Apple II Email (The Challenge)

[Jack Friess <jfriess@wctc.net>]

Email For The Apple II                             (October, 1996)
The Challenge


*Background*

Many schools around the world have, and still use, Apple II
computers.  While the 8 bit, 1 Mhz machine is "old" technology by
today's standards, there are many things in the educational
environment this computer can still do.  More importantly, many
school systems can not afford to completely upgrade to newer,
faster machines and are faced with finding new ways to bring high
tech experiences to their students utilizing this "outdated"
technology.

One project our school system (the Stevens Point Area Catholic
Schools, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, USA) has been working on is
connecting our classroom Apple II's to our Mac LocalTalk network,
and to use the Apple II's as email workstations.  This way, students
would be able to send and receive email right from their
classrooms.  Although it may take a 150 Mhz, 16 mg Pentium/
Power Mac on EtherNet to do research on the WWW, a 1
Mhz, 128k Apple is sufficient to bring the high tech experience of
emailing around the world to a third grader in rural Wisconsin.


*The Network Plan*

We plan to network our Apple IIe's and IIgs's (in individual class-
rooms) to building LANs via LocalTalk, Ethernet, or another type of
network connected to a file server.  Each school site LAN will have 
a Pentium/NT server running POP email server software.  Macs
and PCs on the LANs will be running Eudora for email.  We would
like to also send and receive email through our WAN email system
out to the Internet from the Apple IIs.


*The Challenge*

Not a lot of research was needed to realize there existed no email
client software for the Apple II.  There does exist BBS software,
and even some attempts at TCP/IP for the IIgs.  But no one (to our
knowledge) has developed an email client program (like Eudora) for
the Apple IIe.  The challenge, therefore, is to:

   Find or create for the world, a simple, free email client
   program (like Eudora) to use over a network for sending and
   receiving Internet email from Apple II computers through a POP
   email server.


*Virtual Development Team*

Some of us with a lot of interest in Apple IIs, and experiences and
skills to offer, are pooling our interests and talents to answer this
challenge.  We've created a "virtual development team" using this
news/conference group and email as the means to communicate our
questions, exchange information and answers, and report on our
accomplishments.  We invite you to join our group, if you wish.

If you wish to join any discussion, there are, of course, no
obligations--just post to this area.  However, if you wish to actually
contribute to the project, become part of the programming team
and write software or documents that will become part of a Apple II
Email package, you'll need to agree that your work will be
contributed to the group, and that you understand that work
products will become public domain.  To be sure, participating
authors will receive credit for their contributions, but ALL products
of the virtual programming group will be copyrighted, and then
made available to anyone for free.

For more (somewhat outdated) information about the project, see:

    http://www.wctc.net/~spacs/watfgran/proposal/watfgran.htm

or contact:

Jack Friess, Technology Consultant
STEVENS POINT AREA CATHOLIC SCHOOLS
1408 Ellis Street
Stevens Point, WI  54481
voice: (715) 341-2237   fax: (715) 342-2001
email: jfriess@wctc.net
http://www.wctc.net/~spacs