From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id acb3ef00 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 2019 13:40:45 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id E55A79BC57; Tue, 8 Oct 2019 23:40:43 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8A30A9BBE8; Tue, 8 Oct 2019 23:40:10 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 988599BBE8; Tue, 8 Oct 2019 23:40:07 +1000 (AEST) X-Greylist: delayed 1127 seconds by postgrey-1.36 at minnie.tuhs.org; Tue, 08 Oct 2019 23:40:06 AEST Received: from ppsw-32.csi.cam.ac.uk (ppsw-32.csi.cam.ac.uk [131.111.8.132]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8E8D49BBD7 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 2019 23:40:06 +1000 (AEST) X-Cam-AntiVirus: no malware found X-Cam-ScannerInfo: http://help.uis.cam.ac.uk/email-scanner-virus Received: from grey.csi.cam.ac.uk ([131.111.57.57]:41254) by ppsw-32.csi.cam.ac.uk (ppsw.cam.ac.uk [131.111.8.136]:25) with esmtps (TLSv1.2:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:256) id 1iHpQT-001keM-0e (Exim 4.92.3) (return-path ); Tue, 08 Oct 2019 14:21:17 +0100 Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2019 14:21:16 +0100 From: Tony Finch To: ron minnich In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: User-Agent: Alpine 2.20 (DEB 67 2015-01-07) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Subject: Re: [TUHS] RFC formatting X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: TUHS main list Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" ron minnich wrote: > "why is the formatting so weird" someone asked me. > > I am guessing, looking at RFC 1, that it was formatted with an > ancestor of runoff but ... anyone? This is really a question for the Internet History list, I think http://www.postel.org/internet-history/ I don't know how things were done in the 1970s, except that the NIC used Englebart's NLS. I get the impression that the earliest RFCs were formatted using the facilities at the author's home institution; I don't know about the mechanics of duplication and distribution, but it relied on paper mail for some years until the NIC spun up an FTP server, e.g. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc95 For a very long time, RFCs and drafts were produced using nroff. You can see some of the remnants of that here: https://www.rfc-editor.org/pubprocess/tools/ For about 20 years there has been an XML source format for RFCs https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2629 But in the final stages the RFC Editor would convert to nroff to produce the final published form. They have just this week switched to a toolchain based on v3 of the xml2rfc source format. I believe they aren't using nroff for the text format any more, the publishing tool produces it directly. https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rfc-interest/jemoHh4imSYkX_Oo2FvMyt_7ZYg Tony. -- f.anthony.n.finch http://dotat.at/ defend the right to speak, write, worship, associate, and vote freely