[ih] TELNET (was what is and isn't the web, was Rise and Fall of the Gopher Protocol)

John Day jeanjour at comcast.net
Mon Aug 22 16:53:31 PDT 2016


No, I concur with Alex (and Dave). It is much more likely to be Teletype Network.  I had seen Telecommunications Network too, but as Dave said earlier it always seemed to cumbersome. More like something made up to fit.

1984 is pretty late. It is doubtful that anyone involved in writing that Mil-std was around in 1971 or 72. It was a very small and informal group and from looking at the those early RFCs going back to RFC94, it is clear that the term TELNET was already so well used that there was no need to expand the acronym.

Take care,
John


> On Aug 22, 2016, at 19:19, Miles Fidelman <mfidelman at meetinghouse.net> wrote:
> 
> Ahhh... problem solved!
> 
> I just went back and looked at MIL-STD-1782 (10 May 1984) - which, in 
> section 3.2 (Definitions of Acronyms), lists "TELNET - 
> Telecommunications Network."  (I keep a copy of the old DDN Protocol 
> Handbook on my shelf, for sentiment's sake.)
> 
> Now there were earlier RFCs that go pretty far back (e.g., RFC 137, 30 
> April 1971 is the earliest I could find) - with no reference to an 
> acronym expansion - but we all know the military's fondness for 
> acronyms, and if the MIL-STD says it means "Telecommunications Network," 
> who are we to argue. :-)
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Miles
> 
> 
> On 8/22/16 6:20 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>> On 23/08/2016 08:48, John Day wrote:
>>> That is the later version to run over TCP.  RFC 495 is the original new Telnet. It is only of historical significance  but it should be there.
>> If you have a copy of the attachments, I suggest communicating with the
>> RFC Series Editor, Heather Flanagan <rse at rfc-editor.org>. She's very much
>> attuned to the archival issue. Whether she has a policy on attachments is
>> another story.
>> 
>> (I have a project on hold to persuade people to reclassify most Status: UNKNOWN
>> RFCs as Status: HISTORIC, but that's another story.)
>> 
>>    Brian
>> 
>>> John
>>> 
>>>> On Aug 22, 2016, at 16:28, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> On 23/08/2016 01:31, John Day wrote:
>>>>> I always heard that Telnet stood for "telecommunications network.”  I never heard the word “telephone” associated with it.
>>>>> 
>>>>> What is really funny is that starting with RFC 97, I don’t see a single TELNET spec that expands the acronym!  ;-)
>>>>> 
>>>>> But a concern:  RFC495 purports to be a TELNET spec. However, the download is Alex McKenzie’s transmittal letter that mentions two attachments. I don’t find the attachments associated with it.
>>>>> 
>>>>> My 1978 ARPANET Protocol Handbook has the Telnet spec labeled RFC542, which does appear to be Alex’s spec from the 1973 meeting. However, RFC542 is the FTP spec. Which is also labeled 542 in the Handbook!
>>>>> 
>>>>> It does not appear to be possible to get the actual Telnet spec from the RFC Pages. Someone needs to fix this.
>>>> The Telnet Internet Standard is https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc854.txt.
>>>> 
>>>> There's an enormous number of RFCs with "Telnet" in their titles. Mostly
>>>> (Status: UNKNOWN).
>>>> 
>>>>    Brian
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> Take care,
>>>>> John
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Aug 22, 2016, at 08:52, Dave Crocker <dhc2 at dcrocker.net> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 8/22/2016 3:32 AM, John Day wrote:
>>>>>>> As far as the telephone analogy, the last thing we were trying to do was to be like the telephone system,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> oh.  so 'telnet' did stand for 'telephone network'...
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> d/
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Dave Crocker
>>>>>> Brandenburg InternetWorking
>>>>>> bbiw.net
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______
>>>>> internet-history mailing list
>>>>> internet-history at postel.org
>>>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> _______
>> internet-history mailing list
>> internet-history at postel.org
>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
> 
> -- 
> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
> In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra
> 
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.





More information about the Internet-history mailing list