Aesquire.312 net.unix-wizards utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!npois!harpo!esquire!psl Tue Mar 30 02:10:04 1982 Re: A suggestion for a change to biff This doesn't really deal with biff, but with a related function. We are working towards a setup with ~700 terminals on five "identical" 11/70s. Needless to say, we're not intending to have 140 users logged on to each machine all the time; our users connect through a Micom port selector and get off (or else!) when they have no particular work to do. Unfortunately this interferes badly with electronic mail delivery. In order to rescue this important feature we've come up with a mail backend which finds out if you're logged in (in which case the normal mail message will get to you); if not it connects your terminal, sends a message indicating that you have new mail, and disconnects it again. I'd be glad to share what we've done and/or to hear of similar approaches... Peter Langston esquire!psl ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.