🚀 go-pugleaf

I find that I can send 8-bit mail messages over the UK JANET network
to and from VAX/VMS machines without trouble.  However, it seems that if
mail goes anywhere near a Unix machine it gets the eighth bit stripped.
The trouble seems to be the file transfer utility hhcp.

I find that I can work happily in 8-bits on Edinburgh University's
central Unix machine, provided I set  stty -odd  or  stty -even.  The
new versions of microEMACS, MS-KERMIT and TeX all support 8-bit text.
However, if I try to transfer an 8-bit text file into the Unix machine
using hhcp it gets the eighth bit stripped; and if I try to transfer an
8-bit text file out from the Unix machine, hhcp treats it as binary file
and the file gets horribly garbled.

An Irish Gaelic conferencing system which I have accessed is hosted on
a VAX/VMS machine and uses ISO 8859-1 as standard.  However, when I
access it, via IPSS and the Irish commercial packet switch network,
EIRPAC, the eighth bit gets stripped somewhere along the way.

Would anyone like to summarize experiences elsewhere with 8-bit mail.
Are any networks already happily using ISO 8859-1 for mail?  What are the
main bottlenecks at present to 8-bit work?

   Kevin Donnelly