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From: paul@umix.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.hypertext
Subject: Re: Hypertext Usenet
Message-ID: <2670@umix.cc.umich.edu>
Date: Sun, 15-Nov-87 17:24:30 EST
Article-I.D.: umix.2670
Posted: Sun Nov 15 17:24:30 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Nov-87 02:53:17 EST
References: <3296@hoptoad.uucp> <557@brandx.rutgers.edu> <234@papaya.bbn.com>
Reply-To: paul@umix.cc.umich.edu ('da Kingfish)
Organization: University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor
Lines: 35
UUCP-Path: {uunet,rutgers}!umix!paul

In article <234@papaya.bbn.com> rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) writes:
>Doesn't UMichigan have something in the fire?
>

Indeed ... we're not even going to the rosebowl this year -:)

Seriously, part of NSF's EXPRES is being done here, primarily at an
organization called citi.  That is a multimedia mail project, based on
BBN's Diamond, but also incorporating more work.  I could ask someone
there to provide a blurb for this group to read.  In fact, I will.

Along the lines of a shared database ...

Here we have a locally produced mailer running on IBM architecture
mainframes.  It has features that take advantage of the fact that all
messages are stored in one structured file.  So, you can retrieve sent
messages for reediting, retrieve 'deleted' messages, see history chains
of a series of replies, etc.

I am working on something similar for workstations.  My starting base
is an Apollo ring, because they have features I like.  I am especially
using something they call extensible streams.  All messages won't go
into one file -- they will be distributed around the ring -- but there
will be some global database of info for these messages.

So, /usr/spool/mail won't be a directory -- it will be an object that
will have info about the mail messages extant in that file system,
which is kind of what /usr/spool/mail is now.  /usr/spool/mail/paul
will be info about paul's mail.  finally, paul's mail will be in typed
files, with the idea that different message types can be accomodated.

--paul
-- 
Trying everything that whiskey cures in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Over one billion messages read.