[ih] very early email question

[Craig Partridge]

In message <a06230989c065557c9c1b@[10.0.1.8]>, John Day writes:

>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.

Hi John:

Actually my note was the result of two days of research, so perhaps coffee
*is* in order.

Nonetheless if you read RFC 542 (product of the March 1973 meeting) it states
that it incorporates:

    "a considerable number of changes for the last 'official' version,
    see RFCs 354, 385."

And RFC 385, while entitled comments, is an odd hybrid to wit:

    "The following comments... include errata, further discussion,
    emphasis points, and additions to the protocol.  I shall incorporate
    these comments into the main protocol document after we have had
    sufficient experience."

I've got email notes from at least one other person from that time
saying that MLFL and MAIL were widely implemented soon after 385 came out.

So I could be deeply confused, but there's a strong suggestion that
someone had a brainwave (Bhushan?) between July and August 1972 and that
it was promptly implemented, at least in west Cambridge (perhaps east
Cambridge too longer :-)?).

On the other subject...

Yes, SNDMSG was for TENEX.  It was the program Ray Tomlinson created
in 1971 and was the prototype email system discussed in the April '72 FTP
meeting (that led to RFC 354).  It remained TENEX's mailer for some time
and I assume it evolved a lot (I have to talk to Ray Tomlinson some more about
it).

Have you got a good pointer to the evolution of Multics' mailer?  I've been
digging through archives trying to figure out how the mailers (MTAs) worked
and the literature is worse than sparse.  Lots of stuff about user agents
(RD, BANANARD, MSG, etc) but until Eric Allman appears with delivermail
(sendmail's predecessor) nothing I can find on MTA development (even though
clearly a lot had to be going on).

Many thanks!

Craig