Re: [exim] Question for old-timers: mailbox sorting

Philip Hazel wrote:

> I have been asked for evidence of when local part suffixes were first
> used for sorting messages into different folders (for a patent issue).

Restricted to internet and smtp?

Or would snail-mail, teletype distribution, phone numbers, BBS
services, SNA, and such help establish 'prior art'?

(a 'folder' being, ordinarily a alias for some form of
storage-system construct, i.e., family member within a house,
flat within an aprtment block, transmitter-distributor divert to
a different tape-punch at the end of a selected circuit, SNA/LU
6.2 I/O concentrator, or HDD directory branch).

Establishinbg 'prior art' should be easy.

'First past the post' for *any* 'smtp-era' critter should be an
impossibility.

Any country's GPO has been handling 'prefixes' on paper mail for
centuries.

How does an apartment number, or the name on a letter of one of
six children in a family under the same roof, differ in concept
from a prefix on an e-mail?

Bill Hacker