[comp.sys.cbm] Help with Compuserve

dattier@ddsw1.MCS.COM (David W. Tamkin) (10/23/90)

jack@rml.UUCP (jack hagerty) wrote in <223@rml.UUCP>:

| To get mail back [to these nets] from Compuserve, [CIS users] must use the
| form:
| 
| 	>user@host.domain
| 
| the important part of which is the leading ">" which tells CompuServe
| that the address is not a shorthand for the "address book" (or whatever
| they call it) but an actual network path.

Close.  It's >INTERNET:user@host.domain.  One has to specify which gateway
one is writing through.  CompuServe uses the >GATEWAY:address syntax for all
other mail systems with which it communicates.  If your site is not on the
Internet itself, the word INTERNET still applies, because CIS will still
route the mail to you through its Internet gateway. 

>INTERNET:uucp!style!bang!path!site!user will also work in most cases, if
CIS's forwarder on the Internet (saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu) can resolve it.

CompuServe customers may include aliases for remote addresses, just like
aliases for other CompuServe accounts, in their address books.  The /REPly
command after reading a letter sent in via the Internet gateway will also
address a response correctly (assuming your own Reply-To: or From: is valid
for return mail).  It's been my experience with CompuServe customers that (1)
the length of typing ">INTERNET:username@machine.cluster.institution.domain"
unnerves many of them and it's better to write to them first so that they can
answer by simply typing "/rep" after reading your letter and that (2) the
amount of header information that comes in a typical letter from a net site,
which we are very much used to, upsets many of them, so when you are in
telephone, face-to-face, or postal contact to get the CIS customer's user-ID,
it's a good idea to let him or her know that mail from you will have a lot of
routing information at the top, which he or she can generally ignore.

David Tamkin  Box 7002  Des Plaines IL  60018-7002  708 518 6769  312 693 0591
MCI Mail: 426-1818  GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN  CIS: 73720,1570   dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com