Were A record domain names ever limited to 23 characters?

[jcdill.lists at gmail.com (JC Dill)]

On 07/10/11 7:41 PM, Joe Hamelin wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 7:30 PM, Jay Ashworth<jra at baylink.com>  wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> "3com.com"
> I recall that 3M was originally mmm.com because they wouldn't allow a number
> to start a domain.
>
> /me runs whois mmm.com
>
> Yep,  Created on..............: 1988-10-31.
>
> but wait, 3m.com  Created on..............: 1988-05-27.
>
> So was the digit as first octet a limitation with some OS or software (BIND,
> sendmail, gopher?) or do I have brain-fade?


http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc810.txt

ASSUMPTIONS

    1. A "name" (Net, Host, Gateway, or Domain name) is a text string up
    to 24 characters drawn from the alphabet (A-Z), digits (0-9), and the
    minus sign (-) and period (.).  No blank or space characters are
    permitted as part of a name.  No distinction is made between upper
    and lower case.  The first character must be a letter.