denbeste@bgsuvax.UUCP (William C. DenBesten) (08/24/88)
From article <19880822142451.5.ROB@PADDINGTON.MIT.EDU>, by rob@GOLDILOCKS.MIT.EDU (Robert Kassel): > > We're in the process of switching from using a DEC-20 for mail and text > processing to using a network of Mac's. I've been having difficulty > locating applications to handle mail. > > Here's the situation I envision. We will have a Sun 4 acting as a file > server and store-and-forward mailer. Alternatively, we could use a Mac > as a mail server. We will be using a Cayman Systems GatorBox as a > network bridge. I have not yet purchased a mail system for our macintosh network, but have been looking at all the options and trying to find one that is able to talk to our existing unix mail system. I know of 5 systems: D------ DaynaMail |I----- Inbox ||M---- Microsoft Mail |||Q--- Quickmail ||||S-- Stanford SMTP ||||| S Talks to unix DIMQ Talks to other Macs DI Talks to PCs Q Will talk to PCs (announced) IMQ Will talk to unix in the future (announced) Q Talk to ASCII/Serial hosts (this may be a way to get unix connectivity) D MQ Requires Macintosh running Mail Server full time MQ Mail Server can coexist with AppleShare and LaserShare DI Q Can substitute AppleShare Server for Mail server DIMQ Always Accessable (DA) DIMQ Incoming message notification (INIT) DIMQ Attach other documents (Write/Paint/Draw etc) DIMQ Return Receipts IMQ Password and Automatic logon -------- Stanford's program, from tidbits that I have found on the net is an application (as opposed to a da), can not notify you of incoming mail, and is not suitable for mac to mac mail. I have not seen the package, literature on it, or anything else concrete, so I can't be sure of my info on it. -------- I have looked closest at quickmail. The company impresses me. I have QuickKeys by them, and am impressed by it. They sent me gobs of information about Quickmail and the rest of their product line (I have one page of info that the others sent). --------- I have only listed items that interest me, and that I have found in the information that I have. Although I have tried to be thorough , may be missing some features of some packages, or marked some features that are not there. -------- Current market trends have everyone scurrying to interface to SMTP or other large scale networks, so I expect that the everyone will eventually have the connectivity that I want (just not now :-( ). -------- A company, Star nine, is putting a gateway between AUX and QuickMail into beta testing. They estimate that with in a year they will have a version working on a vax with 4.3BSD, and maybe sooner if the interest is there. I said that I was very interested. If you have any questions about this or want to encourage them along, you can contact Elizabeth McGee at starnine%mcgee@uunet.uu.net -------- Let me know if you come up with anything else interesting. -- William C. DenBesten denbeste@bgsu.edu
prw@meccsd.MECC.MN.ORG (Paul R. Wenker) (08/24/88)
In article <2791@bgsuvax.UUCP> denbeste@bgsuvax.UUCP (William C. DenBesten) writes: >I have not yet purchased a mail system for our macintosh network, but have >been looking at all the options and trying to find one that is able to >talk to our existing unix mail system. I know of 5 systems: > >D------ DaynaMail >|I----- Inbox >||M---- Microsoft Mail >|||Q--- Quickmail >||||S-- Stanford SMTP >||||| > > S Talks to unix > IMQ Will talk to unix in the future (announced) > Q Talk to ASCII/Serial hosts (this may be a way to get unix connectivity) > We've gotten QuickMail to talk to our UNIX box without too many problems. The biggest problem we had was that QuickMail kept sending 'ATH0' to the UNIX machine. When login got that, it decided to go into uppercase mode (yeecch!). Anyway, sending mail from the Mac to UNIX is pretty easy. You just set up a user with a name (i.e. "John Q. Public") and an address (i.e. jqp@unixbox). Sending mail to UNIX users is no different that sending mail to Mac users. Sending mail from UNIX to the Mac is almost as easy, but was a little more work. We set up a site called 'quickm'. To mail something to a Mac user, you just mail to user@quickm (i.e. jqp@quickm). Since the QuickMail scripting language isn't really set up to read the UNIX mail headers, the quickm site adds an XTo: line (so the user's full name can easily be extracted) and an XFrom: line (to facilitate replies from QuickMail). There are several people here who have their UNIX mail forwarded to their Mac. The problems we have yet to work out include: -UNIX users cannot reply to messages sent from QuickMail. The return path is wrong. -UNIX users cannot send to multiple QuickMail users. Messages must be sent to each user individually. -Getting QuickMail to talk to the UNIX box via a direct line rather than a modem. QuickMail REALLY wants to be talking to a modem. We've been very happy with QuickMail. It's functionality far exceeds that of InBox, which we had been using previously. It's also one tenth the cost. -Paul Wenker prw@meccsd -MECC, Technical Services
t-jacobs@utah-cs.UUCP (Tony Jacobs) (08/26/88)
In article <950@meccsd.MECC.MN.ORG> prw@meccsd.UUCP (Paul R. Wenker) writes: > >We've gotten QuickMail to talk to our UNIX box without too many >problems. The biggest problem we had was that QuickMail kept sending >'ATH0' to the UNIX machine. When login got that, it decided to go >into uppercase mode (yeecch!). > >Anyway, sending mail from the Mac to UNIX is pretty easy. You just >set up a user with a name (i.e. "John Q. Public") and an address (i.e. >jqp@unixbox). Sending mail to UNIX users is no different that sending >mail to Mac users. > Could you perhaps post your script or Email it to me. I tried to mail you without success. We have a VMS machine that we would like to hook up to and a script would be a good starting place. Thanks in advance. -- Tony Jacobs * Center for Engineering Design * U of U * t-jacobs@ced.utah.edu
t-cohen@microsoft.UUCP (Chris Cohen) (08/26/88)
In article <2791@bgsuvax.UUCP>, denbeste@bgsuvax.UUCP (William C. DenBesten) writes: > -------- > > Stanford's program, from tidbits that I have found on the net is an > application (as opposed to a da), can not notify you of incoming mail, > and is not suitable for mac to mac mail. I have not seen the package, > literature on it, or anything else concrete, so I can't be sure of my info > on it. > > -------- Since I was one of the two people who designed and implemented this while I was at Stanford I'll make some comments: - I don't know if this has been officially released yet, or when (if) it will be available to the public - it is _not_ intended to be a Mac-to-Mac mailer, but is supposed to provide a friendly user interface to a Unix mail system (such as that running at Stanford). - it requires a mail-server running SMTP (usually a UNIX host of some sort) - it provides similar functionality to the popular UNIX based mailers (such as MH) with the obvious advantages of the Mac interface - it also incorporates an "address-book" feature, with direct cut-and-paste to and from messages - fully MultiFinder compatible - it's implemented in MacApp Michael Cohen Program Manager, Networking Microsoft Corp. Disclaimer (as usual): opinions are all mine
dyker@uswat.UUCP (Barbara Dyker) (09/13/88)
The summary of currently available mail packages for the mac was good, but... checkout uShare by Information Presentation Technologies. Supposidly it provides an interface to SMTP on a unix host for the mac. The software on the mac is an application and can notify you of incoming mail while in another application. The mac is not an SMTP server, it just allows you to send and receive mail through a SMTP mail server without logging in via telnet to do it. uShare is a modular product that also provides things like terminal emulation, file sharing (unix host as AppleShare server), print spooling (to the unix host lpq)... Interesting note: uShare provides and upgrade to Kinetics software that MUST be installed. The software causes the Kinetics to talk TCP/IP on the Ethernet side. Therefore uShare is incompatible with certain software that relies Kinetics/IP, eg. Tops for the Sun. It IS compatible with NCSA Telnet. This product is on the shelf. I just haven't gotten mine yet. Barbara J. Dyker dyker%uswest@boulder.Colorado.EDU