Topic: Sun and Pine

[Clive]

I am in correspondence with somebody at Cambridge University who is attempting to send me an e-mail which will not retain its formatting.  I'm using a PC with Outlook Express and Times New Roman font.  He is telling me that all their computers are Sun and that his e-mail client is Pine.  He does not have any fonts on his computer apart from what he calls "boxy writing".  Word documents are inaccessible to them since they have nothing to do with Microsoft products.

My questions are:

1)  Are Sun computers different to PC's

2)  What is Pine when it's at home?

[Simon]

Would I be getting warm if I mentioned Linux?  

[Rodders]

Clive, It's my understanding that Sun stations use a quite different OS to that used on yer average PC, while 'Pine' is a type of softwood.

[Clive]

Right, well "stations" would make sense in the light of his e-mail which I am now enclosing in full.


Dear Clive,
    We are obviously completely at sixes and sevens over the mailing
business.  I have not got Times New Roman or anything else! - all I see is
rather boxy writing (owing to the poor resolution of the screen).  This
Department has an enormous lot of (I think) Sun computers - until recently
there was one on my desk, under a monitor, but just recently it has been
taken away and now I believe there are banks of the things in rooms
accessible only to the computer managers and all that I have on my desk is
just a screen with no power of its own.  My mail is dealt with by a scheme
called pine.  We do not have anything to do with Microsoft at all; I can
not print out 'Word' documents that people from my college sometimes send
me, but there is no problem professionally because astronomers around the
world send documents in postscript.  I think that the computer firms have
deliberately built a Tower of Babel so as to try to trap their customers
into sticking with the particular firms that they started out with.
    I do not understand why the asterisks kept getting corrupted when the
= signs round the other heading seemed to transmit all right.
    None of this is very helpful!
    But with best wishes,
         Roger

[Rodders]

There's more here.  

[Clive]

Thanks very much for that Rodders.  It's obviously a very antiquated system and I can see words such as TELNET which I haven't read in years!  Sun and Pine are obviously linked.  I also notice UNIX mentioned and that again is something which I've heard of but not experienced.  Well I suppose in light of all that I should be grateful that I can communicate with him at all and that I shouldn't worry too much about a very minor formatting problem which occurs during transmission.  

[Rodders]

 I'm rather surprised that, given the amount of tech kit they've got lying around, they're not using a sexier front end for all those stations.  Reverse snobbery, maybe?  Propellor-heads are a strange bunch at the best of times and work in mysterious ways.  This seems to be one such manifestation.

 :night:

[Adept]

Clive you seem to be forgetting that the non-Microsoft world abhors HTML email (as should any right thinking person )

It is my guess that the Pine email client is sending as plain text. OE will format it as it sees fit

Is the formatting important? If so perhaps your friend could attach a text file. He'd probably need to learn how to use the Vi editor for that though

[DJ]

I can see words such as TELNET which I haven't read in years!  Sun and Pine are obviously linked.  

I use telnet every day to connect to university linux boxes - so its not dead and buried yet.

We use Pegasus mail though so I can help you with Pine :soz:

DJ

[Clive]

It's all to do with the astronomy bulletins I send out.  I compile them and then send them to the Cambridge professor for checking but when he returns them to me he expects me to send them out without any alerations whatsoever.  All we are talking about here are a few misaligned asterisks used to underline a heading.  However, this guy is a bit tetchy at the best of times and cannot understand why I appear to be unable to faithfully reproduce the asterisks.  There had been no problem up until I downloaded that last IE6 patch.

[DJ]

In outlook express, under Tools > Options > Read and then at the bottom...

What setting is Fonts Encoding?  

Mine are set as shown below.

I'm not sure, but Outlook Express could be encoding the mail before you see it on the screen and before you forward it on / publish it.

DJ

[Clive]

Mine is set exactly the same as yours DJ.

[Simon]

You could have a play with that, Clive, and maybe find a different setting to make things align as required.  Here's mine, although I don't actually use OE, as you know.

[Clive]

Thanks Simon.  It's enough for me to know that his system is totally different to mine, hence offering an explanation as to why there are differences in formatting when we transmit one to the other.  I have never regarded it as a big deal, but I suppose he has a reputation to keep up whereas everybody already knows that I am a complete plonker (and proud of it).  

[Reno]

I don't know that much about pine but i do know the sun consoles are notorious for their stability as servers. my friend bought one off ebay to be his mail server. Haven't a clue why someone would be using this as a home or office pc, because they are fairly old and wouldn't be very suitable for anything other than being servers. But whatever floats your boat.

You could try archiving your email and opening it up as an unicoded text document. Its a possiblity that win word processor could view the document when your explorer or outlook couldn't