> > How does one send mail INBOUND to this kind of VAX mail from a modern email > > like gmail? Is it possible to format the header somehow to get the message > > through? You can't simply send a message to > > > > sys...@microvax3100.vintagecomputer.net > > > > how would I format the email address? I could write a PHP program to > > format the header "wrong" for normal purposes but "right" for the VAX > > inbound I suppose. Any tips that don't involve creating a gateway nor > > changing the target VAX itself? > > I don't remember the details of what email addresses looked like in the days > when DEC was first connected to the Internet (or ARPAnet). There was a > bunch of magic at the WRL gateway (gatekeeper.dec.com -- also one of the > first firewalls). A lot of this can be done by suitable magic in > sendmail.cf. At some later time I believe that the mapping from SMTP > addresses to DECmail addresses was pretty much transparent, so you could > indeed send that simple address you mentioned. Earlier on it was something > like "ark::[1,211]"@decwrl.dec.com or perhaps kremvax!decwrl!ark!1,211 ...
Multinet implements an SMTP server as per RFC821. This delivers mail directly into VMS MAIL mailboxes using the foreign mail protocol provided in the VMS MAIL API. There is no mapping between different address formats required. The Multinet SMTP server is not as capable as a proper mail server like PMDF but it should be possible to get it to interoperate correctly with any other properly implemented SMTP mail server without requiring extra gateways or header mangling. sys...@microvax3100.vintagecomputer.net should be an acceptable email address to the Multinet SMTP server if it is correctly configured to accept mail for the microvax3100.vintagecomputer.net domain and the sending mail server knows how to route mail for it. In the early days, DEC probably needed some sort of special mapping because they were likely already using DECnet style email addresses internally when their connection to the internet came along. Two different email networks with two different addressing formats were being brought together. This is not the case here. Only SMTP format addresses are being used. Regards, Peter Coghlan.
