Appendicies

From ZaInternetHistory

• MAIL000: Specifications for Action to be taken by the Mailing System. This was the specification of 1 March 1989, that showed how mail was to flow between the computers at Rhodes, onto Uninet and to the USA.
• MAIL001: Some test addresses that were used. The mailing systems had to produce the correct results in the appropriate files.
• MAIL002: Comments made by Jacot on one of the specifications. One that was recorded, out of many that were made.
• MAIL003: Address formats for mailing. A description of how the user would type in addresses. The document is dated 7 February 1989, which is very close to the date that the Fidonet gateway was released for general use at Rhodes.
• MAIL004: Sample mail between RURES and RUPHYS. This mail flowed on 10 January 1989, and showed the headers. The text of the message was used to confirm that the message lines were stored in the correct place on the Cyber.
• MAIL005: Sample of kludged mail from RURES to RUPHYS. Even in January 1989 there was concern about spamming.
• MAIL006: Another sample of kludged mail from RURES to RUPHYS. This example is here because it was found in the author's archives. It adds little to what is in MAIL005.
• MAIL007: Changes required to the Cyber mail system. By 21st March 1989, it was clear that the home-brewed Cyber mailing system was creaking, and that changes were necessary.
• MAIL008: Testing for weird patterns in the message. This is the text that was used to check that the text inside a message could look like the contents of a message header.
• MAIL009: What to do with message headers. This document spelt out how we were to handle the headers of the messages. At the time (12 January 1989) some confusion had arisen and thus clarity was needed.
• MAIL010: Test messages from RUPHYS to RURES. This tested that RURES would bounce badly addressed email back to the sender.
• MAIL011: Some message headers from the early days. These message headers were used to show us what we had to cater for when developing the Fidonet gateway. It also gives some dates of the early dial-up Bitnet-style messages that flowed within South Africa.
• MAIL012: Specification for logging Fidonet messages. This was quite likely not implemented. The early statistics showed that the cost of a message was only a few cents each, and it was not worth the effort to build an accounting system at that stage.
• MAIL013: Provisional document to link a Unix system. This was an attempt in March 1989 to get a uucp gateway operating via a donated NCR Tower computer in the Rhodes Computer Science department. This could not be made to work, the project fell through.
• MAIL014: Proposal for a major mail hub at Rhodes. It was clear by June 1989 that the Fidonet/Cyber gateway could and would be expanded to become quite big. The matter had now to be taken more seriously.
• MAIL015: The specification to connect a computer to RURES. This document, dated 27th June 1989, set the standards to be used in order for other computers around Uninet to connect to the RURES mailer. From this mailer, it was possible to exchange email with any other of the Uninet hosts of whatever manufacturer, as well as with hosts on the Internet.
• MAIL016: Mail flows at Rhodes University A document by Jacot, dated 16 June 1989, giving an overview of mail flows at Rhodes.
• MAIL017: Changes to the Fidonet Gateway By the 21st of November 1989, the Fidonet gateway was creaking quite badly. This document spelt out what changes were needed.
• Some info about the first TCP/IP workshop at Rhodes. This has the prelimary announcement, as well as the actual timetable.
• Common Interest Group Application. This was made to SAPO (predecessor to Telkom) early in 1988.
• South Africa cleared to connect to the Internet. Here is some correspondence on that topic. It was to be a full year before the Internet connection was established.