Editing Finger (protocol) (section)

==Name/Finger protocol==
The Name/Finger protocol is based on [[Request for Comments]] document <nowiki>RFC 742</nowiki> (December 1977) as an interface to the <code>name</code> and <code>finger</code> programs that provide status reports on a particular computer system or a particular person at network sites. The finger program was written in 1971 by [[Les Earnest]] who created the program to solve the need of users who wanted information on other users of the network. Information on who is logged in was useful to check the availability of a person to meet. This was probably the earliest form of [[presence information]] for remote network users.

Prior to the finger program, the only way to get this information on [[WAITS]] was with a WHO program that showed IDs and terminal line numbers (the server's internal number of the communication line over which the user's terminal is connected) for logged-in users. In reference to the name FINGER, Les Earnest, wrote that he saw users of the WAITS [[time-sharing]] system run their fingers down the output of the WHO command.<ref name=Colbath>{{cite newsgroup
 |author=Earnest, Les
 |via=Colbath, Sean
 |title=Origins of the finger command
 |date=20 February 1990
 |newsgroup=alt.folklore.computers
 |message-id=1990Feb20.023931.13825@cs.rochester.edu
 |url=https://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1990Feb20.023931.13825@cs.rochester.edu
}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=October 2023 |reason=TBD use RFC742 as a source that Les Earnest wrote FINGER, also see https://www.saildart.org/ALT.FOL[1,LES]4}}