From: "Ron Natalie" <ron@ronnatalie.com>
To: "Bakul Shah" <bakul@iitbombay.org>
Cc: The Unix Heritage Society <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>,
Internet History <internet-history@postel.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] [COFF] Pondering the hosts file
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2021 21:08:15 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <em5064ba2c-032e-45cf-b3a0-668e408fb1d8@alien> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <555F9514-DD67-41F1-8151-480F0D9D0EAC@iitbombay.org>
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The "name" in this context the host/network/gateway name such as
SRI-NIC.ARPA. 3COM.COM would not have been legal back then.
Nowhere does it imply that any of the other fields are so restricted.
------ Original Message ------
From: "Bakul Shah" <bakul@iitbombay.org>
To: "Ron Natalie" <ron@ronnatalie.com>
Cc: "The Unix Heritage Society" <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>; "Internet
History" <internet-history@postel.org>
Sent: 3/11/2021 4:02:50 PM
Subject: Re: [TUHS] [COFF] Pondering the hosts file
>On Mar 11, 2021, at 12:32 PM, Ron Natalie <ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>>
>>Amusingly one day we got an Imagen ethernet-connected laser printer.
>> Mike Muuss decided the thing should be named BRL-ZAP and since I
>>didn't know what to put down as the machine type, and it did have a
>>68000 in it, I had Jake put 68000 in the entry in the host table.
>>
>>The next day I got all kinds of hate mail from other BSD sites who
>>assumed I had intentionally sabotaged the host table. Apparently,
>>the BSD systems used a YACC grammar to parse the NIC table into the
>>Berkeley one. The only problem is they got the grammar wrong and
>>assumed the CPU type always began with a letter. There parse blew
>>up on my "ZAP" host and they assumed that was the desired effect.
>
>This is understandable as
>a) All the "official machine names" in various assigned numbers RFCs
>start with a letter.
>b) the BNF syntax for the "host table specification" entries in RFC 952
>or 810 are not precise enough.
>><cputype> ::= PDP-11/70 | DEC-1080 | C/30 | CDC-6400...etc.
>>
>>NOTE: See "Assigned Numbers" for specific options and acronyms
>> for machine types, operating systems, and protocol/services.
>>
>> for machine types, operating systems, and protocol/services.
>>
>c) 68000 was not an official name!
>:-) :-) :-)
>
>>I countered back that using a YACC grammar for this was rediculous.
>>There was already a real popular file on UNIX that had a bunch of
>>fields separated by colons and commas (/etc/passwd anybody) that it
>>was never necessary to use YACC to parse.
>
>Can't argue with that! Though that doesn't mean a handwritten parser
>wouldn't have complained about 68000.
>
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-03-11 21:08 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 30+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-03-11 17:13 [TUHS] " Grant Taylor via TUHS
2021-03-11 17:29 ` [TUHS] [COFF] " Steffen Nurpmeso
2021-03-11 17:40 ` [TUHS] " Bakul Shah
2021-03-11 18:08 ` [TUHS] [COFF] " Warner Losh
2021-03-11 18:12 ` Clem Cole
2021-03-11 18:21 ` Jaap Akkerhuis
2021-03-11 18:21 ` Nelson H. F. Beebe
2021-03-11 20:05 ` Jan Schaumann
2021-03-11 20:30 ` Henry Bent
2021-03-11 20:42 ` Henry Bent
2021-03-11 21:20 ` Henry Bent
2021-03-11 23:46 ` Richard Salz
2021-03-12 1:15 ` Jeremy C. Reed
2021-03-12 3:27 ` George Michaelson
2021-03-11 20:44 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2021-03-11 21:05 ` Henry Bent
2021-03-12 5:53 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2021-03-11 21:12 ` Ron Natalie
2021-03-11 22:33 ` Jeremy C. Reed
2021-03-11 18:27 ` Henry Bent
2021-03-11 18:18 ` Henry Bent
2021-03-11 18:02 ` Clem Cole
2021-03-11 20:32 ` Ron Natalie
2021-03-11 21:02 ` Bakul Shah
2021-03-11 21:08 ` Ron Natalie [this message]
2021-03-11 21:15 ` Bakul Shah
2021-03-12 1:14 ` Mary Ann Horton
2021-03-11 21:20 ` Grant Taylor via TUHS
2021-03-11 18:30 Bakul Shah
2021-03-12 10:53 Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS
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