Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!VENERA.ISI.EDU!billy From: billy@VENERA.ISI.EDU (Billy Brackenridge) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc Subject: Mail for Mac and PC Workstations Message-ID: Date: 2 May 89 23:38:58 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 32 The question of mail on a workstation has come up on the PC/IP and InfoAppleTalk lists about how best do do mail on a workstation. Several years ago at ISI.EDU we experimented with POP based mail servers on PCs. A few people still use the system, but it never caught on. I have been working at a company called IPT Inc. We make a product called uShare which provides AFP based services on Unix machines. A Unix machine appears as a File, Print and Mail server to Macintoshes. Our original Macintosh mail server used a POP like protocol. I decided to build our mail system on top of the File Server protocol. While we did our system on top of AFP, it could be done on top of NFS, or Novell or any other file server protocol. A work station manipulates mail as files. When a user connects to his server we have some aliased files that point to his Unix in basket and Unix output mail queue. We have a Macintosh desk accessory that reads and writes these files and an IBMPC program that does the same. Any Unix mail reading program written in C could be ported to the MAC or PC under this kind of system. As the program is written in C and only manipulates files you don't even need to be connected to your system. You could download your input mail queue via Kermit take it home on your floppy disk, answer your mail and Kermit back the responses to your friendly Unix machine for delivery. I was around in the days when POP was invented. Macs and PCs still are not robust enough to do real SMTP delivery (unless you forward everything through a local mail server), however, had we reliable file servers in 1983 we never would have invented POP. It is an obsolete idea. I can't see writing a POP based mail system for Macs and PCs in 1989.