> "Little black book" was an ubiquitous term when I grew up, and so using the term would just be a synonym to "address book" that nobody would think twice about.
Indeed, I'm aware of that meaning and its ubiquity. But amongst UK university computing staff at that time, knowledge of the Coloured Books was as embedded. Remember that JANET network addresses were the other way round, so rather than cam.ac.uk it used to be uk.ac.cam - the author of this piece will have been well aware of the double meaning.
It's that double meaning that gives the headline it's precise relevance and a dash of humour.
The order of the addresses was linked to the Coloured Books and needed translation to interwork with SMTP, and eventually the users needed to change their addresses. The point being, that anyone involved in UK scientific computing will have been aware of the UK protocols - many will have been involved in their creation and maintenance.
The humour comes from a (non-risqué) double entendre.
I don't think we'll agree here. To me this just looks like a straightforward use of a common metaphor for an address lookup that isn't funny to me whether or not it was intended to link it to the coloured books.
Indeed, I'm aware of that meaning and its ubiquity. But amongst UK university computing staff at that time, knowledge of the Coloured Books was as embedded. Remember that JANET network addresses were the other way round, so rather than cam.ac.uk it used to be uk.ac.cam - the author of this piece will have been well aware of the double meaning.
It's that double meaning that gives the headline it's precise relevance and a dash of humour.