...Learning E-Mail (2 of 5) -- Getting a letter from your mailbox

     Now you have mail waiting for you.  Normally, when you  log on ,
your public-access site will tell you whether you have new mail waiting.
To open your mailbox and see your waiting mail, type

          mail

and hit enter.
     When the host system sees "mail" without a name after it, it knows
you want to look in your mailbox rather than send a message. Your screen,
on a plain-vanilla Unix system will display:

         Mail version SMI 4.0 Mon Apr 24 18:34:15 PDT 1989  Type ? for help.
         "/usr/spool/mail/adamg": 1 message 1 new 1 unread

         >N 1 adamg              Sun Mar 22 20:04   12/290   test

     Ignore the first line; it's just computerese of value only to the
people who run your system. You can type a question mark and hit return,
but unless you're familiar with Unix, most of what you'll see won't make
much sense at this point.
     The second line tells you the directory on the host system where
your mail messages are put.  This is your "home directory."  It's a good
name to remember.  Later, when you start transferring files across the
Net, this is where they will usually wind up, or from where you'll send
them.  The second line also tells you how many messages are in your
mailbox, how many have come in since the last time you looked and how
many messages you haven't read yet.
     It's the third line that is of real interest -- it tells you who the
message is from, when it arrived, how many lines and characters it takes
up, and what the subject is.  The "N" means it is a new message -- it
arrived after the last time you looked in your mailbox. Hit enter. And
there's your message -- only now it's a lot longer than what you wrote!

        Message 1:
        From adamg Mar 22 20:04:55 1992
        Received: by eff.org id AA28949
        (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4/pen-ident for adamg); Sun, 22 Mar 1992 20:04:55 -0400
        (ident-sender: adamg@eff.org)
        Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1992 21:34:55 -0400
        From: Adam Gaffin <adamg>
        Message-Id: <199204270134.AA28949@eff.org>
        To: adamg
        Subject: test
        Status: R

        This is only a test!

     Whoa! What is all that stuff? It's your message with a postmark gone
mad.  Just as the postal service puts its marks on every piece of mail it
handles, so do Net postal systems.  Only it's called a "header" instead
of a postmark. Each system that handles or routes your mail puts its
stamp on it.  Since many messages go through a number of systems on their
way to you, you will often get messages with headers that seem to go on
forever.  Among other things, a header will tell you exactly when a
message was sent and received (even the difference between your local
time and GMT -- as at the end of line 4 above).
     If this had been a long message, it would just keep scrolling across
and down your screen -- unless the people who run your public- access
site have set it up to pause every 24 lines.  One way to deal with a
message that doesn't stop is to use your telecommunication software's
logging or text-buffer function.  Start it before you hit the number of
the message you want to see.  Your computer will ask you what you want to
call the file you're about to create. After you name the file and hit
enter, type the number of the message you want to see and hit enter.
When the message finishes scrolling, turn off the text-buffer function,
and the message is now saved in your computer. This way, you can read the
message while not connected to the Net (which can save you money if
you're paying by the hour) and write a reply offline.