[ih] very early email question

[John Day]

At 9:01 -0400 2006/04/14, Craig Partridge wrote:
>Hi folks:
>
>Strange question.  I've been delving into the history of email and discovered
>that the original SNDMSG did not spool messages or seek to retry if a remote
>host was down.  It simply returned an error.
>
>So when did email systems start to assume that a remote host being unreachable
>was a transient event and save messages for retransmission rather 
>than bouncing
>them immediately back to the user?
>
>Anyone know?

More or less immediately.  In those days, everyone implemented their 
own mail program.  So the the fact that SNDMSG (what system was that 
for?  Tenex?) didn't do it, doesn't mean that no one did.  I am 
pretty sure that Multics for example, just integrated it with the 
existing Multics mail system (after adding append to the access 
control list structure).  But memory is hazy on this.

>Craig
>
>PS: While we're on this general topic.  Another unanswered question.
>RFC 354 (first FTP spec that looks like FTP we know) was the product of
>an April 1972 meeting in which one of the issues was getting email support
>into FTP.  RFC 354 makes clear the idea was to use the APPEND to file
>command (which was what SNDMSG used).  Then five weeks later RFC 385
>modifies 354 to define MAIL and MLFL in place of APPEND for mail support.
>What happened in the five weeks between the two RFCs to cause the sudden
>change of approach?

Note that 385 is not an FTP spec.  The title is "Comments on the File 
Transfer Protocol." Have another cup of coffee, Craig  ;-) (This is 
back when RFC still meant Request for Comment.) This is Bhushan's 
proposal for including them.   MAIL and MLFL were not included in the 
spec until the March 1973 meeting.  That famous meeting where in 
response to a question about what happens when strange parameters for 
the BYTE command are used to store and retrieve a file, MAP gave that 
famous answer, "Sometimes when changing oranges into apples, one gets 
lemons!"  ;-)

MAIL was included so that mail could be sent to systems that didn't 
implement a file system, such as the TIPs, or as a low overhead way 
to send short emails.  MLFL was the "right" way and for longer 
messages.  The append command remained for uses other than mail.

Take care,
John