RFC 495

TELNET Protocol Specification 🎀

Okay bestie, so this is RFC 495 💖 It was written by Alex McKenzie of BBN-NET and dated 1 May 1973. It's filed under the TELNET and Protocols categories 🦋 Its NIC number is #15371, and it references RFCs 318 and 435 plus NIC 7104. The original doesn't say it obsoletes or updates anything, so no drama there ✨

Following a ton of chatter about TELNET across the RFC series, there was an open meeting at UCLA on 5 March to write a brand new TELNET Protocol spec 💅 Two attached docs, the TELNET Protocol Specification (NIC #15372) and the TELNET Option Specifications (NIC #15373), spill the tea on what came out of it 🫶 The people who showed up were:

• Alex McKenzie, BBN-NET, co-chairman 👑
• Jon Postel, UCLA-NMC, co-chairman 👑
• Bob Braden, UCLA-CCN
• Vint Cerf, Stanford University
• Bernie Cosell, BBN-NET
• Dave Crocker, UCLA-NMC
• Steve Crocker, ARPA
• John Davidson, Univ. of Hawaii
• Gary Grossman, Univ. of Illinois
• Bob Merryman, UCSD
• Lou Nelson, UCLA-NMC
• Mike Padlipsky, MIT-MULTICS: Milt Reese, FNW
• Bob Thomas, BBN-TENEX
• Steve Wolfe, UCLA-CCN

The two attached specs were reviewed by everyone in that meeting, so they count as the "official" TELNET Protocol 🌈 (subject to the implementation schedule below). Still, they're open to minor tweaks, so any comments should go to Alex at the NIC as AAM, or by mail to:

                           Alex McKenzie
                           Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc.
                           50 Moulton Street
                           Cambridge, Ma. 02138

Phasing In the New Protocol 🦋

There are two key dates for rolling out the new protocol, and they're the main thing to remember bestie 💀 The first is when sites can feel free to send the "new" form of TELNET commands and special codes without expecting "error" responses. The second is when sites can remove the code that processes the "old" form of TELNET commands. In between those two dates, sites can gradually implement and test the "interpreter" for the new commands 🧚 The meeting felt that good lead times to those dates were about 60 and 260 days, so these two dates are hereby set as 1 July 1973 and 1 January 1974 🌸

TELNET Options 💜

There are also attached specs for TELNET options that let you negotiate:

• binary transmission
• echoing
• reconnection
• suppression of "Go Ahead"
• approximate message size
• use of a "timing mark"
• discussion of status
• extension of option code set

Dave Walden (BBN-NET) wrote these, with help from Bernie Cosell, Ray Tomlinson (BBN-TENEX) and Bob Thomas, plus Jerry Burchfiel (BBN-TENEX) and David Crocker (ULCA-NMC) ✨ These options cover most of what the current TELNET can do, except for "Hide Your Input" 🙈 Dave has also promised to spec these options soon:

• NVT printer line width negotiation
• NVT printer page size negotiation
• negotiation of the mapping between the line terminator character available on a physical terminal (e.g., LF, CR, NL) and the NVT characters to be transmitted (e.g., CR NUL, LF, CR LF)

Dave also announced plans to team up with Gary Grossman, Bob Braden, and maybe others on an EBCDIC option 🔥 That announcement is just useful info, not an "exclusive right" for Dave or anyone else 💅

Huge thanks to Bernie Cosell for helping with the protocol spec 🫶

AAM/jm Attachments

[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry into the online RFC archives by Gottfried Janik 4/98 ] 🌈