wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI) (01/09/86)
Some of you might have heard rumors or indications that the longtime ARPANET mail-relay and list-archive storage computer, MIT-MC, is due to be retired. These rumors are true; I append below a message from one of the system managers confirming this. Therefore, if you have been relying on having MIT-MC around as a source for archived mailing-list files, or as a mail-forwarder, be warned that it is likely to disappear abruptly in the near future. It would be good if all the list archives could be moved to other hosts which would also support the traditional ARPA "anonymous FTP", and also that mailing-list addresses should be changed to no longer rely on forwarding or list expansion by MIT-MC. I hope that this information is disseminated as widely as possible, so as to reach all list-maintainers and the whole community of users and list readers and contributors. Those of us who have been involved with the ARPANET for some years all owe a debt of gratitude to MIT-MC and the support staff that ran it over the past decade or so; that host was the seminal point for the entire mailing list and Digest phenomenon. It's sad to see it go, but we all know that hardware progress makes such changes inevitable. Regards, Will Martin ----- Forwarded message # 1: Date: Wed, 8 Jan 86 19:17:46 EST From: "Christopher C. Stacy" <CSTACY@mit-mc.ARPA> Subject: Future of MIT-MC? To: wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA cc: POSTMASTER@mit-mc.ARPA Message-ID: <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].777682.860108.CSTACY> Will, I am afraid that the rumors about MIT-MC's future are true. The maintenance contract for MIT-MC expires in a few months (at the end of February, I think). After that, the next time the machine breaks badly, it will be retired from service. There are few KS-10 (DEC2020) machines in the building now, and one of them is actually running ITS and calling itself MIT-AI. This tiny machine not on the Internet yet, although it probably will be before too long. However, MIT-AI will not have anywhere near the capacity of MC, and won't be able to service the world in general. There really isn't any machine available at MIT to take over the services MC has provided; the structure of the community and its associated resources has changed. People should be moving off of MIT-MC rapidly; the machine really will be decommissioned with little warning in the near future. Also, people should move their data, as files may not be retrievable once it's gone. Cheers, Chris ----- End of forwarded messages