Xref: utzoo comp.editors:262 comp.emacs:3923 comp.mail.misc:1125
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!steinmetz!yosemite!elliott
From: elliott@yosemite.steinmetz
Newsgroups: comp.editors,comp.emacs,comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Editor for mail
Keywords: mail editors emacs mh elm
Message-ID: <11657@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 26 Jul 88 14:53:24 GMT
References: <215@fed.FRB.GOV> <5455@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> <2945@utastro.UUCP>
Sender: news@steinmetz.ge.com
Reply-To: elliott@yosemite.steinmetz.ge.com ()
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 28


While I would certainly not recommend its use for much else, the
Michigan Terminal Systems operating system has an absolutely wonderful
mail system called $MESSAGESYSTEM. I have yet to find anything that
comes close in terms of functionality and ease of learning. Things
like "retrieve outgoing status to=fred", if you want to see if fred
has read your mail yet, and the ability to modify or destroy messages
you have already posted, and being able to set notices that people see
as soon as they initiate a message to you, are very nice. (Of course,
you can abbreviate commands and make typos, and it will almost always
get it right.  Though if you spell "retrieve" wrong it tells you the
"I before E" rule and tsk tsks...)

Clearly much of this doesn't work in a network environment, but the
command interface could, as could the userdirectory database, which
lets you mail to people by name (and tells you near-matches if you
spell a name wrong; "5 names almost matched 'Jim Elliot'. Do you mean
'Jim Elliott'?")

Not that this is too useful to anyone because there are about eight
MTS sites in the world today...
 .     .    .    .   .  . ... .  .   .    .    .     .    .   .   .  . ... . .

 Jim Elliott                       /    ...!seismo!uunet!steinmetz!crd!elliott
                                  /            userE2U7@rpitsmts.BITNET
 "Don't look, son, it's          /      Jim_Elliott%mts@itsgw.rpi.edu [school]
  a secular humanist!"          /  (or)     elliott@ge-crd.arpa	      [work]
 .     .    .    .   .  . ... .  .   .    .    .     .    .   .   .  . ... . .