wetter@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Pierce T. Wetter) (05/04/89)
I have read many postings from various people who would like to send and
receive mail, and read news on their mac. While everyone agrees that this
would be nice, few have done much about it. Well, I was poking around Simtel20
the other day when I found an interesting package called ka9q. This is a
package developed by the packet-radio hams that let you use tcp-ip level
protocols on your mac or pc, including: ftp, smtp, and telnet. (File Transfer
Protocol, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, and I don't know what telnet stands
for.). All you need is the software, an IP address, and either a SLIP feed
or packet-radio modem and POOF you're a node on the Internet.
I tried this software out yesterday and was able to send mail between
macintoshi over AppleTalk. Unfortunately, the software doesn't support Zones
so I couldn't talk to the mainframes through the Kinetics box, however, by
merging the KA9Q sources with the NCSA Telnet sources, this could be fixed.
And I wouldn't have to use these lame mainframes to send mail anymore.
The point to my posting is this: the major software to do what you want is
already there, it just needs to be developed by some people other then the
packet radio types. It could become possible that every bulletin board in the
country, and every macintosh could become a part of the Internet, every person
having his or her E-Mail access, the entire nation linked in a vast net of
information. For all those of you who think this could be
useful to you, ftp to louie.udel.edu and take a look.
Pierce --------Caltech's Evil Mac Consultant From Hell
--
wetter@csvax.caltech.edu | wetter@tybalt.caltech.edu | pwetter@caltech.bitnet
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| This Rent For Space -|
|____________________________________________________|amanda@intercon.UUCP (Amanda Walker) (05/11/89)
In article <10576@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>, wetter@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Pierce T. Wetter) writes: > > I have read many postings from various people who would like to send and > receive mail, and read news on their mac. [talks about Phil KarnUs stuff] > ... however, by > merging the KA9Q sources with the NCSA Telnet sources, this could be fixed. > And I wouldn't have to use these lame mainframes to send mail anymore. Yeesh. Unfortunately, the programming interfaces for Phil's & NCSA Telnet don't much resemble each other. There are some commercial products in the works, as well. We showed a preview of ours at MacWorld Expo/DC, and in fact I am posting this very message from my Mac II. We expect to start shipping non-beta copies in, say, mid-June (i.e., about the time of Summer Usenix...pure coincidence, I assure you :-)). Mail in particular is not as easy as it seems, however. Sending is relatively easy, but receiving gets a little thorny, especially with KIP/KSTAR style dynamic IP address assignment, the fact the Macs tend to be turned off in at night, and so on. A mailbox server is a good approach, but there are so many standards to choose from :-) (POP2, PCMAIL, IMAP2, FTP (hey, it could be done), etc.), and all of them so far are more-or-less copylefted, which poses a problem for commercial distribution. If last year was "The Year Of The Network," will this year be"The Year Of Real Macintosh EMail?" [1/2 :-)]? -- Amanda Walker <amanda@intercon.UUCP>