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From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.mail,net.wanted
Subject: Re: Anyone know about X.400?
Message-ID: <1135@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Mar-84 18:56:11 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.1135
Posted: Thu Mar 22 18:56:11 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Mar-84 21:33:58 EST
References: <150@hudson.UUCP> <240@deepthot.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
Lines: 16

For those wondering what the flavor of X.400 is, I ordered a copy and
glanced through it.  (The set of booklets is about 2 inches thick.)
I have not had time for a detailed reading.  I was trying to find out
what an address looked like.  Most of the publication is very broad
and avoids overall examples, but one of the booklets talks about
mailing addresses.  What really disappointed me was that addresses
are specified with binary field tags, rather than ASCII text.  There
is an amazing variety of attributes you can specify for a person, such
as the country or sub-country-unit they are in, who they work for,
their first or last name, and so on.  But you can't just type it.
Apparently some unspecified user interface is expected to get this
information from you and assemble a binary description.  It was not
obvious to me how to use such a system, or how to advertise your
electronic mailing address.

	Mark