4 ms·

Were original registrations done by mail? I see 5 domains registered on Aug. 5th, 1986, then no more domains for another month. And 12 on Dec. 11 1986, then ag

Were original registrations done by mail? I see 5 domains registered on Aug. 5th, 1986, then no more domains for another month. And 12 on Dec. 11 1986, then again another month with no registrations.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ci5er 8y ago
I think you could do online+fax-followup from sometime around 93 or 94, but until then: mail. Even then online was dodgy (unreliable) at best. Easier to call ISI and see how they wanted it this year... EDIT: I operated a regional thing off BBN, and I could do the nasty bits of hoisting myself to administrative acceptance. I can't imagine what it must have required for someone just trying to 'join' before 1990-or-so.
jedberg 8y ago
I believe they were done by email or online form (edited to be more accurate), but were all verified by a human and entered into the database manually. So you had to wait for the processing run to get your domain in, which was at the whims of the person who had to process them.
- falcor84 8y ago
  >...web form... Note that this actually precedes the web by several years
  - jedberg 8y ago
    Good point, I should have been more specific and said gopher form, but I didn't want to confuse the youngins. :)
FactolSarin 8y ago
Yup, they sure were.
chrissnell 8y ago
Yes, they were done by email and were a massive pain in the ass. There was a text file template you'd fill out and email it to ISI. The domains were free but you had to have working nameservers for them and that was the tough part. As a young undergrad in 1993, I wanted to register a few but couldn't find anyone to serve DNS for me. The Vanderbilt IT staff was unwilling to help and I didn't know anybody else until I met my buddy Bob Collie (who owns bob.net). I ended up registering cjs.com, grateful.com, eleet.com and some others but let most of them expire when I couldn't afford the annual $70 per-domain fee that Network Solutions started charging after they took over from ISI. The only one I kept was bikeworld.com, which I had registered for my dad's bike shop. He still uses it today.
- mrbill 8y ago
  Sup, Chris? I hated having to use the InterNIC template when I was handling domain regs back at that place we were both involved with.
  - roryisok 8y ago
    I love when people on hn know each other.
jlv2 8y ago
You sent them in by email. The SRI NIC had a template file you'd fill out and email it in. For example, see RFC-1032: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1032 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1032 I registered my first .edu in 1986 (maybe 1987) and my first .com in 1988. It was done similarly for getting IP blocks assigned. I emailed in a form around 1986 and got a class B assigned for my university (still in use).

Were original registrations done by mail? I see 5 domains registered on Aug. 5th, 1986, then no more domains for another month. And 12 on Dec. 11 1986, then again another month with no registrations.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ci5er 8y ago

I think you could do online+fax-followup from sometime around 93 or 94, but until then: mail. Even then online was dodgy (unreliable) at best. Easier to call ISI and see how they wanted it this year... EDIT: I operated a regional thing off BBN, and I could do the nasty bits of hoisting myself to administrative acceptance. I can't imagine what it must have required for someone just trying to 'join' before 1990-or-so.

jedberg 8y ago

I believe they were done by email or online form (edited to be more accurate), but were all verified by a human and entered into the database manually. So you had to wait for the processing run to get your domain in, which was at the whims of the person who had to process them.

falcor84 8y ago
>...web form... Note that this actually precedes the web by several years
- jedberg 8y ago
  Good point, I should have been more specific and said gopher form, but I didn't want to confuse the youngins. :)

FactolSarin 8y ago

Yup, they sure were.

chrissnell 8y ago

Yes, they were done by email and were a massive pain in the ass. There was a text file template you'd fill out and email it to ISI. The domains were free but you had to have working nameservers for them and that was the tough part. As a young undergrad in 1993, I wanted to register a few but couldn't find anyone to serve DNS for me. The Vanderbilt IT staff was unwilling to help and I didn't know anybody else until I met my buddy Bob Collie (who owns bob.net). I ended up registering cjs.com, grateful.com, eleet.com and some others but let most of them expire when I couldn't afford the annual $70 per-domain fee that Network Solutions started charging after they took over from ISI. The only one I kept was bikeworld.com, which I had registered for my dad's bike shop. He still uses it today.

mrbill 8y ago
Sup, Chris? I hated having to use the InterNIC template when I was handling domain regs back at that place we were both involved with.
- roryisok 8y ago
  I love when people on hn know each other.

jlv2 8y ago

You sent them in by email. The SRI NIC had a template file you'd fill out and email it in. For example, see RFC-1032: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1032 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1032 I registered my first .edu in 1986 (maybe 1987) and my first .com in 1988. It was done similarly for getting IP blocks assigned. I emailed in a form around 1986 and got a class B assigned for my university (still in use).