Bruce,
Tuesday, January 14, 2003, 6:03:20 AM, you wrote:
Bruce> 2. RFCs 561 and 724 provided for an alphabetic zone "GDT", which
Bruce> was dropped in 733. But neither of the earlier RFCs gives the
Bruce> semantics for GDT. What were they?
As I recall, the formulation of timezones for RFC 733 did not take much note
of the previous documents. We simply decided which timezones we wanted to
refer to by "name". Offsets (civilian or military) would be used for the
rest. So we decided on all North American timezones for names, along with
Greewhich Mean Time. (I'd guess that GDT means Greenwhich Daylight Time, but
suspect there really is no such thing.)
"North America" included the far east of Canada as well as Alaska and
Hawaii. Alaska swings *very* far west. None of us knew the names of their
zones. It turns out the next zone east of EST is Atlantic Standard Time. I
think I found that in a dictionary, and maybe also the Newfoundland zone.
The western extremes were more challenging. I could not find any reference
to their names. I was working at The Rand Corporation at the time. It was
famous for "inventing" the technical research library and it had a reference
librarian who was legendary for finding difficult answers.
So I gave her a call and asked for her help. She called back in 10 minutes
with the answer. I could not believe how quickly she solved this, so I
asked how she came up with the answers.
She said she called the telephone information operators in the relevant
areas and asked them what they called their timezones...
Bruce> 3. 724 and 733 provided for nested lists of addresses, either
Bruce> angle-bracketed or in groups -- these were dropped in 822.
Bruce> Were they ever used?
No. That's why we dropped it. Offhand, the portions of 733 that were
innovative -- rather than the portions that simply tried to codify existing
practise -- had a mixed track record of actual adoption.
Bruce> 4. Were :atom: address forms other than :Include: and :Postal:
Bruce> ever defined?
No.
d/
--
Dave <mailto:dcrocker(_at_)brandenburg(_dot_)com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
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