NOTIS: Electronic Mail (NOTIS-ID) and How It Delivers Over COSMOS¶

This document answers the question "what about email?" for Norsk Data's NOTIS office suite on SINTRAN III / ND-100:

What is email in NOTIS, and which program provides it?
How does a user write, send, and read mail?
How does mail actually get delivered - the mailbox, the mail server, and the COSMOS network path?
What we do and do not have documented in this folder.

It is built from the NOTIS-ID manual in this folder; every non-obvious claim is cited to a specific page/section. Where the manual is silent, that is stated rather than guessed. Start point was README.md.

Companion analysis doc: NOTIS-PRINTING-AND-A4-PAGES.md (editing and printing). Related NDInsight material on the COSMOS network itself lives under ../../Operations/ (COSMOS operator guides).

Primary source: ND-63.011.2 EN NOTIS-ID User Guide.md [ID] (version B, ND 210192).

0. The one-line answer¶

Email in NOTIS is NOTIS-ID - "NOTIS Information Distribution". It is an electronic mail system that "allows you to send mail to users on any computer that is part of the same COSMOS network that your computer is connected to" ([ID] Preface). It is not a standalone product: it is built on top of NOTIS-WP and NOTIS-DS, and it hands actual cross-machine delivery to a mail server running over COSMOS.

1. The three programs behind one mailbox¶

NOTIS-ID reuses the rest of the suite rather than reimplementing it:

NOTIS-WP - the editor. You write and edit the body of a letter with the same full-screen WP editor used for ordinary documents; the Answer and Letter/Write commands "provide you with the editor" ([ID] ch.1, Intray/Answer).
NOTIS-DS - the archive. "As a user of NOTIS-ID, you are automatically a user of NOTIS-DS, which automatically files all of your mail in your mailbox" ([ID] Preface). Every letter you receive, write, or send is a DS document.
NOTIS-ID - the mail layer on top: the command menu, the Intray/Outtray, the receiver/address handling, and the delivery options.

Consequence: a "letter" is just a NOTIS document with mail metadata (receivers, mailing time, registered flag), stored in DS folders and moved around by the mail server.

The NOTIS-ID screen presents a two-level command menu ([ID] ch.1, "The command menu"). Top level:

ID:   Intray   Outtray   DS-folder   Letter   NOTIS
      List  Answer  Mail  Display-text  Receivers  Info

Intray - incoming mailbox. All letters you receive are placed here; the screen shows a live "mail count" of unread letters, and the "Mail" area lights up when unread mail is present ([ID] ch.1, "The screen picture"). An asterisk * marks an unread letter in the list ([ID] Intray/List).
Outtray - a copy of every letter you write and/or send is stored here, so you can check whether it "has been stored, sent, received, etc." ([ID] ch.1, "Outtray").
DS-folder - reach documents you have stored in NOTIS-DS and pull them into the mail flow (e.g. mail an existing document, or enclose one).
Letter - Write / Mail / Store / Fetch / Continue: compose a new letter, send it, save a draft, retrieve a draft, or resume an interrupted one.
NOTIS - jump into the underlying NOTIS/WP and NOTIS/DS commands.

Every leaf command has a two-letter shortcut formed from the two menu levels, e.g. IL = Intray/List, IA = Intray/Answer, IM = Intray/Mail, LW = Letter/Write, OL = Outtray/List ([ID] ch.1, command tables).

2.1 Reading and replying¶

Intray/List (IL) lists your incoming letters in the work area; the display header shows sender, subject, number, date and mail count, e.g. the DS path /MARY MACLYNN/MAILBOX/INTRAY/PARKING LOT-01-... ([ID] Display-text example).
Intray/Answer (IA) opens the editor pre-addressed to the original sender. When you choose Mail, the reply goes automatically to the sender - and, optionally, to everyone else who received the original, or to only some of them ([ID] ch.1, Intray/Answer; ch.8 p.121).
Display text shows the body; Receivers lists who a letter went to (with their system names, e.g. Tom Grouch / JEEVES); Info shows the document profile.

3. Sending a letter - the mail options¶

When you choose Mail, NOTIS-ID prompts for delivery options ([ID] ch.2, "Registered mail, enclosure and mailing time"; ch.7 p.100+):

Field	Meaning
Receiver	The user name to deliver to.
Address	The receiver's system address (see section 4). Usually left blank.
Registered mail? (Y/N)	If Y, your Outtray tells you whether each receiver has read, deleted or moved the letter ([ID] "Registered Mail").
Enclosure? (Y/N)	If Y, you are prompted for another document to attach before mailing ([ID] "Enclosure").
Mailing time	Defaults to now; can be set to a future date/time for deferred delivery ([ID] "Mailing time").

4. How delivery actually works - addresses, mailing lists, the mail server¶

This is the part that answers "how does it reach another machine?".

4.1 The address field is usually blank¶

You fill in Address only when both: the receiver has a different address than you, and the receiver is not on any mailing list ([ID] ch.2, "When You Need to Fill in the Address Field"). You do not fill it in when the receiver shares your address, or is on a mailing list.

4.2 The mail server resolves the address¶

Address resolution is done by the mail server, not by the user:

There may be a common mailing list (set up by the system supervisor) that maps all user names to their addresses; the mail server consults it to find a receiver's address ([ID] ch.2, "Receiver is on a mailing list").
If you keep your own user mailing lists, the mail server checks yours first ([ID] same section).

4.3 Cross-machine delivery over COSMOS, with retry¶

Delivery is store-and-forward over the COSMOS network:

"Sometimes a letter cannot be delivered immediately. The receiver's computer, for example, may be temporarily inaccessible. The mail server keeps trying to deliver the letter at regular intervals until the letter is at its destination." ([ID] ch.1, delivery note)

So the model is: your letter is filed in DS, the mail server picks it up, resolves the receiver's address (local list -> common list), and forwards it across COSMOS to the destination machine's mailbox, retrying until it lands. Registered mail is the read-receipt mechanism layered on top - the destination reports back to your Outtray when the receiver reads/deletes/moves it.

5. Getting started (prerequisites)¶

You must be registered as a NOTIS-ID user and know your user name and password(s); if not, the system supervisor sets this up ([ID] ch.1, "How to start using NOTIS-ID").
You log in with the user name registered in NOTIS User Environment (NOTIS-UE) ([ID] same).
The program may be invoked under a supervisor-chosen name - "Electronic Mail", "Mail", "ID", or similar ([ID] same).
Recommended background: familiarity with NOTIS-UE and NOTIS-WP version M or later ([ID] "The Reader").

6. What this folder has - and what it does not¶

Have (in this folder):

ND-63.011.2 EN NOTIS-ID User Guide.md - the end-user guide (version B). This is the sole NOTIS-ID manual present, and the basis for everything above.

Referenced by the guide but NOT present in this folder ([ID] "Related Manuals"):

NOTIS-ID Supervisor Guide, ND-30.062.1 EN - administration of the mail server, mailing lists, addresses and registration. We do not have this file, so the server-side/administrative mechanics (how the mail server is configured, how COSMOS routing is set up) are not documented here - only the user-facing behavior is.
NOTIS-WP User Guide (ND-63.018.2 EN) and NOTIS-DS User Guide (ND-63.017.3 EN) - the EN editions the guide cross-references; this folder has other WP/DS editions but not these exact publication numbers.

Not verified from source (flagged, not guessed):

The exact COSMOS protocol/transport NOTIS-ID mail rides on is not described in the user guide; it only says delivery is over the COSMOS network with retry. Do not assume a specific wire protocol from this document.

Part of the NDInsight Norsk Data / SINTRAN III documentation and preservation project. Source manual is a Norsk Data A.S publication, reproduced for historical and technical reference.