[ih] FTP RIP

[Miles Fidelman]

On 9/27/20 5:14 PM, Dave Crocker via Internet-history wrote:

> On 9/27/2020 1:22 PM, John Levine via Internet-history wrote:
>> It's an OK article
>
>
> By measures of meaningful deployment, "so old it predates email" is 
> incorrect.
>
> And "at the beginning, actually played the role of an email client" is 
> incorrect.
>
> And "for four years, FTP was technically email of sorts." was wrong on 
> two counts.  First, it was for 10 -- arguably more -- years.  Second 
> the "of sorts" is wrong.
>
As I recall, though, the first ARPANET email transfer was accomplished 
gloming SNDMSG & CPYNET together - to transfer the mail by appending 
messages to a remote mailbox file (Ray Tomlinson, 2 TENEX machines).  
Then, after Ray distributed a description (by postal mail), folks 
started implementing the stuff on other platforms.

If I recall my history correctly, FTP had (has?) a "mail" command added 
that served to transfer email for a while.  Then came SMTP.

There are probably folks on this list who wrote some of those early 
mailers, and the associated RFCs.  And for the true techno-historians 
among us, all the documents are archived. (Though, perhaps someone can 
point to the original notification that Ray distributed to tell people 
what he'd done.)

Miles Fidelman


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown