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Happy 35th birthday, RFC 1!
An anonymous reader writes "On April 7th, 1969, the first ever RFC was published, describing the networking technology behind the then-nascent ARPAnet. In the intervening 35 years, networking technology has come a long way, but it brings perspective to the modern Internet to reflect on how it all began."
Reading that RFC is like reading the creation story of the internet, you can see where some of the things they come up with wayyyyy back then, have moved now. Normally I am not much for reading RFC's, but thats really intresting, if for nothing else to see how far we have gone in just 35 years.
snowulf.com
Redundant - parents post isn't redundant. I'd score it at least a +4 (a mix of funny and insightful). I mean, it makes total sense. You'd expect the first RFC to quite clearly lay out a concept of how an RFC will work.
I'm probably burning karma with this post but i think its completely unfair that that post got knocked down.
"SRI is currently modifying their on-line retrieval system which will be the major software component on the Network Documentation Center so that it can be operated with model 35 teletypes. The control of the teletypes will be written in DEL. All sites will write DEL compilers and use NLS through the DEL program."
It may be hard to imagine, but back then CRT terminals were a rare beast. Most machine interaction was done via Teletype, punch cards, and line printers.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
hey, now if all 'linked from front page of slashdot' posts were like this, no one would care if they got slashdotted.
.. or even netbeui
3 or os images and 5K of text, hell, even my little p200 'what the hell, it can run linux' can handle that.
This isn't really related to the post, but I find it very interesting the fact that in almost all things, the simplest answers are usually correct.
1. Built HTML that is simple enough to be read by lynx and you'll have a very readable, universally accessable, highly portable and translatable site.
2. Built a simple system of relaying packets with some transport validation mechanism (TCP) and it will take over the world.
of course could you imagine if we had to deal with bridged IPX or LAT based networks
Structure definition = lawyers = hassle.
Fortunately there was none in the beginning.
> You'd expect the first RFC to quite clearly lay out a concept of how an RFC will work.
Hm, I agree, maybe that's it ought to be. But more often than not, you just give it a try and thus shape the concept.
The fact that the concept is still alive shows its quality and that the underlying idea was good.
You can tell that open collaboration and communication are at the heart of the Internet, going back to its design. Look at the titling of core documents - "Request for Comment." Even on /., the nature of an article is requesting for comments and further analysis. Because of this legacy, where humans once networked computers, computers network humans.
This process stands today because it works - not perfectly, but we all benefit from the paradigm. It is our responsibility as members (and some of us professionals) in the Internet community to ensure that the spirit of the RFC never leaves. We should not deny the principles which brought us here - openness, communication, collaboration. Let's not forget the future - open source software, free speech, distributed control, and better S:N.
We would be wise to always request for the comments of our peers. It's gotten us this far.