All members of the
Tokyo PC Users Group
can receive and send limited amounts of personal Internet Email using
the club's
BBS.
Each member of the group has a unique Email address of the form
Firstname.Lastname@tokyopc.bbs.net. The user ID is the first
name, followed by a period, and then the last name. Our system
name is tokyopc.bbs.net. For example, I can send mail
to Algorithmica Japonica editor Mike Lloret by addressing it to
Mike.Lloret@tokyopc.bbs.net
Mail is delivered to your personal Internet mailbox on the club BBS. Outgoing mail is left in a special conference on the system for delivery the following night. Because of the costs involved in the current configuration, we ask that members refrain from subscribing to mailing lists or performing file transfers with this service.
But suppose you aren't already a regular user of the club BBS but you do have access to Internet Email elsewhere. You can have any mail that arrives at your club address automatically forwarded to your "real" address. Simply mail your request with the desired address, to Postmaster@tokyopc.bbs.net.
This service can also be handy if you change Email addresses often. By telling your correspondents your address at TPC you give them a consistent address which is an alias for your changing "real" address. The disadvantages are that your mail can be delayed by several hours (since the gateway only connects to the Internet during the late night hours) and it does impose some costs on the club. Again, please do NOT use this method for any high volume mailing such as external mailing list subscriptions.
The club's Internet gateway maintains mailing lists to facilitate communications among its members that aren't active on the BBS.
a general purpose list covering any topic of interest to the membership
a digested version that collects individual messages into a single posting
a special interest group list for those working on the club's web presence
To subscribe, send email to listname-request@tokyopc.bbs.net
containing the word subscribe. To post a message to the list, just
mail it to listname and it will be distributed to all subscribers.
For example, to subscribe to the TPC-list-digest mailing list, send
mail to TPC-list-digest-request@tokyopc.bbs.net and mail to
TPC-list-digest to "post" to the list. In the unlikely
event you wish to leave one of the lists, just send the message
"unsubscribe" to the -request address.
Users of the BBS can participate in the activity of the lists using special conferences without additional subscription. Additional lists can be added for other special interests within the club as needed.
Suppose you'd like to keep up with what is happening on the Tokyo PC Users Group BBS, but don't want to learn some new software and commands. You can now get the contents of any of the BBS conferences mailed to your Internet address daily, either message-by-message or in digested form. Among the most popular conferences are:
a digest of the highest volume conference on the BBS; the topic of the conference ranges WIDELY
TPC organizational notes and services
A complete listing of the conferences is available by sending mail to info-lists@tokyopc.bbs.net
WARNING: Some of these conferences can be moderately high volume. Even the digested versions can be hard to handle unless you have an effective filtering method on your incoming Internet Email.
NOTE: Now that the gateway is connected to the internet several hours a day, it can be MUCH more convenient and cost effective to simply use a standard Internet news reader to access the topics of interest on the BBS. Details on this highly experimental service are available from Jim Tittsler.
There is an online web membership directory showing the Email address and WWW home page address of any member that wants to be publicly listed. To have your listing added or updated, just use the form available on the web page.
If you have any problem using the TPC mail services, send mail to Postmaster@tokyopc.bbs.net
The Tokyo PC Users Group does not assume any responsibility for delayed or undelivered mail. All services are provided on a "best effort" basis by an all volunteer organization. And, as with nearly all Internet mail services, there can be no guarantee of complete privacy of message contents. In the course of trouble-shooting, system operators have the ability to read any message passing through the system. User errors or software errors might unexpectedly make a personal message "public." Enjoy the service, but be careful.