If you squint hard enough, everything has already been invented. Telegraph operators had a form of presence if you squint hard enough. Presence is a continuously updated 'display' of a set of other people's status. Finger didn't do that. Yeah, you COULD have used the mechanism to implement a form of presence, but I don't remember anyone ever doing that, and if they did, it didn't make anyone sit up and take notice like the IM folk's buddy status systems did. They invented presence, as we know it, and of course it's not entirely new, but then again, little else is. Finger had antecedents in various time sharing systems versions of "who is logged in" mechanisms. They in turn had predecessors in various user id logging mechanisms on batch systems. I recall being able to determine who was in the CMU Comp Center by looking at a fairly often posted list of batch runs made for the 1108, and the G20 graphics systems certainly had mechanisms to know who was on the other displays way before I got there. Sending real time messages to users logged in is almost as old. The G20 graphics systems had such facilities. Every time sharing system did, and of course, the telegraph operators had a similar facility. They aren't IM. Brian > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Crocker [mailto:dhc2@xxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 11:01 AM > To: John C Klensin > Cc: ietf@xxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: IM and Presence history > > > > John C Klensin wrote: > > Yes. I wanted to keep the note from becoming even longer, but... > > ack. figured that, but found myself compelled that the history lesson was > useful for the record. > > > >> If I came in through an arpanet dial-up at some random place > >> on the net, and telneted to my home system, then the finger > >> for that home system would show me as 'present'. I am not > >> seeing how today's presence systems are fudamentally different > >> from that. > > > > Subjectively and from my perspective, the present systems > > "feel", and sometimes actually are, much more distributed. But, > > yes, from the perspective you describe, we have advanced very > > little in terms of basic functionality. > > > I believe that none of the proprietary IMs is anything other than purely > centralized. > > Having to configure multiple IM accounts, to be able to talk to different > people, doesn't feel at all 'distributed' to me, except in the bad sense > of > multiple, disconnected, centralized services. > > d/ > > -- > > Dave Crocker > Brandenburg InternetWorking > bbiw.net > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf