Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!van-bc!sl
From: sl@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca (Stuart Lynne)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Domain Registration (was Re: Imminent death of UUCP Zone predicted)
Message-ID: <1193@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 3 Aug 90 00:54:36 GMT
References: <961@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca> <1990Jul26.025310.4158@chinet.chi.il.us> <2118@cirrusl.UUCP>
Organization: USENET Public Access, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 41

In article <2118@cirrusl.UUCP> dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>In <1990Jul26.025310.4158@chinet.chi.il.us> les@chinet.chi.il.us
>(Leslie Mikesell) writes:
>
>     What we really need is a single machine that understands both
>     [email and fax].  I don't see why such a device should cost much
>     more than existing fax equipment [with some caveats].
>
>I think that asking anybody who already has a computer and a modem to
>invest more money in a new machine for email is not a good idea.  We
>need a dial-up email standard that anybody who already has PC and modem
>can use by simply loading some software.
>
>It's good if the fax machine makers become compatible with this
>standard; it's not good for this standard to be incompatible with
>existing PCs and modems.

That would be nice but... One of the problems is that data modems are
connected to many types of computers, each of which has different ideas on
how they want you to initiate a connection. I.e. baud rates, parity, login
sequences, etc. And you will be very hard pressed to come up with a method
to use data modems that can get into *any* existing system to deposit mail.
Unless you can replace the front ends on a lot of different systems. (Like
getty on unix, who knows what on VMS..)

The advantage Fax has is a very specific sequence of events to establish a
connection to a given phone number. Once connected a very specific sequence
of negotiations to establish what each side is willing to do. This already
exists and is useable. With some extensions (ECM, BFTP) it quite reasonable
to assume that an EMail message can be sent to a "phone number" with the
decision about delivery being made as a bitmap, or the original ASCII text
being deferred until you have connected and discovered whether the machine
on the other side supports file transfer. 

Also remember that there are more real fax machine's available as
destinations for you email than pc's with data modems. So hoisting this all
on fax gives you a larger number of potential targets than doing so with
data modems.

-- 
Stuart.Lynne@wimsey.bc.ca ubc-cs!van-bc!sl 604-937-7532(voice)