On Monday, April 22, 1996 11:47 AM, Michael A. Patton[SMTP:MAP@bbn.com] wrote: <snip> @the expression). The other possibility is the contract went to some @upstart that doesn't even _think_ about domains other than .COM ... @ I was told recently by a "DOS expert" that .COM comes from the file extensions used by Microsoft, as in COMMAND.COM. This person "educated" me that Microsoft uses the .COM extension for "popular" programs like COMMAND.COM and that .COM stands for "common" and also "command". I was informed that everyone registers in the .COM domain to make sure that they are compatible with the version of the Internet supported by DOS and Windows. Needless to say...I was surprised that the origin of .COM was sort of lost in the translation...I guess when you have a hammer like DOS, everything looks like a nail... I guess if companies like AOL, Prodigy and Compuserve can convince their subscribers that they are "on the Internet", maybe everyone else can now convince people that _are_ on the Internet...that they are really on DOS....or something else...:-) -- Jim Fleming UNETY Systems, Inc. Naperville, IL 60563 e-mail: JimFleming@unety.net