Throwback Thursday: Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)
Network Working Group L. Masinter
Request for Comments: 2324 1 April 1998
Category: Informational
Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document describes HTCPCP, a protocol for controlling,
monitoring, and diagnosing coffee pots.
1. Rationale and Scope
There is coffee all over the world. Increasingly, in a world in which
computing is ubiquitous, the computists want to make coffee. Coffee
brewing is an art, but the distributed intelligence of the web-
connected world transcends art. Thus, there is a strong, dark, rich
requirement for a protocol designed espressoly for the brewing of
coffee. Coffee is brewed using coffee pots. Networked coffee pots
require a control protocol if they are to be controlled.
Increasingly, home and consumer devices are being connected to the
Internet. Early networking experiments demonstrated vending devices
connected to the Internet for status monitoring [COKE]. One of the
first remotely _operated_ machine to be hooked up to the Internet,
the Internet Toaster, (controlled via SNMP) was debuted in 1990
[RFC2235].
The demand for ubiquitous appliance connectivity that is causing the
consumption of the IPv4 address space. Consumers want remote control
of devices such as coffee pots so that they may wake up to freshly
brewed coffee, or cause coffee to be prepared at a precise time after
the completion of dinner preparations.
This document specifies a Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol
(HTCPCP), which permits the full request and responses necessary to
control all devices capable of making the popular caffeinated hot
beverages.
HTTP 1.1 ([RFC2068]) permits the transfer of web objects from origin
servers to clients. The web is world-wide. HTCPCP is based on HTTP.
This is because HTTP is everywhere. It could not be so pervasive
without being good. Therefore, HTTP is good. If you want good coffee,
HTCPCP needs to be good. To make HTCPCP good, it is good to base
HTCPCP on HTTP.
Future versions of this protocol may include extensions for espresso
machines and similar devices.
Full RFC @ https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324
Michael Sauers is the Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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