IETF RFC 946 PDF

Overview

In a community of users that share a large degree of common facilities, it is often advantageous to use some common feature to improve software performance and reduce initial implementation costs.

In March of 1982, CMU designed and implemented based on the growing CMU PUP-based network a terminal location database and modified existing network software to handle a 64-bit number which some call the Terminal Location Number or TTYLOC for short. The number can be efficiently stored in operating systems tables and can be passed between various levels of operating system and network layering with minimum modifications to existing software. An initial evaluation of changing software to communicate an unfixed or reasonable length terminal location string indicated it would be expensive.

CMU now wishes to extend this mechanism into the TCP-based networking support that is replacing the existing PUP-based software. The mechanism is not viewed as a replacement for the Telnet Terminal Location (SEND-LOCATION) Option but as a shorthand mechansim for communicating hosts in the same community.