Info-Mac 4/Info_Mac IV CD-ROM (Pacific HiTech Inc.)(August 1994).iso/Communications/Information/how-email-works.txt

Internet Message Format | 1994-06-11 | 6KB

Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 16:59:29 -0600
From: [e-mail] (Desmond K. Mullen)
Subject: How email really works...

My brother is in Latvia with the Peace Corps and may well have gone mad!

He's a bit of a Luddite and it took him a while to figure out how to send
email back to the rest of the family in the US, but now I think he's got
it figured out.   ;?)

-DM


---------------- forwarded message from my brother ----------------
Dear Desmond,
        I am in possession of certain knowledge regarding this crazy
email thing.  I have reverted to normal letter-writing style but I am
doing that against my better judgement.  Email is not as simple as everyone
seems to think.  This is what happens when one sends an email telegram:
        After typing the text into your TV-typewriter machine, you push one
of the buttons that says "send mail".  Your letter is then printed in the large
box-like base of your TV-typewriter.  The phone line allows a call to be made
automatically to a large, dark room in a non-descript building in the center
of town. This is the central-office ofthe Email system and it looks vaguely
like the illegal gambling parlor in "The Sting".
        In this room there is a huge "tote-board" on the wall at one end.
On the tote-board is a light which lights up next to your addressaas a result
of the machine generated phone call.    A herd of underemployed
meter-reader types watch the board.  The one assigned to your area writes
down your address and waits for other lights to indicate other messages.
        On the other side of the room is a large index-card file exactly like
the old card-catalogs of public libraries in the 1950's.  In the drawers of
this file are cards with all the pertinent information about the address up
on the tote-board.  Specifically, it states which computer at that address
has the email ability, and when the office is closed.  The messenger looks up
all this information and makes notes in a small pad which he carries for
reference.
        In a locked cage that stands to one side of the room is an elderly
woman who is in charge of the keys.  On the walls around her are thousands
of keys: enough to get into the buildings and offices of all the clients.
The messengers write a list of the keys they need on small, off-white sheets
of paper with #2 pencils.  The elderly woman inspects the list and, squinting
through reading glasses that are sliding down her nose with unendurable
regularity, she removes the keys from little pegs organized by street name.
        Sometime after the normal working day, when most of the offices
have closed and the workers have gone their ways, these messengers take to
the streets and make their rounds.  They enter the offices and open the back of
the TV-typewriter base.  They carefully remove the printed letter, close the
base, and lock the doors on the way out of your office.  After making their
rounds of the city, they come back to the main office of the Email system.
        At the main office again, the letters are brought by the messenger
to a door with a small window-like opening that is in the wall next to the
card-catalog files.  The messenger hands the letters to a particularly dour
fellow who sits on a too-tall stool behind the window opening.  This fellow
takes the letters from the messenger and gives hima written chit on which is
noted the number of letters he has brought in.  The messenger then takes that
chit to a large man in a blue plaid suit and white shoes.  The man in plaid
reads the chit and puts it into a pocket of his jacket.  He then pulls a
roll of soiled and torn low-denomination bills from his trouser pocket and
peels off enough to pay the messenger for his evenings work.
        IN the menatime, the dour fellow has taken the
letters and handed them out to the people in his department. In the room
behind the window sit 25 to 30 ancient and doddering men and women. They
sit behind long tables and wear green plastic eyeshades and sometimes
sleeve garters and
and cuff protectors.  The incandescent bulbs shed a harsh light over the work
and there is the faint odor of cigar smoke in the air.  This army of scribners
is armed with hundreds of Big Chief Writing Tablets and oversize pencils
with no erasers. They take the letters that they receive and write them in
standard telegram format (e.g.REGARD TO PREVIOUS LETTER STOP etc.).  The
geriatric scribes append addresses and hand their letters in batches to a
special messenger who takes them down to the Western Union office in town.
Western Union has a special deal with these email outfits in every town.
They quickly
process them as telegrams and send them in age old copper wire fashion to
the Email central office in the appropriate towns.
        In the receiving towns, the telegrams are delivered by a bicycle
messenger wearing a brimmed cap and looking a little like Mickey Rooney in his
heyday.  He brings them en masse to the central Email office where he hands
them to the office supervisor.  The office supervisor then lights up a
different light on the big tote-board which indicates that a letter has been
received for the indicated address.
        The messenger assigned to that region picks up the letter from the
supervisor and using the earlier descibed method of information cards and
keys, he goes to the office and types the letter into TV-typewriter in that
office in the appropriate email file.
        It ends up being a very complicated procedure; all intended to
promote the idea that email is quick and efficient.  It has been suggested
to me that
somehow the words are transmitted easily over the telephone wires but I
dispute that.  They say men landed on the moon, too.
        If you have any questions about the procedure please feel free to
ask me questions.  I am at your service.
        Best regards.
        CHRISTOPHER STOP
---------------- end of forwarded message ----------------

Desmond K. Mullen - University of Minnesota, Office of Admissions
[e-mail] - 612/625-0824 - Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA