UUCP
UUCP (Short for Unix-to-Unix Copy Protocol) was a suite of computer programs and protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of files, e-mail and news between different computers. Although it was a UNIX-exclusive system, it would later be the base of the universal Usenet service. In 1987, UUCP was the most popular computer network with nearly a hundred-million users in total. The second most popular, which was the casual, non-serious FidoNet, was a very distant second with just twenty million users in comparison. UUCP was made redundant with the creation of the InterNet on the 26th of August, 1989. However, it would still be in use until 1994, when MicroSoft Systems closed it down when it decided that it had outlived its usefulness.
The UUCP Mapping-Project was a volunteer, largely successful effort to build a map of the connections between machines that were open mail relays and establish a managed namespace. These submitted map entries were processed by an automatic program that combined them into a single set of .PDN files describing all connections on the network. These files were then published on a semi-annual basis on a Textfile given to all regular users dedicated to this purpose. The UUCP map files could then be used by software such as "pathalias" to compute the best route path from one machine to another for e-mail, and to even make this route available to systems which would usually not be able to access the network, with uuico MS-DOS machines, uuxqt for CP/M and ectetra. The UUCP maps also listed contact information for the network, and so gave sites seeking to join UUCPNET an easy way to find prospective neighbors.
.uucp[edit | edit source]
The calling-code .uucp was a pseudo-domain-style suffix used in the 1980s when identifying a hostname not connected directly to the ARPANET, but possibly reachable through other inter-network gateways. The suffix was appended to a UUCP net-path separated with a dot, e.g., host1!host2!host3.uucp. The suffix prevented messages from being routed via the Network-News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) in mail exchangers, and it indicated that the hostname preceding it was reachable by UUCP networking. It was not an official top-level domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) root. As UUCP hosts were not always uniquely named, and there was no official global table listing them, although the UUCP Mapping Project was an informal effort to create such a list, actual access to one (e.g., for routing e-mail to it) required the use of a full path, which did not follow domain-name-style syntax, unless the particular software being used had been programmed to recognize particular hostnames in a domain style and route to them.