Strange questions

[Notanedugeek]

Hello all, I'll open this with saying I do not work in education or IT, but since 2001 a question has been bugging me - mostly BGfL/Birmingham schools (EdIT I think they were called), and I've not seen it crop up elsewhere.

 

When I was in primary school the website and AD domain name for the school was misspelled, it was web.blakesly.bham.sch.uk and the AD domain was \BLAKESLY, the school was called Blakesley Hall Primary School. Initially I thought this was a mistake and it has since been corrected, however I noticed other schools and education establishments followed a similar habit of dropping the 'e', my nan worked at Adderley Childrens' Centre whose website was/is adderly.bham.sch.uk, and another school (Stirchley Primary School) still uses stirchly.bham.sch.uk.

 

Was there any particular reason for this? Or was it laziness? I keep thinking there was some weird length limit applied to the domains but it just seems odd to drop the 'e' at the end of the locations.

 

Hopefully though someone can settle 22 years worth of confusion that first started when I was 8...

 

Also as a random aside, does anyone remember any software called TurtleIT and PaintIT by JetSoft - on my strange nostalgic trip thinking about the above I remembered these. I did ask BGfL/Link2ICT in 2009 if they still held copies as JetSoft is long dead and I'd love to have a go at making mental patterns on a VM.

[Guest Guest]

I work in a Birmingham school and our domain is also missing characters (not just an e) i was told by our previous Business Manager this was due to limits on the length of the domain name

 

Other Birmingham schools have domains longer than ours though

Edited January 29, 2023 by Guest

[Roberto]

I work in a Birmingham school and our domain is also missing characters (not just an e) i was told by our previous Business Manager this was due to limits on the length of the domain name

 

Other Birmingham schools have domains longer than ours though

 

 

I wonder if someone confused windows domain name lengths from the NT4 days (e.g. Netbios name), which IIRC was limited to something like 15 or 16 characters, with the length of the FQDN. Or was working with some beastly legacy software that had limits imposed on it.

[andy_b]

I never really understood the naming conventions they chose. I just thought maybe someone had one to many drinks when they requested them

 

Over time I imagine schools requested their own variants, which made it even worse, but as the short list below shows, there seems to be no logic.

 

 

bldmerej.bham.sch.uk

htcepa.bham.sch.uk

sjw.bham.sch.uk

stfranrc.bham.sch.uk

stmgtmry.bham.sch.uk

abbeyrc.bham.sch.uk

stjosb7.bham.sch.uk

 

 

Also as a random aside, does anyone remember any software called TurtleIT and PaintIT by JetSoft - on my strange nostalgic trip thinking about the above I remembered these. I did ask BGfL/Link2ICT in 2009 if they still held copies as JetSoft is long dead and I'd love to have a go at making mental patterns on a VM.

 

There were quite a few "IT" variants, you may remember some of these (they were sold as "Ability Suite" bundles) then:

 

Chart IT

Count it

Flowol2

Graph Plus

Illuminatus v4.00

Junior PinPoint

Magic Pencil

Megapaint

My World

Paint it

Paint Shop Pro 5

Project Costing

Reveal it

Script it

Sensing Science

Snakes & Ladders

Superdisk

SuperLogo

Turtle it

Edited January 29, 2023 by andy_b

[dcwhitworth]

Ok it strikes me that all the domains you mention are eight characters long. Eight used to be the limit for DOS file names. So off the top of my head I have three theories -

 

1. Mistaken assumption / habit. Someone was stuck on the notion that important names need to be eight characters maximum.

2. Historical names. The schools already had names created for older systems that required eight characters maximum, these names were retained for consistency.

3. Cross system compatibility. Other systems in use had an eight character limit so eight was used for the domain name to be compatible when communicating.

[psydii]

There is someone here who worked for RM (RM were there when the subdomains of .sch.uk were created back in 1998) and now works for Nominet. I'm drawing a blank on their name *EDIT* Steve Forbes (not sure of his handle), but perhaps they remember he knows someone who remembers? Edited January 30, 2023 by psydii

[StevieM]

There is someone here who worked for RM (RM were there when the subdomains of .sch.uk were created back in 1998) and now works for Nominet. I'm drawing a blank on their name *EDIT* Steve Forbes (not sure of his handle)

@steve_forbes

[Boredguy]

I think this is purely down to the naming convention the BGfL used when registering the sch.uk domains originally.

Certainly all the addresses registered by RM for the SWGfL/SEGfL at it's inception in the early 2000's didn't seem to have the same limitation

[andy_b]

Ok it strikes me that all the domains you mention are eight characters long. Eight used to be the limit for DOS file names. So off the top of my head I have three theories -

 

1. Mistaken assumption / habit. Someone was stuck on the notion that important names need to be eight characters maximum.

2. Historical names. The schools already had names created for older systems that required eight characters maximum, these names were retained for consistency.

3. Cross system compatibility. Other systems in use had an eight character limit so eight was used for the domain name to be compatible when communicating.

 

Ours was nine characters

[rmusergroup]

Good morning,

 

We have many of these software titles in our library, which I am more than happy to demo you. Many of these applications where bundled with RM Community Connect 3 (CC3) networks, as well as some been offered as Curriculum Choice integration packs. Take a look at our website, and be sure to join our Discord where we have a specific section for Educational Software.

 

Website: https://rmusergroup.net

Discord: https://discord.gg/Ja87V8ufHU

 

Best regards

James

RM User Group

[steve_forbes]

There is someone here who worked for RM (RM were there when the subdomains of .sch.uk were created back in 1998) and now works for Nominet. I'm drawing a blank on their name *EDIT* Steve Forbes (not sure of his handle), but perhaps they remember he knows someone who remembers?

 

Hi, let me ask my colleagues here at Nominet and find out if there were any restrictions.