Telnet Protocol meeting announcement
A 1973 call to standardize the Telnet remote login protocol
McKenzie, A.M., "Telnet Protocol meeting announcement", RFC 461, DOI 10.17487/RFC0461, February 1973, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc461>.
@misc{rfc461,
series = {Request for Comments},
number = 461,
howpublished = {RFC 461},
publisher = {RFC Editor},
doi = {10.17487/RFC0461},
url = {https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc461},
author = {A.M. McKenzie},
title = {{Telnet Protocol meeting announcement}},
pagetotal = 1,
year = 1973,
month = feb,
} RFC text
Network Working Group A. McKenzie
RFC # 461 BBN-NET
NIC # 14416 February 14, 1973
TELNET Protocol Meeting Announcement
Since the publication of RFC #318 there have been a great number of
proposals for changes and/or extensions to the (still unofficial) TELNET
Protocol. It now seems appropriate to have a meeting of concerned
parties to try, once again, to reach a consensus position and define an
"official" protocol (with perhaps, some room for optional expansion).
Accordingly, I hereby announce a TELNET Protocol meeting to be held at
UCLA on Monday, March 5. I expect this to be a working meeting (rather
than a tutorial to bring new members of the network community up-to-
speed) and therefore wish to invite the attendance of only those
individuals prepared to discuss at LEAST those issues which have already
been raised. At a minimum, attendees should be familiar with the
following:
RFC 318
RFC 328
RFC 340
RFC 357
RFC 393
RFC 426
RFC 435
A familiarity with deliberations of the TELNET Committee prior to RFC
318 would probably also be helpful. Finally, attendees should be aware
that there are few (no?) Hosts which follow the echo-control conventions
described in RFC 318.
Anyone wishing to attend this meeting should contact Alex McKenzie at
BBN (NIC ident aam) 50 Moulton Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02l38. My
telephone number is
(617) 491-1850 ext. 441
When there is some indication of the number of individuals planning to
attend, a meeting room will be selected, a time announced, etc.
[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ]
[ into the online RFC archives by Alex McKenzie with ]
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AI ELI5
On this page
§1The Telnet Standardization Challenge
RFC 318 had proposed the TELNET protocol, but it remained unofficial. In the years following, the network community had submitted many proposals for changes and extensions, fragmenting the design. The goal was to reach consensus on an official protocol that could accommodate optional features and variations while keeping a common core.
People had lots of different ideas about how to let computers talk to each other through a keyboard. The network needed one official answer.
§2The March 1973 Meeting
Alex McKenzie announced a working meeting to be held at UCLA on Monday, March 5, 1973. The event was designed for serious technical participants who had already engaged with the protocol debates, not as a tutorial for newcomers. Attendees were expected to have read several prior RFCs on Telnet: RFCs 318, 328, 340, 357, 393, 426, and 435. McKenzie also noted that few (if any) actual hosts at the time followed the echo-control conventions described in RFC 318.
Alex McKenzie called a meeting at UCLA for people who already understood Telnet and the debates about it. They had to do their homework first.
§3Defining an Official Protocol
The meeting aimed to resolve the technical disagreements and reach consensus on an official Telnet protocol definition. This official version would have room for optional expansions and extensions, allowing experimentation while maintaining a standard baseline that all implementations could count on.
The goal was to write down one official set of rules, with some space built in for people to try new ideas.