More On: What the AOL IM Patent Covers

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>]

(Reply proposing prior art, from the Interesting People
list)

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 04:36:33 -0500
From: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
To: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com>


------ Forwarded Message
From: "Faisal N. Jawdat" <faisal@faisal.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 01:27:27 -0800
To: dave@farber.net, johnl@iecc.com


>The application was filed on Jan 27, 1997, so the priority date would
>be Jan 27, 1996.  Was anyone using an IM system with permanent user
>names and a buddy list server before that?  The systems I used either
>used terminal names (TOPS-10 and Unix "talk") or per-session handles
>(IRC).

Zephyr, written at MIT.  I was using a locally modified
version on Carnegie Mellon's network in 1991.  We had
central servers, permanent user names (your userid, which
was system wide and authenticated via kerberos), and the
equivalent of buddy lists (with notification) via the
service.  The service was available on multiple platforms
(unix tty, x windows, and on the mac).  The X client
supported text formatting, and through the use of some spare
fields in the protocol we were able to hack in something
like file transfer (actually pointers to files on the local
network, since we had AFS to use as a global file store) and
a number of other capabilities (e.g. semi private discussion
groups which automatically changed location on a regular
basis, etc.)

Zephyr had some capabilities that AIM still lacks, such as
"instances", which are to to chat rooms as mailing lists are
to bulletin boards:  you'd send a message to an instance and
everyone subscribed would get a copy of the message (without
having ot have a dedicated chat room window open).

Feel free to forward the above to IP.

Dr, Farber - you should have access at CMU.  If you'd like
to test it out, let me know and I'll see if I can find time
during the day tomorrow to demo it for you (I still have an
account with access).

-faisal


------ End of Forwarded Message

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