bang path n.
[now historical] An old-style UUCP
electronic-mail address specifying hops to get from some
assumed-reachable location to the addressee, so called because each
hop is signified by a bang sign. Thus, for example, the
path ...!bigsite!foovax!barbox!me directs people to route their
mail to machine bigsite (presumably a well-known location
accessible to everybody) and from there through the machine
foovax to the account of user me on barbox.
In the bad old days of not so long ago, before autorouting mailers
became commonplace, people often published compound bang addresses
using the { } convention (see glob) to give paths from
several big machines, in the hopes that one's correspondent
might be able to get mail to one of them reliably (example:
...!{seismo, ut-sally, ihnp4}!rice!beta!gamma!me). Bang paths
of 8 to 10 hops were not uncommon in 1981. Late-night dial-up
UUCP links would cause week-long transmission times. Bang paths
were often selected by both transmission time and reliability, as
messages would often get lost. See Internet address,
the network, and sitename.
[now historical] An old-style UUCP
electronic-mail address specifying hops to get from some
assumed-reachable location to the addressee, so called because each
hop is signified by a bang sign. Thus, for example, the
path ...!bigsite!foovax!barbox!me directs people to route their
mail to machine bigsite (presumably a well-known location
accessible to everybody) and from there through the machine
foovax to the account of user me on barbox.
In the bad old days of not so long ago, before autorouting mailers
became commonplace, people often published compound bang addresses
using the { } convention (see glob) to give paths from
several big machines, in the hopes that one's correspondent
might be able to get mail to one of them reliably (example:
...!{seismo, ut-sally, ihnp4}!rice!beta!gamma!me). Bang paths
of 8 to 10 hops were not uncommon in 1981. Late-night dial-up
UUCP links would cause week-long transmission times. Bang paths
were often selected by both transmission time and reliability, as
messages would often get lost. See Internet address,
the network, and sitename.
Related:
- bang path: n. An old-style UUCP electronic-mail address specifying
hops to get from some assumed-reachable location to the addressee,
so called because each {hop} is signified by a {bang}... - hop
1. n. [common] One file transmission in a series
required to get a file from point A to point B on a
store-and-forward network.
On such networks (including UUCPNET and FidoNet)... - hop: 1. n. One file transmission in a series required to get a
file from point A to point B on a store-and-forward network.
On such networks (including {UUCPNET} and {FidoNet})... - network, the: n. 1. The union of all the major noncommercial,
academic, and hacker-oriented networks, such as Internet... - the network n.
1. Historicaslly, the union of all the major
noncommercial,
academic, and hacker-oriented networks, such as ... - domainist /doh-mayn'ist/ adj.
1. [Usenet, by pointed
analogy with "sexist",
"racist", etc.] Someone who judges people by the... - UUCPNET n. obs.
The store-and-forward network consisting of all
the world's connected Unix machines (and others running some clone
of the UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) software).
Any machine reachable only via a bang path is on... - UUCPNET: n. The store-and-forward network consisting of all the
world's connected UNIX machines (and others running some clone of
the UUCP (UNIX-to-UNIX CoPy) software).
Any machine reachable only via a {bang path} is... - Internet address n.
1. [techspeak] An absolute network
address of the form foo@bar.baz,
where foo is a user name, bar is a sitename, and...
