[ih] Jon Postel's papers

[touch at strayalpha.com]

On Jul 18, 2025, at 3:33 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> If Jon's papers contain digital or paper copies of email traffic through the 70s and 80s, they might be a unique resource for historians.  That period was when we were all fascinated with the new toy of email, but space to store or archive old messages was expensive and scarce.
> 
...
> Jack Haverty

Jon’s office effects and last computer data archives are in the USC archives. They are not currently publicly available, but I also know they do not contain very old digital archives. Those disappeared at USC with each new hosted system deployed, and I don’t think they go back past the late 1980s at best. 

They were not publicly accessible when I left USC 8 yrs ago, as per common archive practice, due to intermingling of USC confidential info. I have no more recent info.

Joe

—
Dr. Joe Touch, temporal epistemologist
www.strayalpha.com

> Many discussions that previously would happen in papers, conferences, or other traditional channels were instead carried out in email exchanges, much of which I suspect has been lost.   Formal documents, such as RFCs, usually captured only the results of such discussions, and little of the reasoning and alternatives that had been debated feverishly.
> 
> 
> 
> On 7/18/25 07:38, John Kristoff via Internet-history wrote:
>> The collected archives of Jon Postel's papers seems to be extensive,
>> some of which is restricted, none of which is online:
>> 
>>   <https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8fb5b2x/>
>> 
>> I would guess there is some fascinating bits inside that mountain of
>> material.  Of those within reach of this message, I'd be curious what
>> timelines, milestones, events, etc. you'd be particularly interested in
>> for the most important Internet history insights.
>> 
>> John
> 
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