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Cyhist Mar 03 1997 A
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Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 14:12:20 -0800
Reply-To: les@cs.stanford.edu
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Les Earnest <les@STEAM.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: CM> First e-mail message.
In-Reply-To: "David S. Bennahum"'s message of Fri, 21 Feb 1997 18:01:00 -0500
<199702212257.OAA07854@Steam.Stanford.EDU>
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Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
David Bennahum Wrote:
In an attempt to synthesize the points raised so far, it seems we have the following "firsts"--
Messages exchanged using media that are *not* digital computers (semaphores, hands, telegraphs, whatever)
Messages exchanged within a single, time-shared computer.
Messages exchanged over a computer network.
Let's say the "e-mail" messages are probably those in the last two groups.
...I hope this is more helpful than not...
In nitpick mode as usual, I agree with Warmly Padgett and other retros who regard telegrams, TWX communications and the like as email, but would also note that there was another kind of computer communication that is not on the list above. I assume that "Messages exchanged within a single, time-shared computer" was meant to include electronic bulletin boards as well as "chat mode" communications between concurrent users of a timesharing system, both of which preceded the asynchonous form of email that we have come to know and love.
Beginning sometime in the late 1960s we connected an outgoing modem to the SAIL computer at Stanford and wrote a terminal emulator that enabled anyone on that machine to call another one and pretend to be a dumb terminal. A person who used this feature to log in on another computer could then communicate with other users in chat mode. Thus this scheme could be used to communicate with others through the telephone network in a manner similar to the use of a printing telegraph.
We later recruited Mark Crispen to build a more elaborate version of this dial-out capability that included file transfers and eventually gave a paper on it at the First West Coast Computer Faire*. I believe that our file transfer protocol was later adopted and improved by others, becoming the rather popular KERMIT.
-Les Earnest
* John McCarthy & Les Earnest, "DIALNET and Home Computers," Proc. First West Coast Computer Faire, San Francisco, April 1977.
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: les@cs.stanford.edu
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Les Earnest <les@STEAM.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: CM> First e-mail message.
In-Reply-To: "David S. Bennahum"'s message of Fri, 21 Feb 1997 18:01:00 -0500
<199702212257.OAA07854@Steam.Stanford.EDU>
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
David Bennahum Wrote:
In an attempt to synthesize the points raised so far, it seems we have the following "firsts"--
Messages exchanged using media that are *not* digital computers (semaphores, hands, telegraphs, whatever)
Messages exchanged within a single, time-shared computer.
Messages exchanged over a computer network.
Let's say the "e-mail" messages are probably those in the last two groups.
...I hope this is more helpful than not...
In nitpick mode as usual, I agree with Warmly Padgett and other retros who regard telegrams, TWX communications and the like as email, but would also note that there was another kind of computer communication that is not on the list above. I assume that "Messages exchanged within a single, time-shared computer" was meant to include electronic bulletin boards as well as "chat mode" communications between concurrent users of a timesharing system, both of which preceded the asynchonous form of email that we have come to know and love.
Beginning sometime in the late 1960s we connected an outgoing modem to the SAIL computer at Stanford and wrote a terminal emulator that enabled anyone on that machine to call another one and pretend to be a dumb terminal. A person who used this feature to log in on another computer could then communicate with other users in chat mode. Thus this scheme could be used to communicate with others through the telephone network in a manner similar to the use of a printing telegraph.
We later recruited Mark Crispen to build a more elaborate version of this dial-out capability that included file transfers and eventually gave a paper on it at the First West Coast Computer Faire*. I believe that our file transfer protocol was later adopted and improved by others, becoming the rather popular KERMIT.
-Les Earnest
* John McCarthy & Les Earnest, "DIALNET and Home Computers," Proc. First West Coast Computer Faire, San Francisco, April 1977.
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