1986: Email - the Perfect Tech for the Jet Set? | Micro Live | BBC Archive

Good morning.

Um, I want to book into an Amsterdam

flight, please. Smoking or non? Uh, I

don't mind as long as it's an aisle

seat.

Ladies and gentlemen,

all the toilets and washrooms are at the

rear of the aircraft.

I'll just ask you to remain seated until

the seatbelt sign is switched off.

During the flight to Amsterdam, we'll

serve you a drink from our bar,

followed by a light snack with a choice

of tea or coffee.

Thank you.

Now, with a portable computer, you can

take your office with you, literally

wherever you go. And of course, you can

get on with anything that you want to

do, typing letters or scripts.

And the great thing about being up here

is that I don't think I'm going to be

interrupted by the telephone.

When a journalist, salesman, or

businessman gets back on terra firma,

they may well want to contact their

office and send what they've written or

see if there's any messages.

The longer the message is, the more

useful electronic mail becomes.

Ah, just what I needed, a phone.

And hopefully, I'll be able to fix this,

the acoustic coupler to the handset.

Nope, it doesn't fit. Obviously, what I

need is a standard payphone.

Here's a payphone.

Let's hope the receiver is the right

shape. Yes, it is.

Well, I could, of course, call London

direct and use email in the usual way,

but this would be rather expensive, and

it could be unreliable because the

international lines are sometimes poor,

and that would corrupt the data. And

there is another problem, it's purely

practical one. Unless I could use a

phone card to make this call, I'd be

stuck with shoveling coins in all the

way through it. I wouldn't be able to

hear the pips, and all in all, it would

be a very frustrating business.

In many developed countries, it is

possible to make arrangements to use

a local data service to get connected to

the international packet switching

system and get your message through that

way.

Well, that's what I've done here in

Holland.

So, the next thing I've got to do is get

some power on the computer,

select Telecom mode,

and make one local call. And the cost of

that call? One guilder, about 30 pence.

850

61.

That's the line.

So, connect the phone up to the coupler.

And it's working.

Now, sometimes noise on the line

produces odd characters on the screen.

Yeah, we've got some there.

That wants my Dutch ID, MWD

020.

Password. Can't forget that, can you?

Right. And now I'm into the Dutch

Telecom system, which is similar to

Telecom Gold. Now, here's the magic bit.

If I type SYS 81,

it should connect me automatically via

the international system uh to Telecom

Gold in London, where I've got my

mailbox.

And I'm in. It's great. Right, onwards.

Uh

ID BBC 007.

Password.

I can't tell you what that is.

Fine.

Right. Well, now I'm into Gold, I can

upload all this

writing I've been doing on the plane and

send it back to the office.

Uh so, I want

and send

BBC

001

and now the subject.

Um, text. Now I want to upload it.

And off it goes.

Lovely. As soon as the text has finished

going up through the screen,

I'll know that's departed.

And those numbers confirm it's arrived

in London.

Very nice. Off I go.

Off. That gets me off Telecom Gold.

That gets me out of the Memocom system.

It really is very convenient. And as you

saw, it's very simple to use once you've

got the hang of it. And it only takes a

few minutes to send or receive a couple

of pages of text. But, although it only

cost 30p to make that local call, it

does cost £30 to register with the Dutch

system. And there's a monthly charge.

The trouble is, as yet, there's no

international agreement that allows a

visitor like myself to arrive in a

foreign country to get through to home

using the local system and then be

billed for it later. And in other

countries, it's much more difficult than

it has been here in Holland. Not much by

way of encouragement, really, for anyone

who travels to a lot of different

countries. I shouldn't think they'd even

bother to look into it.

So, until the international telephone

services get their act together, it

looks as though this facility is going

to remain largely undiscovered.

>> Mhm.