On Sat, 15 Apr 2000, Holden Hao wrote:
> Anyone here know about FTP Mail? I remember 4-5 years ago there was such a
> service offered by some foreign sites. Now, I can not seem to find any.
pretty delayed reply here, but i think this might be interesting for some
of you.
ftp via email was available as early as the late 80s-early 90s. i recall
getting a lot of files from the internet way back then when our only
access to the net was via email (1991). we would initially request the
large indexes on the ftp servers that were most useful to us back then,
notably sunsite.unc.edu, tsx-11.mit.edu, ftp.simtel.net, ftp.funet.fi,
wuarchive.wustl.edu and a few others that escape my recollection. we would
then go over the listing of available files, usually in ls-lr.gz, or
INDEX.gz, combing over the filenames trying to figure out what they were,
or if lucky, there would be a short and appropriate description of the
file. we would then request the files to be sent via email in UUencoded
format to our email addresses back here. after about a day or less, we
would receive a flurry of email with the files chopped up into several
blocks of UUencoded email. it was pretty thrilling to accomplish that back
then. we had the world's repository of files only an email message away.
then there was this interesting period when the web was just introduced,
netscape was non-existent yet and Internet access here in the philippines
was not as widespread as it is today. we were able to access the web using
lynx, yes, but only for a few minutes at a time. cito maramba and i
resorted to web browsing via email!!! can you imagine that? browsing web
pages purely via email was interesting. you could get a lot of information
too, but none of the frills we experience today with gui oriented pages
with all the bells and whistles. hmmm... come to think of it, prior to the
web, gopher was the in thing. the web basically adds onto gopher, but
makes it much more flexible with the introduction of URLs and integrating
hyperlinks in documents.
all this interactive stuff these days becomes much more amazing when
you've seen the stages the technology has gone through before it got to
where it is now.
and yes, we got a lot of our cutting edge tarballs via ftpmail!
eric
--
Eric Pareja | email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Network and System Administrator | web : http://www.upm.edu.ph/~xenos
UP Manila Network | Here... have a clue.
"Knowledge is inherently precious even if you can't sell it."
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