> I believe we  have already established a couple thousand  times that your
> BITNET setup is screwed up and  not representative. On a normal system, a
> TELL arrives within  maybe 5 and at  most 10 seconds, which  is less than
> the time required by the few extra keystrokes you need for mail, plus the
> time  for the  user interface  to  start up,  for the  message to  travel
> through the mailer into the SMTP process, and so on.
 
I would estimate that it takes no more than 5 or 10 seconds for me to receive
confirmation from the UGA listserv that my command has been acted on.  The
confirmation is usually back to me by the time I can blink.  What extra
keystrokes?  I normally use a macro for the address.  I can't see that any
extra keystrokes are involved in mail.
 
> I believe  it has already  been mentioned that ancient  operating systems
> *present* interactive messages to the  user, rather than dumping the text
> to the terminal, wherever the cursor happened to be and without regard to
 
The main reason I'm replying is to ask another question.  What do you mean
by "presenting" interactive messages?  I'm just curious, as I'm assuming
others may be.
   --Natalie ([log in to unmask])