MAIL-11, was Re: [HECnet] PDP-11/70 on FPGA

[Steve Davidson]

In software services, Real-Time Group (PKO2, Maynard) we used a "MAIL-11" app
that was written for RSTS/E (in BP2) by Steve Reilly (Software Services,RSTS/E,
MKO, Merrimack) and ported to RSX/IAS by Scott Blessley in our group.   To the
average user it looked just like the mail on VMS and was pretty much
bug-for-bug compatible :-).   It actually did quite a bit more than the VMS
version and turned out to me much easier to maintain as well.   Advanced users
made heavy use of the extra "features"!

As a side note, Scott brought me into DEC right out of school, and Steve is my
neighbor (across the street).   Small world...

-Steve

Paul Koning


On Aug 11, 2010, at 5:34 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:

Paul Koning wrote:
...
MAIL-11
MAIL-11 was written in Basic-Plus (or BP2) so it would work on =
non-FPP machines.   That assumes you're not counting the earlier one that =
was used only internally, written in TECO and distributed by some field =
office clown who was fired for it...
=20
Yes. Inferred by the above.
*Sigh*
Sorry for the misinformation. My brain is playing tricks on me.
=20
I didn't know there was ever one written in TECO. Yikes... :-)

MAIL-11 started out as an internal tool written by Mark Goodrich.   I'm =
pretty sure it was in TECO.   It certainly was slow.   But it worked; it =
gave us email connectivity to the rest of the engineering net, via =
DECnet.

At some point someone not connected to RSTS decided this should go out =
to the field, so he grabbed that code and just started distributing it, =
without even asking let along receiving permission.   We put a stop to =
that quickly.   But possibly as a result of that, a new mail program was =
created (again by Mark), written from scratch in Basic with good =
performance, which was suitable for outside use and indeed became a =
product.

	paul