Encoders and Decoders

Mar 16 04:17 UTC 1994

An item for info about encoders and decoders.

response 2 of 44:

Mar 16 04:43 UTC 1994

Pine can handle Mime stuff.

response 4 of 44:

Mar 16 17:48 UTC 1994

If you open your mail file with PINE, PINE should automagically decode the
file that is sent into its original content.  You would then download the
file to your mac at home.

---PINES HELP ON MIME FOLLOWS---

         PINE 3.07         HELP FOR MAIN MENU         page 11 of 26

                                                                        
Page 11

      8. What is MIME?

MIME stands for "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions" and it is a
specification for including binary data in Internet mail messages, which
until now have generally been limited to ascii text.  MIME-capable
mailers, such as Pine 3.0, allow word processing documents, spreadsheets,
programs, images, audio, and other binary data to be attached to a
message.  MIME allows for alternative representations of the same data.
For example, there can be an attachment in text form followed by one
containing bitmap page images of the same information.

MIME-capable mail software is not yet widely deployed, but MIME support
is growing rapidly.  If you need to send binary data to colleagues at
institutions not yet supporting MIME, encourage them to talk to their
system administrators about installing MIME tools.  MIME software,
compatible with many different mail programs, is freely available (as
is our own Pine mailer.)

response 6 of 44:

Mar 17 03:56 UTC 1994

Mime will take care of it.  In pine, all you do is say that you want to
include a file, and it will mime-encode the file and append it to the end
of the message.  

Mime is the same concept as uu(en|de)code, but it is done automagically
instead of manually when you send the message.

response 8 of 44:

Mar 17 19:17 UTC 1994

Your welcome.

I am sorry if I implied that MIME is uu(en|de)code.  It is not.  It uses a
different algorithm to do the encode and decode.  It is supposed to be a
standard, but many programs have not yet implemented it.  it would be nice
if they could get the standard going everywhere.

response 10 of 44:

Mar 17 22:47 UTC 1994

Hmmm...  Lets see.  Try tracing the message back to the most original
source then work from there.  That would probably be the message in MTS. 
If you have already deleted it from your message area on mts, go to the
file and look up the message id number, then undelete that number.  Now
forward the message from MTS to your caen account.  In your caen account,
read your mail using pine.  If everything worked out correctly, you should
be shown a screen that looks like this:

---INCOMING MESSAGE WITH MIME ATTACHMENT USING PINE---
      PINE 3.07      VIEW MAIL      Folder:inbox  Message 3 of 3  82%
 
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 16:40:43 -0500 (EST)
From: "Thomas C. Knoeller" <curby@cyberspace.org>
To: "Thomas C. Knoeller" <curby@grex.cyberspace.org>
Subject:
Parts/attachments:
   1 Shown  10 lines  Text
   2        27 bytes  File "test", ""
----------------------------------------
 
 
This is a test message!
 
       |---------------------------------------------------------|
       |  curby  |  curby@cyberspace.org  |  Thomas C. Knoeller  |
       |---------------------------------------------------------|

 
  [Part 2, ""  Attached file "test"  27bytes]
  [Can not display this part. Use the "A" command to save in a file]
---END---

As long as you have the part of the header that says "parts/attachments",
you know that the MIME part is intact.  From there, chose the "a" option
then save the part that you are concerned about.

---EXAMPLE SCREENS SHOWN WHEN SAVING---
---ONE--- 
Enter attachment number to view or save (1 - 2) :
^G Help          ^C Abort
RETURN Enter
---TWO---
Save or View attachment? (s/v) [s]
^G Help          ^C Abort
RETURN Enter
---THREE--
File (in home directory) to save attachment in: test
^G Help          ^C Abort
RETURN Enter
---END--

In order to send a file using the mime feature in pine, all you do is add
the file name where you see the "Attchmnt:".  Pine will do everything else
for you.

---SAMPLE COMPOSE SCREEN FROM PINE---
      PINE 3.07      COMPOSE MESSAGE      Folder:inbox  0 Messages
 
To      :
Cc      :
Attchmnt:
Subject :
----- Message Text -----
---END--- 

Good luck getting the file out.

response 12 of 44:

Mar 18 13:43 UTC 1994

I hope that this does help.  Good luck retreiving the message from MTS.  I
personally never got along with the MTS system.

response 14 of 44:

Mar 19 14:16 UTC 1994

Are you going to expect such explicit directions about how to use MIME in
elm to?  8^)  If so, don't expect it quick, 'cause I will have to relearn
elm.  I haven't used it in about 2 years.

response 16 of 44:

Mar 21 03:18 UTC 1994

The current pine is 3.89.  It will be installed here soon, I hope.

response 18 of 44:

Mar 21 15:38 UTC 1994

You could try Exporting the message and sending it to yourself as
an attachment...or would that encode it twice?

response 20 of 44:

Mar 21 17:06 UTC 1994

re#18:  I think that that would just put you back in your original state.

Hmmm...  Maybe MTS does something to the header so that other mail
programs won't recognize the attached part as being an attachment.  It
sounds like it is time to try giving (76)4-help a call.  Tell them all the
steps that you have used so far, and maybe they will be able to give you a
suggestion about why it hasn't worked.  

My suggestion as to the next step is to have the original sender re-mail it
to a system where you can access a MIME capable mail program.

response 22 of 44:

Mar 21 21:21 UTC 1994

Well, rane, try sending it to yourself (I suggested exporting it to a
file so you could edit out any non-attachment text, though if you have
a file with only the attachment already, you're set).  My thought was
to get Pine to recognize it as an attachment, since Pine apparently
doesn't do so when the attachment is in the body of the message.  If it
doesn't work, well, then you know. 
  I'm pretty sure MTS $message won't like an attachment, though I
could be wrong about that.  Take curby's advice and give 4-help a
call, especially since you're faculty and can do so without much
hassle.  kaplan's suggestion is also good; I usually get a response
within an hour.
  You're going through a really great process/feature of the new
computing environment at UM, one that the powers that be don't like
to face (except to say you're a fool for trying to do what you're
doing).  I generally send such indecipherable messages back to the
sender and ask them to encode the message in a way that I can easily
decode without searching the world over for conversion programs.  Hell,
at this point they probably could have snail-mailed you a disk...

response 24 of 44:

Mar 22 01:43 UTC 1994

Excuse me, but I don't do Windoze, Word for Windoze, etc.  If you send
me something in a format that requires me to use a machine and software
I have neither the time nor desire to learn to use, you'll get the file
right back with a message saying it should be sent in something the
receiver (me) wants to decode.  I probably should't even take the time
to send such things back.  In the sense that good communication is
tailored to the audience and involves feedback, you'll find that sending
things so that the receiver can decode them easily given the receiver's
equipment makes for more effective communication.  And having an arranged
common communication system makes for easier feedback.  Since you don't
believe this makes good sense, you of course, send audio tapes with
voice frequencies shifted out of the range of human hearing...etc.  and
then blame the listener/receiver for not being able to decipher your
message.
  And BTW, don't assume that MTS has all the modern bells and whistles.
Given that 90% of the MTS system programmers were laid off, I mean RIF'd,
there are few people around to add such niceties as MIME to the message
system, and even if there were, ITD's policy is that such development
on MTS not take place.