[LINK] Oldest registered .au domain?

Chris Maltby chris at sw.oz.au
Tue Nov 7 12:46:47 AEDT 2006


> Quoting Steve Jenkin on Monday November 06, 2006:
> | I don't recall when '.au' got introduced.
> | In 1991 I got a C-class addr and ".com" for a business from the NIC - I
> | don't recall there being any '.au' or talk of it.

On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 05:38:29PM +0000, Kim Davies wrote:
> .au was introduced on 5th March 1986.

ACSnet was using ".oz" for Australia from about 1978. When the MHSnet
software was released in the early 1980s, the '.oz' became '.oz.au'.
There were ACSnet sites using '.com.au' suffixes before AARNet, but
there was no "assignment" mechanism - you just chose a name and found
someone you could connect to.

The same allocation policy still applies for the '.oz.au' 2ld as it
inherits the ACSnet methods. Choose a name and find someone to connect
to - but the difficulty of the second now greatly outweighs the first.

Sadly, my MHSnet machine gave up the ghost a month ago after running
without hiccup since 1991 - it was a 16MB 25MHz 486 running Unixware
with 2 full-height 100MB SCSI disks. I think one of the disks has
failed, but without install media anymore (5 1/4" floppies and 1/4"
cartridge tape) I have no interest in replacing the disk to find out.
I suppose I'll have to beg a copy of MHSnet for Linux from Piers to
resurrect my connection...

Chris



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