legacy /8

[3356 at blargh.com (Andrew Gray)]

Jeroen van Aart writes: 

> Cutler James R wrote:
>> I also just got a fresh box of popcorn.  I will sit by and wait
> 
> I honestly am not trying to be a troll. It's just everytime I glance over 
> the IANA IPv4 Address Space Registry I feel rather annoyed about all those 
> /8s that were assigned back in the day without apparently realising we 
> might run out. 
> 
> It was explained to me that many companies with /8s use it for their 
> internal network and migrating to 10/8 instead is a major pain.

You know, I've felt the same irritation before, but one thing I am wondering 
and perhaps some folks around here have been around long enough to know - 
what was the original thinking behind doing those /8s? 

I understand that they were A classes and assigned to large companies, etc. 
but was it just not believed there would be more than 126(-ish) of these 
entities at the time?   Or was it thought we would move on to larger address 
space before we did?  Or was it that things were just more free-flowing back 
in the day?  Why were A classes even created?  RFC 791 at least doesn't seem 
to provide much insight as to the 'whys'. 

 - Andrew