Email

Email
by Clayton

Email (or e-mail) is actually an abbreviation for electronic mail. It is a way to write, send, and receive messages using electronic communication systems such as the Internet. Did you know email was invented in 1971? While many great inventions happened a long time ago, email is relatively young.

Ray Tomlinson, a computer engineer, was working for a company that was creating a way to have computers talk to each other. This is a called a “network,” and until the early 1970’s, computers couldn’t communicate with each other.

In 1971, Mr. Tomlinson was working in Cambridge Massachusetts on a project called ARPANET, which stands for Advanced Research Projects Network. This 'project' became the Internet. He created two programs. One program was called SNDMSG (for “send message”) and the other was called READMAIL. They were used to send simple messages to other users but only if the users were using the same monitor, but at different times.

Mr. Tomlinson was also working on a program that could send files between computers. This program was called CPYNET (copy network). He had the idea of putting the message programs into CPYNET, so that messages could be sent to users on different computers.

The first message sent was QWERTYUIOP, which is the second row on the keyboard. That was used as a test. The next message was sent to introduce this new way of sending messages. This was the first email (electronic mail).

Tomlinson chose the @ symbol so that his program knew where to send the message. The @ would go between the users name and the name of the computer they used. We still use it today.

At first, Tomlinson didn’t tell anybody about his new invention, because he wasn’t supposed to be working on that and thought he might get in trouble. Tomlinson said he invented email because he thought it was a neat idea. Tomlinson never got rich from his invention. His reward is being known as the inventor of email.

The first email program available to the public was called “Eudora.” It was written in 1988 by Steve Dorner at the University of Illinois.

After Tomlinson’s invention, only computers that were networked could use email. That’s why for a very long time, only businesses had email.

Home computers didn’t exist until the early 1980’s. That was before the Internet, so the way home computers could send email was by dialing into the same large computer and swapping messages.

The Internet allowed home computers to be networked, and the Internet didn’t exist until the early 1990’s. It wasn’t until home computers became cheaper and the Internet became faster (and cheaper) that home email become very popular. Today, there are 87 million people using email everyday.

Email Trivia

What was the first message on the email?
1 "Don't jump off a cliff"
2 "Hello"
3 "How are you"
4 "QWERTYUIOP"

Why didn't Tomlinson tell anyone about his invention?
1. He thought it was a bad idea.
2. Because he wasn't supposed to be inventing it.
3. He forgot.
4. He wanted it for himself.

Because email is still relatively young, it will change just like other past inventions such as the telephone and the automobile. In the future, instead or reading email, you might be able to hear the email in the sender’s voice or see and hear the sender.

Citations

Online Resources

Dutty, Dantry. "Ray Tomlinson - Inventor of e-mail." Darwin. 15 December 2004 <http://www.darwinmag.com/read/010102/buzz_mover.html>.

Tschabitscher, Heinz. "The First Email Message." About. 17 December 2004 <http://email.about.com/cs/emailhistory/a/first_email.htm>.

Images

Copyrighted animated images of email and @ symbol from "Microsoft Office Online" <http://office.microsoft.com/clipart/default.aspx?lc=en-us&cag=1> (October-March, 2004-2005). Clip art available only to licensed users for non-commercial purposes.