the file would go to the printer and the user could still type commands. BTW, I know that many textbooks and well-known professors describe Telnet as a remote login protocol. It isn't. It is a terminal device driver protocol. This is why this class of protocols use to be called virtual terminal protocols. Remote log in is one application built using Telnet. Telnet was also used in FTP, RJE, CCNRJE, and SMTP. Take care, John At 0:33 -0400 2012/06/21, Louis A. Mamakos wrote: >On Jun 21, 2012, at 12:07 AM, Eduardo A. Su?rez wrote: > >> Hello, >> >> I want to know if anyone remembers the origins >>of FTP and the reason why FTP uses two ports. > >You can perform 3rd party file transfers, with >one client orchestrating the transfer between two >different servers. > >> >> Thanks, Eduardo.- >> >> -- >> Eduardo A. Suarez >> Facultad de Ciencias Astron?micas y Geof?sicas - UNLP >> FCAG: (0221)-4236593 int. 172/Cel: (0221)-15-4557542/Casa: (0221)-4526589 >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------- >> This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > >Ha! Back in the day, IMP was a very different thing.. > >Louis Mamakos From louie at transsys.com Thu Jun 21 06:24:30 2012 From: louie at transsys.com (Louis Mamakos) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 09:24:30 -0400 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? In-Reply-To: References: <20120621010709.9abc61geocgwk00s@fcaglp.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar> <599AAF9A-AAB5-446B-86C7-AE96DCBE520F@transsys.com> Message-ID: <390E6747-797F-4B31-85DF-ACE818DDE60B@transsys.com> On Jun 21, 2012, at 6:51 AM, John Day wrote: > > > BTW, I know that many textbooks and well-known > professors describe Telnet as a remote login > protocol. It isn't. It is a terminal device > driver protocol. This is why this class of > protocols use to be called virtual terminal > protocols. Remote log in is one application > built using Telnet. Telnet was also used in FTP, > RJE, CCNRJE, and SMTP. > > Take care, > John Strictly speaking, at least SMTP did not use the TELNET protocol, as FTP did for it's control connection. I recall implemented IAC escaping when I built my FTP server's control connection handling. I don't know about RJE, CONRJE personally. Louis Mamakos From jeanjour at comcast.net Thu Jun 21 06:48:28 2012 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 09:48:28 -0400 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? In-Reply-To: <390E6747-797F-4B31-85DF-ACE818DDE60B@transsys.com> References: <20120621010709.9abc61geocgwk00s@fcaglp.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar> <599AAF9A-AAB5-446B-86C7-AE96DCBE520F@transsys.com> <390E6747-797F-4B31-85DF-ACE818DDE60B@transsys.com> Message-ID: I was wondering about that when I wrote it. I guess by the time SMTP was extracted from FTP, the TIPs were mainly gone or TIPServ was in use and there were only programs using it. There was nothing in FTP that assumes Telnet either. It was CCNRJE, Campus Computing Network at UCLA, authored by Bob Braden for the 360/91. The two RJEs definitely did. Take care, John At 9:24 -0400 2012/06/21, Louis Mamakos wrote: >On Jun 21, 2012, at 6:51 AM, John Day wrote: >> >> >> BTW, I know that many textbooks and well-known >> professors describe Telnet as a remote login >> protocol. It isn't. It is a terminal device >> driver protocol. This is why this class of >> protocols use to be called virtual terminal >> protocols. Remote log in is one application >> built using Telnet. Telnet was also used in FTP, >> RJE, CCNRJE, and SMTP. >> >> Take care, >> John > >Strictly speaking, at least SMTP did not use the >TELNET protocol, as FTP did for it's control connection. I >recall implemented IAC escaping when I built my FTP server's >control connection handling. I don't know about RJE, >CONRJE personally. > >Louis Mamakos From dhc2 at dcrocker.net Thu Jun 21 07:04:53 2012 From: dhc2 at dcrocker.net (Dave Crocker) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 07:04:53 -0700 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? In-Reply-To: <599AAF9A-AAB5-446B-86C7-AE96DCBE520F@transsys.com> References: <20120621010709.9abc61geocgwk00s@fcaglp.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar> <599AAF9A-AAB5-446B-86C7-AE96DCBE520F@transsys.com> Message-ID: <4FE32A05.5090208@dcrocker.net> On 6/20/2012 9:33 PM, Louis A. Mamakos wrote: >> I want to know if anyone remembers the origins of FTP and the reason why FTP uses two ports. > > You can perform 3rd party file transfers, with one client orchestrating the transfer between two > different servers. It also allows "pure" binary exchanges. Doing the transfer inline with the command channel requires an escape mechanism to get back to command mode. This was back in the days when character-level processing, for this, was deemed expensive. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jun 21 07:20:42 2012 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:20:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? Message-ID: <20120621142042.3E91C18C115@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> I have this bit vaguely set that NCP sockets were unidirectional, whereas TCP ports are bidirectional. Was that a factor at all (if my memory of how things worked is even true :-)? Noel From dhc2 at dcrocker.net Thu Jun 21 08:08:24 2012 From: dhc2 at dcrocker.net (Dave Crocker) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 08:08:24 -0700 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? In-Reply-To: <20120621142042.3E91C18C115@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20120621142042.3E91C18C115@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <4FE338E8.7020501@dcrocker.net> On 6/21/2012 7:20 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > I have this bit vaguely set that NCP sockets were unidirectional, whereas TCP > ports are bidirectional. Was that a factor at all (if my memory of how things > worked is even true :-)? i was just getting started then, but my impression was that it was /not/. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net From jeanjour at comcast.net Thu Jun 21 08:32:31 2012 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:32:31 -0400 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? In-Reply-To: <20120621142042.3E91C18C115@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20120621142042.3E91C18C115@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: They were unidirectional. But I don't remember that had anything to do with it. It did mean you only had to open a data connection in one direction. The only thing the limitation on sockets required was the use of ICP, the Initial Connection Protocol. But it really was so that you could send commands during a transfer and they wouldn't get queued up behind a lot of the file transfer, AND that it had to be usable by the TIPs, which did not have a file system. And as Dave said, the data connection could be binary. It could take awhile to drain a pipe in those days. There were some FTPs done early that only did one full duplex connection. I think the UK protocol was like that. But I don't remember how they handled the abort situation. John At 10:20 -0400 2012/06/21, Noel Chiappa wrote: >I have this bit vaguely set that NCP sockets were unidirectional, whereas TCP >ports are bidirectional. Was that a factor at all (if my memory of how things >worked is even true :-)? > > Noel From jack at 3kitty.org Thu Jun 21 10:03:49 2012 From: jack at 3kitty.org (Jack Haverty) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:03:49 -0700 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? In-Reply-To: References: <20120621142042.3E91C18C115@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: My recollection is the same. Two ports allowed more powerful features such as 3rd-party transfers, but the primary motivation was the separation of control messages from the data streams. Just FYI, this issue resurfaced in the late 70s when TCP/IP was being fleshed out. I recall lots of discussions in the working group meetings, 1978 time frame, when TCP was evolving through TCP 2.0, 2.5, 2.5+ Epsilon, etc. There was a discussion about whether to use "in-band" or "out-of-band" signaling - i e., whether to separate control exchanges from data exchanges (as FTP did in the Arpanet), or to embed control and data in the same byte-stream. The decision was made to adopt the in-band approach. There were then a lot of details to work out, especially with respect to the "Urgent Pointer" mechanism of TCP. While it was straightforward to define the details of Urgent in the TCP protocol, it was much less clear how the programs at either end of the connection should behave. E. G., when you are notified that there is urgent data further downstream, but your own buffers are full, what do you do - discard everything until you get the urgent data? The basic tradeoff here was complexity. Out-of-band was a more powerful mechanism, but required more code as well as dealing with nasty synchronization issues. Since many of us had already tackled some of those problems in projects using the Arpanet (using FTP or RJE for example) , we understood the pain. TCP could have been structured to utilize out-of-band connections for control information, similar to FTP. But the decision was for the simpler in-band approach. I'm still not sure that was a good idea. It was easier to implement and required less memory for those of us doing the early TCP implementations. Since DARPA was chartered to try new things, this decision may have been one of those - try a new approach instead of just copying from older work. I wonder if any upper-layer programs (FTP, Web, whatever) actually use the Urgent mechanism in TCP. /Jack (at the time implementing the first TCP for Unix on a PDP-11/40) On Jun 21, 2012 8:32 AM, "John Day" wrote: > They were unidirectional. But I don't remember that had anything to do > with it. It did mean you only had to open a data connection in one > direction. The only thing the limitation on sockets required was the use > of ICP, the Initial Connection Protocol. > > But it really was so that you could send commands during a transfer and > they wouldn't get queued up behind a lot of the file transfer, AND that it > had to be usable by the TIPs, which did not have a file system. And as > Dave said, the data connection could be binary. It could take awhile to > drain a pipe in those days. > > There were some FTPs done early that only did one full duplex connection. > I think the UK protocol was like that. But I don't remember how they > handled the abort situation. > > John > > > At 10:20 -0400 2012/06/21, Noel Chiappa wrote: > >> I have this bit vaguely set that NCP sockets were unidirectional, whereas >> TCP >> ports are bidirectional. Was that a factor at all (if my memory of how >> things >> worked is even true :-)? >> >> Noel >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jeanjour at comcast.net Thu Jun 21 10:19:09 2012 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:19:09 -0400 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? In-Reply-To: References: <20120621142042.3E91C18C115@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: While related, these are really two very different things. The Urgent or Expedited message that appeared in many transport protocols of that periods was suppose to be quite limited. Sending a very small amount of data 8 or 16 bytes "out of band" and no more. Some proposals did it purely as "head of queue" and an ack was required more as flow control than acknowledgement. The imagined use of it was getting that desperately needed control-C to the other end and acted on as soon as possible. ;-) The separation of control and data in transport protocols is more concerned with separating data transfer mechanisms that do not require strong synchronization from the feedback mechanisms that do. Take care, John Day At 10:03 -0700 2012/06/21, Jack Haverty wrote: >My recollection is the same. Two ports allowed more powerful >features such as 3rd-party transfers, but the primary motivation >was the separation of control messages from the data streams. > >Just FYI, this issue resurfaced in the late 70s when TCP/IP was >being fleshed out. I recall lots of discussions in the working >group meetings, 1978 time frame, when TCP was evolving through TCP >2.0, 2.5, 2.5+ Epsilon, etc. > >There was a discussion about whether to use "in-band" or >"out-of-band" signaling - i e., whether to separate control >exchanges from data exchanges (as FTP did in the Arpanet), or to >embed control and data in the same byte-stream. > >The decision was made to adopt the in-band approach. There were >then a lot of details to work out, especially with respect to the >"Urgent Pointer" mechanism of TCP. While it was straightforward >to define the details of Urgent in the TCP protocol, it was much >less clear how the programs at either end of the connection should >behave. E. G., when you are notified that there is urgent data >further downstream, but your own buffers are full, what do you do >- discard everything until you get the urgent data? > >The basic tradeoff here was complexity. Out-of-band was a more >powerful mechanism, but required more code as well as dealing with >nasty synchronization issues. Since many of us had already tackled >some of those problems in projects using the Arpanet (using FTP or >RJE for example) , we understood the pain. > >TCP could have been structured to utilize out-of-band connections >for control information, similar to FTP. But the decision was for >the simpler in-band approach. I'm still not sure that was a good >idea. It was easier to implement and required less memory for >those of us doing the early TCP implementations. Since DARPA was >chartered to try new things, this decision may have been one of >those - try a new approach instead of just copying from older work. > >I wonder if any upper-layer programs (FTP, Web, whatever) >actually use the Urgent mechanism in TCP. > >/Jack >(at the time implementing the first TCP for Unix on a PDP-11/40) > >On Jun 21, 2012 8:32 AM, "John Day" ><jeanjour at comcast.net> wrote: > >They were unidirectional. But I don't remember that had anything to >do with it. It did mean you only had to open a data connection in >one direction. The only thing the limitation on sockets required >was the use of ICP, the Initial Connection Protocol. > >But it really was so that you could send commands during a transfer >and they wouldn't get queued up behind a lot of the file transfer, >AND that it had to be usable by the TIPs, which did not have a file >system. And as Dave said, the data connection could be binary. It >could take awhile to drain a pipe in those days. > >There were some FTPs done early that only did one full duplex >connection. I think the UK protocol was like that. But I don't >remember how they handled the abort situation. > >John > > >At 10:20 -0400 2012/06/21, Noel Chiappa wrote: > >I have this bit vaguely set that NCP sockets were unidirectional, whereas TCP >ports are bidirectional. Was that a factor at all (if my memory of how things >worked is even true :-)? > > Noel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bernie at fantasyfarm.com Thu Jun 21 10:29:24 2012 From: bernie at fantasyfarm.com (Bernie Cosell) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:29:24 -0400 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? In-Reply-To: References: <20120621142042.3E91C18C115@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>, , Message-ID: <4FE359F4.22649.2578171D@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> On 21 Jun 2012 at 10:03, Jack Haverty wrote: > The decision was made to adopt the in-band approach. There were then a > lot of details to work out, especially with respect to the "Urgent > Pointer" mechanism of TCP. While it was straightforward to define the > details of Urgent in the TCP protocol, it was much less clear how the > programs at either end of the connection should behave. E. G., when > you are notified that there is urgent data further downstream, but your > own buffers are full, what do you do - discard everything until you get > the urgent data? Off topic, but wasn't there a mechanism like this in telnet? I don't remember the details any more but I thought there was a way to tell the reciver "I've put a datamark in the data stream, throw everything away until you get to it". I recall working with Bob Clements [I think] to get that to work between the TIP to TENEX [so if you hit control-C it'd dump the other input you'd "typed ahead"] /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From jeanjour at comcast.net Thu Jun 21 10:56:18 2012 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:56:18 -0400 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? In-Reply-To: <4FE359F4.22649.2578171D@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> References: <20120621142042.3E91C18C115@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>, , <4FE359F4.22649.2578171D@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> Message-ID: Yes, this is what the Urgent was for in TCP to signal that. Just having it in Telnet wouldn't get there any sooner, it required a mechanism in the protocol that carried Telnet. At 13:29 -0400 2012/06/21, Bernie Cosell wrote: >On 21 Jun 2012 at 10:03, Jack Haverty wrote: > >> The decision was made to adopt the in-band approach. There were then a >> lot of details to work out, especially with respect to the "Urgent >> Pointer" mechanism of TCP. While it was straightforward to define the >> details of Urgent in the TCP protocol, it was much less clear how the >> programs at either end of the connection should behave. E. G., when >> you are notified that there is urgent data further downstream, but your >> own buffers are full, what do you do - discard everything until you get >> the urgent data? > >Off topic, but wasn't there a mechanism like this in telnet? I don't >remember the details any more but I thought there was a way to tell the >reciver "I've put a datamark in the data stream, throw everything away >until you get to it". I recall working with Bob Clements [I think] to >get that to work between the TIP to TENEX [so if you hit control-C it'd >dump the other input you'd "typed ahead"] > > /Bernie\ > >-- >Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers >mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA > --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From jtk at depaul.edu Sat Jun 30 06:49:01 2012 From: jtk at depaul.edu (John Kristoff) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 08:49:01 -0500 Subject: [ih] Why FTP uses two ports? In-Reply-To: <20120621010709.9abc61geocgwk00s@fcaglp.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar> References: <20120621010709.9abc61geocgwk00s@fcaglp.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar> Message-ID: <20120630134901.GV661@aharp.iorc.depaul.edu> On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 01:07:09AM -0300, Eduardo A. Su?rez wrote: > I want to know if anyone remembers the origins of FTP and the reason > why FTP uses two ports. I asked a related question about a decade ago. The thread that resulted may be interesting to review. John From braden at isi.edu Sat Jun 30 14:46:56 2012 From: braden at isi.edu (Bob Braden) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 14:46:56 -0700 Subject: [ih] FTP Design Message-ID: <4FEF73D0.6000700@isi.edu> John Day wrote: > Actually, I believe that Telnet and FTP got an uncommon number of > things right. I think the idea of having replies that were both > machine and human readable was brilliant. I forget who came up with > it but I think it was Postel and a couple of others. I believe the reply convention was pure Postel. Bob Braden From jeanjour at comcast.net Sat Jun 30 15:10:35 2012 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 18:10:35 -0400 Subject: [ih] FTP Design In-Reply-To: <4FEF73D0.6000700@isi.edu> References: <4FEF73D0.6000700@isi.edu> Message-ID: That would figure. Who came up with the symmetrical Telnet design? I remember Alex wrote it up after the meeting (or at least Grossman told me Alex was writing it up), but when I "blamed" him for it ;-), he wouldn't take the credit. When you can bring symmetry to a problem that everyone else thought was asymmetrical, it is truly inspired. Too bad we haven't seen more of those over the last couple of decades. John At 14:46 -0700 2012/06/30, Bob Braden wrote: >John Day wrote: > >> Actually, I believe that Telnet and FTP got an uncommon number of >> things right. I think the idea of having replies that were both >> machine and human readable was brilliant. I forget who came up with >> it but I think it was Postel and a couple of others. > >I believe the reply convention was pure Postel. > >Bob Braden From bernie at fantasyfarm.com Sat Jun 30 15:49:58 2012 From: bernie at fantasyfarm.com (Bernie Cosell) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 18:49:58 -0400 Subject: [ih] FTP Design In-Reply-To: References: <4FEF73D0.6000700@isi.edu>, Message-ID: <4FEF8296.20881.54F695C7@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> On 30 Jun 2012 at 18:10, John Day wrote: > Who came up with the symmetrical Telnet design? I remember Alex > wrote it up after the meeting (or at least Grossman told me Alex was > writing it up), but when I "blamed" him for it ;-), he wouldn't take > the credit. Well, I probably mostly did that. I did the will/wont/do/dont stuff on the airplane as Walden and I were flying out to some meeting [at UCLA, I think] where we addressed telnet. It was clear from my work with the TIP [I was the TIP czar at the time] that the asymmetry in the protocol was just not right. What I was thinking about was host<->host connections where there was really no point in having one end be the 'server' and the other be the 'client'. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From vint at google.com Sat Jun 30 16:23:35 2012 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 19:23:35 -0400 Subject: [ih] FTP Design In-Reply-To: <4FEF8296.20881.54F695C7@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> References: <4FEF73D0.6000700@isi.edu> <4FEF8296.20881.54F695C7@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> Message-ID: tcp was designed the way it was for the same reason: symmetry between hosts. v On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 6:49 PM, Bernie Cosell wrote: > On 30 Jun 2012 at 18:10, John Day wrote: > >> Who came up with the symmetrical Telnet design? ?I remember Alex >> wrote it up after the meeting (or at least Grossman told me Alex was >> writing it up), but when I "blamed" him for it ;-), he wouldn't take >> the credit. > > Well, I probably mostly did that. ?I did the will/wont/do/dont stuff on > the airplane as Walden and I were flying out to some meeting [at UCLA, I > think] where we addressed telnet. > > It was clear from my work with the TIP [I was the TIP czar at the time] > that the asymmetry in the protocol was just not right. ?What I was > thinking about was host<->host connections where there was really no > point in having one end be the 'server' and the other be the 'client'. > > ? /Bernie\ > > -- > Bernie Cosell ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Fantasy Farm Fibers > mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com ? ? Pearisburg, VA > ? ? --> ?Too many people, too few sheep ?<-- > > > From dhc2 at dcrocker.net Sat Jun 30 17:50:16 2012 From: dhc2 at dcrocker.net (Dave Crocker) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 17:50:16 -0700 Subject: [ih] FTP Design In-Reply-To: <4FEF73D0.6000700@isi.edu> References: <4FEF73D0.6000700@isi.edu> Message-ID: <4FEF9EC8.9070807@dcrocker.net> On 6/30/2012 2:46 PM, Bob Braden wrote: > John Day wrote: > >> Actually, I believe that Telnet and FTP got an uncommon number of +1 >> things right. I think the idea of having replies that were both >> machine and human readable was brilliant. I forget who came up with >> it but I think it was Postel and a couple of others. What I recall being told was that the textual basis was a) for debugging and b) to permit human conduct of protocol sessions from TIPs, or the like. The former was the real win., > tcp was designed the way it was for the same reason: symmetry between hosts. There's no question in my mind that this is correct, but I should note that it can have some downsides. While I was managing the engineering work at Wollongong, we had a site visit from a government type wanting to qualify us for a contract. We stepped through the various tests just fine until he asked us to show that the server could send a DO ECHO telnet command to the client. We explained that that wasn't what it was intended for and he pointed to the telnet spec citing complete symmetry. He acknowledged that this wasn't useful for this option but specs are specs... (We hacked the code to pass the test.) So the rule for symmetry needs to be thoughtfully applied. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net From jeanjour at comcast.net Sat Jun 30 19:43:56 2012 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 22:43:56 -0400 Subject: [ih] FTP Design In-Reply-To: <4FEF8296.20881.54F695C7@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> References: <4FEF73D0.6000700@isi.edu>, <4FEF8296.20881.54F695C7@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> Message-ID: That clears that up. And as Bob suggested, did it hit you all at once? I wouldn't be surprised these things often do. Did you also come up with the NVT? Could you expound on it a bit more? This is a stroke of brilliance. It would be nice to know how it came about. It deserves to be better known. I still teach Telnet even though it is no longer in the textbooks. I tell the students that I do it not because they need to know how Telnet works. But it is an elegant solution to a problem that no one else saw. and they may find an analogous situation someday. And because too many "brilliant" CS professors and textbook authors these days refer to it as a remote login protocol, when it was no such thing. I want the students to know that while the current crop of professors may not have much imagination, others did. John At 18:49 -0400 2012/06/30, Bernie Cosell wrote: >On 30 Jun 2012 at 18:10, John Day wrote: > >> Who came up with the symmetrical Telnet design? I remember Alex >> wrote it up after the meeting (or at least Grossman told me Alex was >> writing it up), but when I "blamed" him for it ;-), he wouldn't take >> the credit. > >Well, I probably mostly did that. I did the will/wont/do/dont stuff on >the airplane as Walden and I were flying out to some meeting [at UCLA, I >think] where we addressed telnet. > >It was clear from my work with the TIP [I was the TIP czar at the time] >that the asymmetry in the protocol was just not right. What I was >thinking about was host<->host connections where there was really no >point in having one end be the 'server' and the other be the 'client'. > > /Bernie\ > >-- >Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers >mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA > --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From dave.walden.family at gmail.com Sat Jun 30 20:19:52 2012 From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (Dave Walden) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 23:19:52 -0400 Subject: [ih] FTP Design In-Reply-To: References: <4FEF73D0.6000700@isi.edu> <4FEF8296.20881.54F695C7@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> Message-ID: Already by RFC 137 there was the idea of the Network Virtual Terminal. On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 10:43 PM, John Day wrote: > That clears that up. > > And as Bob suggested, did it hit you all at once? I wouldn't be surprised > these things often do. > > Did you also come up with the NVT? > > Could you expound on it a bit more? > > This is a stroke of brilliance. It would be nice to know how it came > about. It deserves to be better known. > > I still teach Telnet even though it is no longer in the textbooks. I tell > the students that I do it not because they need to know how Telnet works. > But it is an elegant solution to a problem that no one else saw. and they > may find an analogous situation someday. And because too many "brilliant" > CS professors and textbook authors these days refer to it as a remote login > protocol, when it was no such thing. I want the students to know that > while the current crop of professors may not have much imagination, others > did. > > John > > At 18:49 -0400 2012/06/30, Bernie Cosell wrote: > >> On 30 Jun 2012 at 18:10, John Day wrote: >> >> Who came up with the symmetrical Telnet design? I remember Alex >>> wrote it up after the meeting (or at least Grossman told me Alex was >>> writing it up), but when I "blamed" him for it ;-), he wouldn't take >>> the credit. >>> >> >> Well, I probably mostly did that. I did the will/wont/do/dont stuff on >> the airplane as Walden and I were flying out to some meeting [at UCLA, I >> think] where we addressed telnet. >> >> It was clear from my work with the TIP [I was the TIP czar at the time] >> that the asymmetry in the protocol was just not right. What I was >> thinking about was host<->host connections where there was really no >> point in having one end be the 'server' and the other be the 'client'. >> >> /Bernie\ >> >> -- >> Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers >> mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA >> --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dave.walden.family at gmail.com Sat Jun 30 20:36:51 2012 From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (Dave Walden) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 23:36:51 -0400 Subject: [ih] FTP Design In-Reply-To: References: <4FEF73D0.6000700@isi.edu> <4FEF8296.20881.54F695C7@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> Message-ID: PS, The paper at this place summarizes the Telnet development: http://walden-family.com/public/telnet-overview.pdf See the list of RFCs on various aspects of the evolution on the last page (bottom right) of the paper. On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 10:43 PM, John Day wrote: > That clears that up. > > And as Bob suggested, did it hit you all at once? I wouldn't be surprised > these things often do. > > Did you also come up with the NVT? > > Could you expound on it a bit more? > > This is a stroke of brilliance. It would be nice to know how it came > about. It deserves to be better known. > > I still teach Telnet even though it is no longer in the textbooks. I tell > the students that I do it not because they need to know how Telnet works. > But it is an elegant solution to a problem that no one else saw. and they > may find an analogous situation someday. And because too many "brilliant" > CS professors and textbook authors these days refer to it as a remote login > protocol, when it was no such thing. I want the students to know that > while the current crop of professors may not have much imagination, others > did. > > John > > At 18:49 -0400 2012/06/30, Bernie Cosell wrote: > >> On 30 Jun 2012 at 18:10, John Day wrote: >> >> Who came up with the symmetrical Telnet design? I remember Alex >>> wrote it up after the meeting (or at least Grossman told me Alex was >>> writing it up), but when I "blamed" him for it ;-), he wouldn't take >>> the credit. >>> >> >> Well, I probably mostly did that. I did the will/wont/do/dont stuff on >> the airplane as Walden and I were flying out to some meeting [at UCLA, I >> think] where we addressed telnet. >> >> It was clear from my work with the TIP [I was the TIP czar at the time] >> that the asymmetry in the protocol was just not right. What I was >> thinking about was host<->host connections where there was really no >> point in having one end be the 'server' and the other be the 'client'. >> >> /Bernie\ >> >> -- >> Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers >> mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA >> --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jeanjour at comcast.net Sat Jun 30 21:05:31 2012 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2012 00:05:31 -0400 Subject: [ih] FTP Design In-Reply-To: References: <4FEF73D0.6000700@isi.edu> <4FEF8296.20881.54F695C7@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> Message-ID: Dave you are being too much the engineer and not enough the historian. ;-) I want the intellectual history of arriving at the concepts in Telnet. How did the ideas come about? If Bernie is right (and I assume he is), and his name is not on that paper (and it isn't), then it can not possibly answer the question I am asking. ;-) Take care, John At 23:36 -0400 2012/06/30, Dave Walden wrote: >PS, The paper at this place summarizes the Telnet development: > >http://walden-family.com/public/telnet-overview.pdf >See the list of RFCs on various aspects of the evolution on the last >page (bottom right) of the paper. > >On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 10:43 PM, John Day ><jeanjour at comcast.net> wrote: > >That clears that up. > >And as Bob suggested, did it hit you all at once? I wouldn't be >surprised these things often do. > >Did you also come up with the NVT? > >Could you expound on it a bit more? > >This is a stroke of brilliance. It would be nice to know how it >came about. It deserves to be better known. > >I still teach Telnet even though it is no longer in the textbooks. > I tell the students that I do it not because they need to know how >Telnet works. But it is an elegant solution to a problem that no >one else saw. and they may find an analogous situation someday. And >because too many "brilliant" CS professors and textbook authors >these days refer to it as a remote login protocol, when it was no >such thing. I want the students to know that while the current crop >of professors may not have much imagination, others did. > >John > >At 18:49 -0400 2012/06/30, Bernie Cosell wrote: > >On 30 Jun 2012 at 18:10, John Day wrote: > > Who came up with the symmetrical Telnet design? I remember Alex > wrote it up after the meeting (or at least Grossman told me Alex was > writing it up), but when I "blamed" him for it ;-), he wouldn't take > the credit. > > >Well, I probably mostly did that. I did the will/wont/do/dont stuff on >the airplane as Walden and I were flying out to some meeting [at UCLA, I >think] where we addressed telnet. > >It was clear from my work with the TIP [I was the TIP czar at the time] >that the asymmetry in the protocol was just not right. What I was >thinking about was host<->host connections where there was really no >point in having one end be the 'server' and the other be the 'client'. > > /Bernie\ > >-- >Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers >mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com >Pearisburg, VA > --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vint at google.com Sat Jun 30 22:22:33 2012 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2012 01:22:33 -0400 Subject: [ih] FTP Design In-Reply-To: References: <4FEF73D0.6000700@isi.edu> <4FEF8296.20881.54F695C7@bernie.fantasyfarm.com> Message-ID: steve crocker had a lot to do with NCP and likely with TELNET. I had thought that Dave W was the originator of Do/Don't etc but glad to know of Bernie's role in it. I had thought that Steve C might have been the inventor of NVT but he's probably a bit too busy in Prague to respond right now. v On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 12:05 AM, John Day wrote: > Dave you are being too much the engineer and not enough the historian.? ;-) > I want the intellectual history of arriving at the concepts in Telnet. > > How did the ideas come about? > > If Bernie is right (and I assume he is), and his name is not on that paper > (and it isn't), then it can not possibly answer the question I am asking. > ;-) > > Take care, > John > > > At 23:36 -0400 2012/06/30, Dave Walden wrote: > > PS, The paper at this place summarizes the Telnet development: > > ???? http://walden-family.com/public/telnet-overview.pdf > > See the list of RFCs on various aspects of the evolution on the last page > (bottom right) of the paper. > > On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 10:43 PM, John Day wrote: > > That clears that up. > > And as Bob suggested, did it hit you all at once? ?I wouldn't be surprised > these things often do. > > Did you also come up with the NVT? > > Could you expound on it a bit more? > > This is a stroke of brilliance. ?It would be nice to know how it came about. > ?It deserves to be better known. > > I still teach Telnet even though it is no longer in the textbooks. ?I tell > the students that I do it not because they need to know how Telnet works. > ?But it is an elegant solution to a problem that no one else saw. and they > may find an analogous situation someday. ?And because too many "brilliant" > CS professors and textbook authors these days refer to it as a remote login > protocol, when it was no such thing. ?I want the students to know that while > the current crop of professors may not have much imagination, others did. > > John > > At 18:49 -0400 2012/06/30, Bernie Cosell wrote: > > On 30 Jun 2012 at 18:10, John Day wrote: > > ?Who came up with the symmetrical Telnet design? ?I remember Alex > ?wrote it up after the meeting (or at least Grossman told me Alex was > ?writing it up), but when I "blamed" him for it ;-), he wouldn't take > ?the credit. > > > Well, I probably mostly did that. ?I did the will/wont/do/dont stuff on > the airplane as Walden and I were flying out to some meeting [at UCLA, I > think] where we addressed telnet. > > It was clear from my work with the TIP [I was the TIP czar at the time] > that the asymmetry in the protocol was just not right. ?What I was > thinking about was host<->host connections where there was really no > point in having one end be the 'server' and the other be the 'client'. > > ? /Bernie\ > > -- > Bernie Cosell???????????????????? Fantasy Farm Fibers > mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com???? Pearisburg, VA > ??? --> ?Too many people, too few sheep ?<-- > >