KERMIT MAIL FILES

The files with name MAIL are the archives of the network Kermit discussion
group, "Info-Kermit".  This group was started in summer 1983.  The files are
in DECSYSTEM-20 mail file format, readable with MM or MS.

The files are named MAIL.yyx, where yy is the year, and x is A, B, C, ...
For instance, the first bunch of mail from 1983 is MAIL.83A.  The current mail
file is MAIL.TXT.

DEC-20 mail format is quite simple.  All but the first line of each message
conforms to the ARPAnet mail format standard, with keywords like From:, To:,
Date:, etc, indicating the various header fields.  The headers are terminated
by a blank line, and the rest of the message is the message text.  The first
line of each message is for the benefit of the DEC-20 mail reading program.
The format of this line is

<time of receipt>,<length>;<flags>

  e.g.

12-Jan-84 19:27:49-EST,1303;000000000000

1303 is the length of the following message, exclusive of this header line.
Thus, to read a message, get the first line (this header), including the
terminating carriage-return/linefeed sequence, read the length, then get that
many characters for the message, and you are left positioned at the beginning
of the next message (if any).

Starting in July 1986, keyword header items were added to each digest message,
allowing the mail file to be processed by an indexing program.  The indexed
mail files are IMAIL.86A, IMAIL.86B, etc.  They are paginated, and include a
table of contents and an index.  Mail files prior to July 1986 are gradually
having keywords entered retroactively.  This invalidates the message length in
the message header line, so these edited files are stored as KMAIL.85B, etc.
Thus MAIL.85B is suitable for reading by MM-like mail programs, and KMAIL.85B
is suitable for processing by the index program.

[End of MAIL.HLP]
