RFC 236

RFC 236: STANDARD HOST NAMES 🎀

Okay so this one is a total classic, bestie 🦋 It's from way back in 27 September 1971, written by Jon Postel at UCLA-NMC (Computer Science 💅). It's filed under category D.3 and it's related to RFC 226 and RFC 229. It also obsoletes RFC 229 😭 so if you're still reading 229, it's time to switch over to this one. It's an RFC, which means it's a Request for Comments, basically the Internet's group chat for protocol ideas 🌈

1. The Big Idea ✨

Okay so Peggy Karp had this iconic idea in RFC #226 🌸: what if every host had a set of standard names, and those names were 6 characters long? She even gave a partial list. Then in RFC #229 I came in and was like, what if we did 8 character names instead? I gave a longer list too 💅

Now I'm back with my list again, but with some glow-up modifications 🫶

I also think that, as much as possible, the Standard host names should match the site names the Network Information Center uses. Honestly, it just makes sense 🧚 And it's a really good idea to check with each host's technical liaison officer before you pick that host's name. Consult your people, periodt 💖

1.1. Why Alternate Names? 🙈

Okay so it's been pointed out to me that programmers are lazy 💀 (affectionate, I promise 💜) and they don't really want to deal with character strings that are longer than one computer word, or that have anything besides capital letters A-Z and digits 0-9. So I made an alternate list too 🍓 It's limited to 4 character names, using only alphanumerics. Iconic for the lazy girlies 👑

2. The Name Table 🦋

Here's the full list, in order of site number, with the standard names and the alternate names side by side:

  Site                       Standard Name                       Alternate Name
  ----                       -------------                       --------------

   1                           UCLA-NMC                            NMC
   65                          UCLA-CCN                            CCN
   2                           SRI-ARC                             NIC
   66                          SRI-AI                              SRAI
   3                           UCSB                                UCSB
   4                           UTAH                                UTAH
   5                           BBN-NCC                             NCC
   69                          BBN                                 BBN
   133                         BBN-B                               BBNB
   6                           MIT-MLTX                            MLTX
   70                          MIT-DMCG                            DMCG
   7                           RAND-65                             RAND
   71                          RAND-10                             RND1
   8                           SDC                                 SDC
   9                           HARV-10                             HARV
   73                          HARV-1                              HRV1
   137                         HARV-11                             HRV2

  10                          LL-67                               LL67
   74                          LL-TX2                              TX2
   11                          SU-AI                               SUAI
   75                          SU-HP                               SUHP
   12                          ILL                                 ILL
   13                          CASE                                CASE
   14                          CMU                                 CMU
   15                          BUROUGHS                            BURR
   16                          AMES-67                             AMES
   144                         AMES-TIP                            AMET
   145                         MITR-TIP                            MTRT
   18                          RADC                                RADC
   146                         RADC-TIP                            RADT
   19                          NBS                                 NBS
   147                         NBS-TIP                             NBST
   148                         ETAC-TIP                            ETAT
   21                          TINKER                              OCAF
   22                          MCLELLAN                            SMAF
   23                          USC                                 USC
   151                         USC-TIP                             USCT
   152                         GWC-TIP                             GWCT
   25                          NCAR                                NCAR
   153                         NCAR-TIP                            NCAT
   158                         BBN-TIP                             BBNT

3. A Note on the Machine-Readable Version 💜

This RFC got turned into machine readable form for the online RFC archives by BBN Corp. under the direction of Alex McKenzie, in 12/96 🌈 So yeah, it's been preserved for the long haul ⭐