[ih] Internet mail in the 80's

[Greg Skinner]

On May 21, 2026, at 2:54 PM, Craig Partridge via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Bob:
> 
> UUCP gateway and internet email gateway became effectively the same thing
> c. 1987.  That was quite a change.  It used to be that you'd have to route
> to an UUCP host that was connected to ARPANET, so some set of bang paths
> to, say, seismo, which would then interpret the remaining address as an
> Internet address.  Email gateways spent a lot of time crafting return
> paths, so someone could reply to a message that originated on a different
> network.
> 
> But the combination of domains names, and pathalias (I think that's the
> name - in any case, work by Honeyman and Bellovin to automatically route
> within the UUCP network), and MX RRs in the Internet world (which allowed
> us to email to domains that weren't on the Internet [yet]) meant you could
> email to someone at 3com.com from UUCP, Internet, or CSNET (and later
> BITNET) and it just worked!
> 
> This was intentional and reflected considerable work by folks to make all
> the parts integrate well during 1986 and 1987.
> 
> Craig
> 

Yes, pathalias is what you’re thinking of.  I mentioned it on this list last year. [1]

--gregbo

[1] https://elists.isoc.org/pipermail/internet-history/2025-February/010245.html