From: sam@csi.compuserve.com (Sam Neely)
Subject: Re: CompuServe and Intern
Organization: CompuServe Incorporated
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 22:02:12 GMT

In article <1cP8RB3w164w@tweekco.uucp> alizard@tweekco.uucp (A.Lizard) writes:
>Here's an excerpt from NETGUIDE
>#F internet
>#T compuserve
>#R 71234,567
>#I send to '71234.567@compuserve.com'
>#I   Ordinary Compuserve account IDs are pairs of octal numbers
> 
>As to your assertion that postmaster at your site doesn't have
>the address of everyone on the Internet, neither does anyone else
>with the possible exception of the NSA. No one expects it to. In
>any case, the only POSTMASTER I have ever contacted at Compuserve
>is the "Electronic Postmaster", the autoreply referred to by you
>that says that if you don't have the Compuserve address for your
>addressee, that Compuserve is not going to help you find it.

Aha.  You received an automatically generated reply.  However, in
article <8546RB1w164w@tweekco.uucp> you say:

>That's the whole story. You MUST have the address of your party,
>POSTMASTER is as useless as I find the rest of the CompuServe
>organization.

Have you ever sent mail to the postmaster asking for help?  If you
give them the basic information that I outlined in my previous
message, they will try to search the directory for you.

>Have you ever tried to send mail to Compuserve from the Internet
>yourself? (try POSTMASTER@compuserve.com ... then try any
>compuserve address using the syntax from NETGUIDE.)

Why, yes I have.  :)
 
>Post your C-serve address or send it to me and I will demonstrate
>that the mode of addressing I and the NETGUIDE recommends works.
>In the meantime, I'll send mail to Compuserve users in the way I
>am accustomed to do.
> 
>In the meantime, has anyone ever actually tried to send E-mail to
>Compuserve via the procedure recommended by Sam? (of course, it
>may well be that this argument is because I'm using Waffle and
>the systems he uses actually will not handle the format I'm
>using. Anything is possible, one Internet access point I use
>won't even accept bang path addresses.)

I think things are being misinterpreted here...  The information that
you list above from the netguide is correct.  You take the person's
User ID, change the comma to a period, and append @CompuServe.com.

Let me clarify the previous messages:

From: todd.paulus%theweb@meaddata.com (Todd Paulus) 

  however, I do know that CIS does not provide ACCESS to INTERNET, but you
  CAN address a message to a specific address in INTERNET.  I have
  communicated with CIS members more than once.  If you have someone's CIS
  address, e.g. 12345,678, then address your message within INTERNET "TO:
  12345.678&compuserve.com".  All the ususal rules apply, of course.  The
  TO, etc. must be in the first line, the first character position, and
  there must be a blank line after the TO line.  CIS members can send mail
  back to you in INTERNET, but I forget the specific syntax.

From: alizard@tweekco.uucp (A.Lizard)
 
  To address mail to Compuserve from Internet, you address it:

  12345,678 (compuserve userID)

  12345.678@Compuserve.com
       ^
  period instead of comma

  Note that there is no TO: and there is no & , just a conventional
  user@domain format address.

  I am a little surprised that mail addressed in the format Todd is
  using made it to Compuserve. Maybe there's something exotic in
  mail aliasing at his site... but I am CERTAIN my address version
  is workable, I use it on a daily basis.

From: sam@csi.compuserve.com (Sam Neely)

  I'm not.  Depending on the mailer, the mail will probably be sent
  to a local user named '12345' and to '678@compuserve.com'.  The
  CompuServe gateway will reject the second piece and return a help
  message with instructions on sending to CompuServe addresses.

I wasn't recommending any address form in my message.  If I were, I
would have said what you did.

I was merely explaining that most mailers would interpret a TO:
line that looks like '12345,678@compuserve.com' as a message going
to two receipients.  The first would be '12345' on the local system,
and the second as '678@compuserve.com'.  That second message would
then go to the CompuServe gateway, and you would get an autoreply
with instructions.

>The specific syntax from Compuserve to Internet is:
>#F compuserve
>#T internet
>#R user@domain
>#I send to '>INTERNET:user@domain' (only from CompuServe users)

Looks kosher to me...

> 
>A.Lizard
-- 
Sam Neely, CompuServe Incorporated                  +1 614 442 2089 (voice)
5000 Arlington Centre Blvd, Columbus, OH  43220     +1 614 457 0348 (FAX)
Electronic Mail:  InfoPlex: >CSI:SAM      Internet: SAM@CSI.COMPUSERVE.COM
To err is human, to forgive is against company policy
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