The Internet is a worldwide network of computer networks connecting educational institutions, government branches, military installations and commercial companies. The Internet is not a commercial on-line service in the mode of CompuServe and is not owned by a single organization. It has traditionally been used by researchers from various institutions and has been available to many users only through their local universities.
Sending E-mail to the Internet
You can send any text message of up to 2 million characters through the Internet. However, some Internet sites are capable of handling only 50,000-character messages. In addition, message receipts are not available when sending e-mail to the Internet.
To send a message to a recipient via the Internet, you must follow the following address format:
INTERNET:Name@organization.Domain
INTERNET: Notifies CompuServe that the message is to be routed to the Internet.
NAME: Specifies the user name of the recipient
@: Separates the user name from the domain address
Organization.Domain:Denotes the domain, which typically consists of two parts separated by a period: Organization, the name of the organizations computer; and domain, the type of domain.
Want to write to Vice President Al Gore?
You can send an e-mail message to the office of the vice president at the following Internet address:
INTERNET:vice.president@whitehouse.gov
The domain extension can be geographical or organizational. Some common organizational domains include the following:
.com Commercial
.edu Educational institution
.gov Government
.mil Military
.org Other organizations
.net Network resources
The delivery time of an Internet message can vary from a few minutes to two days. Although CompuServe sends the message to the Internet moments after you send it, the messages delivery is the responsibility of the Internet and the specific domain to which you are sending the message.
Receiving E-mail from the Internet
If you have contacts that regularly use the Internet, you can receive e-mail from them via CompuServe and have it placed in your CompuServe mailbox. When sending a message from the Internet to CompuServe, the following format is used (although, depending on the senders network, the actual format of the address might vary):
CompuServeID@compuserve.com
The various parts of the syntax are explained as follows:
COMPUSERVE ID: Identifies the recipients CompuServe ID. Use a period instead of a comma in the recipients address. For example, 71333,2031 becomes 71333.2031
@: Separates the user name from the domain address
compuserve.com: The CompuServe domain on the Internet.
Surcharged Internet Messages: Remember that all incoming messages from the Internet are surcharged.
Excerpted with permission from the book Inside CompuServe, Second Edition, by Richard Wagner from New Riders Publishing. Available through CompuServes Electronic Mall merchant CompuBooks
(Go CKB). Or visit the MacMillan Computer Publishing Forum (Go PHCP).