[vcf-midatlantic] oldest email address in the club

[william degnan]

On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 11:27 AM, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:

> On 09/01/2016 06:36 PM, Jim Scheef via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> > Yes! I vaguely remember that form. I believe you got the form by
> > sending a carefully crafted email to an address at the InterNIC.
>
>   Not quite.  The blank forms were available via FTP from
> ftp.internic.net.  They were just text files; one pulled them up in an
> editor, filled in the blanks, and sent them to domreg at internic.net for
> processing.  There were several forms for different purposes.  The forms
> were parsed by shell scripts on a SunOS system in Virginia and requests
> were rewritten into a normalized form for partially-automated
> processing.  Any errors in the parsing caused the form to be shunted off
> to a human (whom I dated very briefly, and later sharked from InterNIC
> and hired...how's that for name-dropping!) for manual processing.
>
> > The InterNIC became Network Solutions when Al Gore invented the
> > commercial Internet - an event we all remember.
>
>   Yeah the Al Gore thing was the source of endless laughter. :)
>
>                 -Dave
>
> --
> Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
> New Kensington, PA
>

You did not need to download an FTP form every time - I just saved the same
original as a template, edited to the next domain to register, re-use.  I
still have a copy of at least one of these.