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Cyhist Feb 19 1997 R
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Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 19:36:36 -0600
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq@MIDS.ORG>
Subject: Re: CM> Beginnings of E-mail
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 19 Feb 1997 11:59:33 EST."
<199702191657.KAA08572@akasha.tic.com>
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
>>When, where, to who and how was the FIRST e-mail sent?
>
>I have no idea of the answer, but I have rarely heard a more intriguing question than, When and what was the first e-mail sent?
>Like Bell, I suppose, the content was an afterthought; I wonder if whoever sent it may recall it if, indeed, he or she doesn't have a copy of it. It certainly deserves its own place in history, as Marconi's "What hath God wrought?" and Bell's "Warson, come here -- I need you" have
Warson? Would that be Strife, son of Ares? :-)
>earned. It seems to me that it would have been a military message, possibly predating the Internet, and likely originated on the first networked device ever created and in the first email program ever created.
There are two answers.
1) Electronic mail on single machines (mail) was invented whenever a timesharing system became capable enough to handle it. I don't think anybody has ever established who did it first and on which machine, but on CTSS in the very early 1960s is the usual suspect.
2) Electronic mail between machines (netmail) was invented by Ray Tomlinson of BBN in 1972 or 1973.
>What is the museum that would be the appropriate repository of such a file? For those hundreds of you who are serious historians of the Internet, may I suggest that locating this one piece of information may well secure your own place in history?
Then I might suggest that the person who did the most searching, namely Peter Salus, should get that place. I had already found out back in October 1992 who had done it and approximately when (see gopher://gopher.mids.org/00/matrix/news/v4/conf.407), but Peter has dug up further details and published them in his book, Casting the Net. Not that it was exactly a secret. Ray didn't work alone, and most of his coworkers are still alive and kicking. For example, Michael Padlipsky was involved in hanging mail off of FTP. And Ray still answers his mail, as even Wired has apparently discovered.
Other interesting developments included the invention of a mail program that automatically munged headers to handle replies, so you didn't have to do that yourself each time; I think Dave Crocker claims credit for that one.
There's also the question of significance of certain developments. When you look at UUCP's multiple ! signs, FidoNet's multiple :.% signs, and X.400's lengthy attributes, the simplicity and elegance of the ARPANET and later Internet @ sign is impressive, not only for ease of understanding but also for the basic distinction between local part (usually user) and host part (later domain part, and usually computer). The @ was one reason Internet mail won over all those other possibilities. We have Ray Tomlinson to thank for that. And maybe his example indicates that picking a solution quickly for simplicity can be better than using properly constituted international committees....
I see Gwen Bell says the Computer Museum has the archives of the MSGGROUP list. No doubt it has information on various later developments. Mailing lists themselves, as you can see by the dates of that list, were pretty early developments, within a few years (1975) of development of netmail itself. Unfortunately that list does not go back to the beginnings of netmail itself; how could it?
Does anybody know if SF-LOVERS predated MSGGROUP? I suspect it did.
Thanks,
John
John S. Quarterman <jsq@mids.org>
Editor, MIDS Internet Weather Report, Matrix Maps Quarterly, and Matrix News President, Matrix Information and Directory Services (MIDS) mids@mids.org, http://www.mids.org, +1-512-451-7602, fax: +1-512-452-0127 1106 Clayton Lane, Suite 500W
Austin, TX 78723
U.S.A.
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq@MIDS.ORG>
Subject: Re: CM> Beginnings of E-mail
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 19 Feb 1997 11:59:33 EST."
<199702191657.KAA08572@akasha.tic.com>
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
>>When, where, to who and how was the FIRST e-mail sent?
>
>I have no idea of the answer, but I have rarely heard a more intriguing question than, When and what was the first e-mail sent?
>Like Bell, I suppose, the content was an afterthought; I wonder if whoever sent it may recall it if, indeed, he or she doesn't have a copy of it. It certainly deserves its own place in history, as Marconi's "What hath God wrought?" and Bell's "Warson, come here -- I need you" have
Warson? Would that be Strife, son of Ares? :-)
>earned. It seems to me that it would have been a military message, possibly predating the Internet, and likely originated on the first networked device ever created and in the first email program ever created.
There are two answers.
1) Electronic mail on single machines (mail) was invented whenever a timesharing system became capable enough to handle it. I don't think anybody has ever established who did it first and on which machine, but on CTSS in the very early 1960s is the usual suspect.
2) Electronic mail between machines (netmail) was invented by Ray Tomlinson of BBN in 1972 or 1973.
>What is the museum that would be the appropriate repository of such a file? For those hundreds of you who are serious historians of the Internet, may I suggest that locating this one piece of information may well secure your own place in history?
Then I might suggest that the person who did the most searching, namely Peter Salus, should get that place. I had already found out back in October 1992 who had done it and approximately when (see gopher://gopher.mids.org/00/matrix/news/v4/conf.407), but Peter has dug up further details and published them in his book, Casting the Net. Not that it was exactly a secret. Ray didn't work alone, and most of his coworkers are still alive and kicking. For example, Michael Padlipsky was involved in hanging mail off of FTP. And Ray still answers his mail, as even Wired has apparently discovered.
Other interesting developments included the invention of a mail program that automatically munged headers to handle replies, so you didn't have to do that yourself each time; I think Dave Crocker claims credit for that one.
There's also the question of significance of certain developments. When you look at UUCP's multiple ! signs, FidoNet's multiple :.% signs, and X.400's lengthy attributes, the simplicity and elegance of the ARPANET and later Internet @ sign is impressive, not only for ease of understanding but also for the basic distinction between local part (usually user) and host part (later domain part, and usually computer). The @ was one reason Internet mail won over all those other possibilities. We have Ray Tomlinson to thank for that. And maybe his example indicates that picking a solution quickly for simplicity can be better than using properly constituted international committees....
I see Gwen Bell says the Computer Museum has the archives of the MSGGROUP list. No doubt it has information on various later developments. Mailing lists themselves, as you can see by the dates of that list, were pretty early developments, within a few years (1975) of development of netmail itself. Unfortunately that list does not go back to the beginnings of netmail itself; how could it?
Does anybody know if SF-LOVERS predated MSGGROUP? I suspect it did.
Thanks,
John
John S. Quarterman <jsq@mids.org>
Editor, MIDS Internet Weather Report, Matrix Maps Quarterly, and Matrix News President, Matrix Information and Directory Services (MIDS) mids@mids.org, http://www.mids.org, +1-512-451-7602, fax: +1-512-452-0127 1106 Clayton Lane, Suite 500W
Austin, TX 78723
U.S.A.
______________________________________________________________________
