The MH Message Handling System: User's Manual

A detailed description of MH, a message handling system built on the UNIX time-sharing system that enables users to compose, send, receive, store, retrieve, forward, and reply to messages. The design of MH is based on a different approach than is usually used for large systems. The command interface to MH is the UNIX 'shell' (the standard UNIX command interpreter), and each message handling activity is a separate command. Each program is driven from and updates a private user environment which contains information permitting MH to be custom tailored. MH stores each message as a separate file and utilizes the tree-structured UNIX file system to organize groups of files into directories, or 'folders.' All UNIX facilities for dealing with files and directories are applicable to messages and folders, obviating the need for code that duplicates the supporting-system facilities. This report will familiarize non-users with the general features of message handling systems, and it provides a complete user's manual for system users. (Author)