[ih] 365 RFCs - reading one RFC a day for 2019

[Darius Kazemi]

Hi folks,

I was encouraged by someone on this list to plug my current project, which
is a blog where I read and analyze RFCs 1 through 365.

In December 2018 I realized that 2019 would be the 50th anniversary of the
first RFC. I got the fully-formed idea to read and blog about one RFC a day
in chronological order in 2019, starting with RFC 1.

My motivation: I'm a software developer but also an amateur historian of
technology (I've written one book about very niche videogame history). For
my software development work I'm trying to help build out various visions
of future decentralized networks. And I thought that if I'm going to have
conversations with people about the future of global computer networks,
perhaps I should read the original discussions between the people who built
the ARPANET. (Some of whom are here, hello.)

Reading and analyzing one RFC a day seemed ambitious but obtainable,
especially since many early RFCs are a couple sentences long.

So here we are:

## 365 RFCs ##
Table of contents: https://write.as/365-rfcs/table-of-contents
RSS: https://write.as/365-rfcs/feed/

In the process of researching each RFC, I've

- spent a week combined in the Computer History Museum and Charles Babbage
Institute archives, snapping contemporary documents that I'm still sorting
through
- thrown some nominal scanning fees to the Computer History Museum to post
scans of the first 9 RFCs, most of which were not available online prior to
this
- discovered some material that is likely to be added to the RFC series
itself (missing documents)
- discovered many RFC errata, mostly in ASCII transcription of figures and
formulas, as well as a handful of missing figures and pages

Some of these missing pages and scans are detailed here:

https://write.as/365-rfcs/update-scans-of-early-rfcs

Anyway, I hope some of you find the blog interesting, and I'm always
grateful for feedback or corrections. (Thanks again to those of you who
have already provided them!)

-Darius
https://tinysubversions.com

P.S. This project was inspired in part by Evert Pot's HTTP error code blog:
https://evertpot.com/http/
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