bang path
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bang path: n.

  [now historical] An old-style UUCP electronic-mail address specifying hops to get from some assumed-reachable location to the addressee, so called because each hop is signified by a bang sign. Thus, for example, the path `...!bigsite!foovax!barbox!me` directs people to route their mail to machine `bigsite` (presumably a well-known location accessible to everybody) and from there through the machine `foovax` to the account of user `me` on `barbox`.

  In the bad old days of not so long ago, before autorouting mailers and Internet became commonplace, people often published compound bang addresses using the { } convention (see glob) to give paths from several big machines, in the hopes that one's correspondent might be able to get mail to one of them reliably (example: `...!{seismo, ut-sally, ihnp4`!rice!beta!gamma!me}). Bang paths of 8 to 10 hops were not uncommon. Late-night dial-up UUCP links would cause week-long transmission times. Bang paths were often selected by both transmission time and reliability, as messages would not infrequently get lost. See the network and sitename.

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