🚀 go-pugleaf

My request for information on commercial and other MIME mailers turned
up quite a lot of stuff.  I will summarize, adding my two cents worth,
then append the replies I got.  Look in the replies for ftp addresses
and so on.

I would like to know of anything I have missed.  Also I would like to
keep this up to date, perhaps as MIME spreads it might become YAF (yet
another FAQ).

Commercial VMS:	PMDF appears to be able to send as well as receive MIME.
          UNIX: Zmail in beta reads but appears not to send MIME.

		I did not hear of any of the commercial PC or Mac mail
		packages having developped MIME interfaces.

Free  UNIX:	pine can send as well as read MIME, it is available in
		source and in binary (for Ultrix, SunOS and NeXT).  I
		use the Ultrix binary, looks like a solid product.

		Andrew message system, needs Andrew distribution, reads
		and sends.

		Mailmanager for NeXT (is that really UNIX?) by the
		friendly folks who gave you pine.

		metamail is a program than can allow a suitably modified
		mail user agent to display MIME parts.  It currently has
		patches for a large number of mail user agents.

		It compiles easily and worked with a patched version of elm
		2.3 PL 11.  Patching elm using the instructions with the
		metamail kit was trivial, even though they were not in
		patch format.

      Berkeley Mail (/usr/ucb/Mail, /usr/ucb/mail, and Tahoe mail)
      SunMail (another version of Berkeley mail, but rather different)
      Xmail (an X11 interface to Berkeley mail)
      Mailtool (a SunTools interface to Berkeley mail)
      Imail (Bellcore MICE mailer)
      PCS readmail/rdmail/sreadmail (another Bellcore mailer)
      MH -- Rand Message Handling System
      XMH -- X11 Interface to Rand Message Handling System
      Rmail -- GNU Emacs mail reading package
      VM -- Another GNU Emacs mail reading package
      MH-E -- Yet another GNU Emacs mail reading package (GNU interface to MH)
      CUI -- Andrew low-end mail reader 
      VUI -- Andrew termcap-based mail reader
      Messages -- Andrew multimedia mail reader
      BatMail -- Andrew Emacs mail-reading interface
      Elm -- Mail reader from HP.
      Mush -- Yet another popular mail reader
      Msgs -- simple Berkeley bulletin board reader
      UUPC --a mail reading program for MS-DOS

		In addition, the metamail distribution contains a MUA
		called mailto which is very similar to Berkeley Mail but
		can compose MIME messages.

		mh patches to allow use of metamail are available in the
		metamail package, there are other patches by Marshall
		Rose out there somewhere, I did not find them on
		ftp.psi.com as stated in the message from Vince below.

Free DOS:	A DOS version of pine will be available soon, it should
		be MIME capable like its UNIX parent.  No date yet.

		PCElm version 3.1, to be released soon, will contain
		MIME support (not specified whether read only or
		read/send).

Free Mac:	Apparently nothing right now, the Mailstrom package
		which uses IMAP2 will soon have MIME capability.

The original replies, edited just to remove headers, follow:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: vaisanen@joyds2.joensuu.fi (Jarmo Vaisanen)

Hi!

> What currently available mailers (commercial and otherwise) have MIME
> capabilities?  And which have plans that they are willing to discuss?

I have also tried to learn what mailers support MIME.  Here is what
I know:

Commercial:	Zmail (character/X11 based),
		Z-code Software Corp.,
		4340 Redwood Hwy, Suite B-50, San Rafael, CA 94903
		(z-code.com)
		- MIME in 2.1beta version
		- I have tried a demonstartion copy on Solbourne (SunOS clone)
		- It reads and displays MIME,
		  I suspect that couldn't compose and send MIME

		PMDF (character(/X11?) based on VMS)
		Innosoft International, Inc,
		250 West First Street, Suite 240
		Claremont, CA 91711
		- I have read (somewhere) rumors that they are
		  integrating MIME into their PMDF product


'Free':		pine (character-based),
		University of Washington,
		ftp.cac.washington.edu:pine/pine3.02.tar.Z
		- I have compiled and tried it
		- worked at DECstation3100 fine, sometimes
		  crashed at Solbourne (SunOS clone)
		- otherwise nice
		- can read (what you can do on terminal!)
                  and send MIME mail
	
		Andrew messages (character/X11 based)
		MIT
		- I have compiled and tried it on DECstation3100
		- very nice
		- can read and send MIME mail
		- requires you to install HUGE Andrew distribution


Remember that you can install patches into many free mailers (elm, mh, ...)
so that you can at least read/display MIME material using publicly available
metamail program.  Info on what are the current patchable mailers read file
mailers.txt in metamail distribution.


Hopy this helps,

		Jarmo

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jarmo V{is{nen          vaisanen@joyds2.Joensuu.FI      (Internet)
University of Joensuu   JVAISANEN@FINUJO                (EARN, BITNET)
Computer Center
Joensuu, Finland

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Mike Stok <mike@meiko.com>

In article <15bmaqINNeto@early-bird.think.com> you write:
>What currently available mailers (commercial and otherwise) have MIME
>capabilities?  And which have plans that they are willing to discuss?

We use Pine available from ftp.cac.washington.edu which has just had
some MIME capabilities put into it.  My mail server
<yes-archive@meiko.com> can be asked to retrieve files and send them
back as attachments to a mail message.

Sun's mailtool under openwindows 3 does something like MIME encoding,
but being Sun they didn't wait for the standard :-(

Mike

-- 
The "usual disclaimers" apply.    | ... many were weak and confused, succumbing
Mike Stok                         | to drink or drugs whenever possible ...
mike@meiko.com                    |
Meiko tel: (617) 890 7676         |                          Hunter S. Thompson


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: vince@cyclone (Vince Della Fera)

PMDF from Innosoft, Inc. in Claremont, CA (714-624-7907) is the only MIME-compliant commercial mailer I am aware of.  It only runs under VMS, however.

Public-domain versions MIME-compliant mailers can be obtained from the following:

anon. FTP from thumper.bellcore.com, directory /pub/nsb, file mm.tar.Z
    OR send mail to mailserver@thumper.bellcore.com, subject line: metamail-sources-uu

anon. FTP to ftp.psi.com, directory mrose/mime, files mh-mime.tar.Z and
	 mh6.7.2-mime.tar.Z (binary mode)

anon. FTP to ftp.cac.washington.edu (this is the Pine program)

Hope this helps.

--Vince DellaFera

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


From: mjo@ef2007.efhd.ford.com (Mike O'Connor)


Check out pine, available for anonymous FTP from cac.washington.edu.

-- 
 Michael J. O'Connor           |  Internet:  mjo@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com
 Ford Motor Company, OPEO      |  UUCP:      ...!{backbone}!fmsrl7!mjo
 20000 Rotunda, Bldg. 1-3001   |  Phone:     +1 (313) 248-1260
 Dearborn, MI  48121           |  Fax:       +1 (313) 323-6277

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


From: John Schmitz <schmitz%scd.hp.com@dtc.hp.com>

ftp to thumper.bellcore.com and pick up all sorts of information
on MIME compatible mailers.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------


From: Terry Gray <gray@cac.washington.edu>

Mohamed,
Regarding your inquiry on comp.mail.misc...

I presume you are aware of Nathaniel Borenstein's Metamail package.

We at UW have also developed a mailer which supports MIME.  It's called
"Pine" and I've attached some info about it below.  In addition, we have
a mailer for NeXTstep called "MailManager" which also supports MIME.

Finally, the author of Stanford's Mailstrom program for Macs is currently
working on adding MIME support.

-teg

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


From: siebeck@infoac.rmi.de (Wolfgang Siebeck )

tucker@bedford.progress.COM (Kyle Tucker) writes:

>I just sat down to write a User's Guide for PCELM for internal users
>and I was amazed to not see a Cc: capability. Have I missed something 
>obvious? Has anyone figured a way to accomplish Cc:'s?

Just enter more than one address on the prompt, or use an alias. What
version of PCElm are you using? The current version is 3.01, 3.1 with
MIME support is to be released very soon now.

Wolfgang
--
siebeck@infoac.rmi.de (Wolfgang Siebeck) [Author of PCElm]