KERMIT MAIL FILES

The files with name MAIL are the archives of the ARPAnet 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, get the length, then get that
many characters for the message, and you are left positioned at the beginning
of the next message (if any).

[End of MAIL.HLP]
