RFC 41

RFC 41: IMP/IMP Teletype Communication 💖

Network Working Group 🎀

• Author: John Melvin, SRI/ARC 👑
• Request for Comments: 41 ✨
• Date: 30 March 1970 🌸
• Obsoletes / Updates: nothing listed here 🫶

okay so this one is a tiny but iconic little request from 1970 💅 John Melvin was on the IMP teletype and kept running into the same annoying thing: he'd see a message from another site, but there was no time or date on it. 🙈

And that totally matters, bestie! If the message is less than an hour old, a reply might be totally in order. If it's several hours old? Probably not. Without a timestamp you're just guessing 💀 and it's giving chaos. It got worse because sites were now spread across every U.S. time zone and some of them didn't have a direct voice line to call and ask. 📞✨

So John's ask is simple and very gracious 🦋: everyone should tag their IMP-to-IMP teletype messages that don't get any response from the receiving IMP. 💜

He also dropped the practical bit 🍓: the transmitting IMP site should use 24 hour time and include the time zone designation. No "3:00" that could be AM or PM, no vibes-based time zones. Clear, precise, periodt. 🧚

[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ] [ into the online RFC archives by Larry Campbell 7/97 ]