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Apur-ee.267 net.unix-wizards utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!pur-ee!rick Tue Mar 16 16:10:05 1982 Biff -s Here at Purdue, I added a "biff -s" option. This actually turns on the setuid bit on your terminal.

I then modified /bin/mail to do all of the things comsat used to do. We no longer use comsat. There were 2 reasons for this. One, we wanted to avoid using multiplexed files and 2) we wanted to be able to use this feature on our V7 11/70's, which do not have multiplexed files.

/bin/mail, after it delivers the mail, looks to see if the user is logged on, and if so, checks the mode on his terminal. If the execute bit is on (which you get from "biff y", it delivers the old style biff message. However, if the setuid bit is on (from biff -s), it delivers a "short" notification such as:

New mail from username Subject: Something or other

The old, verbose biff message was so annoying that I did not use biff. I find the "short" notification about right.

I will be happy to post the sources if there is sufficient interest.

Rick Adams Purdue University decvax!pur-ee!rick ucbvax!pur-ee!rick

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