Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bywater!scifi!njs
From: njs@scifi.UUCP (Nicholas J. Simicich)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: USENET to IBM's VNET, is it possible?
Summary: IBM connections to the outside world....
Keywords: USENET VNET IBM
Message-ID: <412@scifi.UUCP>
Date: 9 Nov 88 14:05:52 GMT
References: <530@icus.islp.ny.us> <223@arnold.UUCP> <2150@bucsb.UUCP>
Organization: Nick Simicich, Peekskill, NY, USA
Lines: 31

In article <223@arnold.UUCP> dave@arnold.UUCP (Dave Arnold) writes:
>In article <530@icus.islp.ny.us>, lenny@icus.islp.ny.us (Lenny Tropiano) writes:
>> I have someone I would like to keep in touch with.  He is working for
>> IBM in Florida, and says he has an account on IBM's VNET.  Is there
>> a gateway from USENET, Internet, etc... to VNET.  If so, what would
>> the syntax be and where would I mail.
>
>Well,  looking at the "Notable Computer Networks" article from
>Oct. 1986 of CACM (Volume 29 number 10), it says that
>
>From ARPA Internet: USERID@IBM.COM should work.
  .......
>This article is old, so I don't know if it's still valid.
>--
>Dave Arnold (dave@arnold.UUCP)

In actual fact, there is no ibm.com machine.  ibm.com is actually a piece
of software that runs on a machine in California, and figures out who the
user actually is, and relays it. Only a few thousand IBM employees are
actually registered.  So, whereas njs@ibm.com will work for me, it won't
work for most.  Most of the employees who have net access work for the
research division, since after all, these are research nets.. :-)

UUCP gateways are available in a couple of places, but they won't
relay mail to IBM in general, and the same sorts of restriction (internal
userid and node must be known) applies to the bitnet gateway in Yorktown.

The answer seems to be that unless this person is registered, there is no
way to get there from here.

Nick Simicich --- uunet!bywater!scifi!njs