Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CCV.BBN.COM!haverty
From: haverty@CCV.BBN.COM
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: RFCs by E-Mail
Message-ID: <8804020256.AA08787@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 1 Apr 88 12:34:43 GMT
References: <8803311846.AA02696@bel.isi.edu>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 28

Hi Jon,

The electronic mail channel is nice, but note that Tony's Mac doesn't
have an electronic mail server either.  Even if it did, given the nature
of personal computers (not always powered up, may be doing other things, etc.)
I'm not sure it would help if it did.  Perhaps if there was a pervasive
use of the PC-Mail (is that the right name) service that would meet the needs.

Like Tony, I have a MAC on my desk, and happen to have a PC-clone as well,
on the Internet.  We also tend to occasionally carry a laptop on trips.  There
is more computing power and memory on my desk than there was in an entire
computation center building not too many years ago.  I do 99% of my work
on those machines, and the frequency with which I interact with the network
to check mail, etc., is on a consistent downward trend.  What we're reacting to
I think is the situation where it's still necessary to establish a virtual
terminal link to a machine on the net, and login, type/send small packets,
etc., like I'm doing now.

I've been using Lotus Express, Desktop Express, and Compuserve Navigator,
which are all Personal-machine-oriented programs to utilize the services
of public networks (Compuserve and MCIMail).   It's an entirely different
style of network usage, where the fact that the network is involved becomes
almost invisible.

Anybody have ideas (or software...) that would make such usage exist
on the Internet?

Jack