On Sep 10, 1996 at 13:25, Gaelyne Gasson of 3:800/809.64 wrote:

 DB>> GG> yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au
 DB>> GG> armidale.dal.net
 DB>> GG> Wollongong.NSW.AU.undernet.org
 DB>> GG> (BTW, this stuff is case sensitive).
 DB>> If it is, then something's broken - the DNS should be inherently
 DB>> case *in*sensitive.
 GG> Those aren't DNS look-ups, though, I don't think.   They are IRC
 GG> servers.  As far as I know there's a difference between the two.

An "IRC server" could refer to the software providing the IRC
service, or the machine on which such software is running;  either way, you
need an address to which you connect, and that's the machine's address -
ie., a DNS lookup.

When you enter an "IRC server" into an IRC client, it does a DNS
lookup to locate the IP address of the machine on which the IRC server
software is running, then opens a connection to the designated BSD socket
on that machine.  The DNS is supposed to be case-insensitive, but some
applications (like Netscape, ahem..) forget that, creating no end of
problems.

Cheers..


    - dave
    d.begley{at}ieee.org

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