U.S. Post Office Electronic Mail

[utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!smb]

a) The Post Awful is *not* interested in every home micro dialing in to
their service.  The requirements are fairly strict -- things like a
minimum of 25 letters a month through *each* of their ECOM centers, and
the need to set up an open account with them.  I have a vague
recollection that they were even requiring leased lines, rather than
permitting dial-up service.  And the speeds seemed rather low, though I
don't remember any exact details.

b) Resale of this service *is* permitted, as I recall -- we'll probably
have to wait till Compuserve or one of the packet nets provides an
interface.

c) RFC733 already has a syntax for postal addresses, though I agree that
it's more an escape from the standard addresses than something that
could be parsed by machine.  My suggestion is something like

	"addr".zip at USPS

A zipcode makes a very nice "host" address, especially the 9-digit
variety.  (To be sure, that takes about 30 bits -- guess it wouldn't
work with TCP/IP....)  I have no preference about what to use for a
newline, though \n or \\ seem nice.

d) The standards *aren't* going to be set by us -- has anyone actually
read the Post Awful's documentation?