karl@cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (07/15/89)
[This is going simultaneously to comp.mail.misc on the Usenet and
info-nets@think.com.]
To clear up some confusion and squash several dozen rumors which have
been floating around since sometime this past Wednesday or
thereabouts, I'm telling people about this now, although more official
(officious? :-) announcements will be forthcoming sometime Real Soon
Now.
CompuServe is email-accessible. The machinery to do so has actually
been in place for some months, but there has been an arbitrarily large
number of reasons why official, live status has not yet been granted
to the gateway. Technically, this is true, even as I write this.
To reach a CompuServe subscriber account of the form
7xxxx,yyy
swap the `,' for `.' and add @compuserve.com:
7xxxx.yyy@compuserve.com
This is necessary for RFC compliance. To reach employees of
CompuServe, they have somewhat more typical usernames inside the
csi.compuserve.com subdomain.
CompuServe subscribers can reach people Out Here from CompuServe's
mailers via the specification:
>internet:user@host.domain
The use of ">stuff:" is CompuServe's general gateway-access syntax; it
does not appear in anything on the Internet side of the gateway, but
rather RFC-compliant headers are generated.
Internet nameservers for compuserve.com are alive and responding, and
pathalias data for a (fictitious) host "compuserve" has been published
since last fall. Internet mailers must support MX records in order to
reach CompuServe. The MX host is saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu, a.k.a.
osu-cis. I understand that there is some magic that must be performed
on BITNET VM hosts in order to get there due to lack of MX support;
details from other BITNETters, not me.
Saqqara speaks with CompuServe approximately half-hourly, though this
will probably change as load is observed.
There are NO charges accrued to ANYBODY on either side of the gateway
for its use. CompuServe subscribers are charged their usual hourly
rates, but there is no gateway-specific surcharge.
The reason for this posting is that the gateway was mentioned rather
casually to info-nets@think.com, resulting in a rather impressive
flurry of queries, explanations, and test notes through the gateway.
The load has been, ah, remarkable. There were quite a number of
misconceptions about it (notably regarding charging, there being none
but others claiming that there would be), and I am hoping to prevent
further rumor-mongering. Vint Cerf presented this on CompuServe's
behalf to FRICC just this past Monday; there is "agreement in
principle" on the gateway's existence, but the formalities of the
situation have yet to be finalized.
Disclaimer: I speak for myself, not CompuServe.
Questions about the gateway => karl@cis.ohio-state.edu
Questions about CompuServe => postmaster@compuserve.com
Cheers,
--Karl Kleinpaste
Personification of the Mailer Daemon
Ohio State Computer Science
Instigator of the Internet/CompuServe mail gateway
no longer acting "postmaster@compuserve.com"tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) (07/16/89)
Since Karl's message was posted, I have tested the
UUCP/Internet<-->Compuserve link a bunch of times and it works great.
One minor difference with the original instructions I have noticed. If
you send something to 76543.21@compuserve.COM and sign onto your
CompuServe account, you'll see something from
>INET:joeblow@mycpu.DUMB.NET
or whatever. The (tiny) point is that sending to >INET: works as well
as sending to >internet: -- I have tried it. No biggie.
Service seems to be prompt. CompuServe Executive News Service (ENS)
subscribers, who can MAIL articles they want to keep, might particularly
want to keep this in mind.
--
"My God, Thiokol, when do you \\ Tom Neff
want me to launch -- next April?" \\ uunet!bfmny0!tneffkarl@dinosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (07/17/89)
tneff@bfmny0.uucp writes: Since Karl's message was posted, I have tested the UUCP/Internet<-->Compuserve link a bunch of times Yes, I know, I've seen you in the logs. :-) you'll see something from >INET:joeblow@mycpu.DUMB.NET The reason is that "inet" was being used originally, but was found to conflict with (I believe; memory is slightly fuzzy here) an entity called INET with which CompuServe does business. Hence the change. Both are accepted for the time being; "inet" is heading for defunctitude. --Karl
evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) (07/19/89)
In article <KARL.89Jul16151027@dinosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu> karl@dinosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) writes: >The reason is that "inet" was being used originally, but was found to >conflict with (I believe; memory is slightly fuzzy here) an entity >called INET with which CompuServe does business. Hence the change. >Both are accepted for the time being; "inet" is heading for defunctitude. There is an entity in Canada called iNet which is offered by Telecom Canada, the Great White North's answer to Tymnet. Here, iNet is offered as a menu-based service for connecting to assorted consumer databases via X.25. I believe Compuserve uses iNet to facilitate access from Canada. -- Evan Leibovitch, SA, Telly Online, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario evan@telly.on.ca / uunet!attcan!telly!evan / Director & editor, /usr/group/cdn God is Love, but get it in writing
jpr@dasys1.UUCP (Jean-Pierre Radley) (07/24/89)
In article <14472@bfmny0.UUCP> tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes: >Since Karl's message was posted, I have tested the >UUCP/Internet<-->Compuserve link a bunch of times and it works great. > > The (tiny) point is that sending to >INET: works as well >as sending to >internet: -- I have tried it. No biggie. But Karl has pointed out ( on the UNIXFORUM in Compuserve, at least ) that this might work now, but don't get used to it, as it will be phased out. INET appears to conflict with a name on Compuserve's business networks, so INTERNET will be the only way to go "real soon now". -- Jean-Pierre Radley CIS: 72160,1341 jpr@jpradley.UUCP