[TUHS] RIP Ray Tomlinson

[Paul Winalski]

On 3/4/18, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>
> In the meantime, some tosser (his name is not important) is claiming that
> he invented email first; I recall that APL\360 had a "mailbox" facility,
> but it certainly didn't use "@".
>
VAX/VMS version 1 (1978) had email, capable of sending messages either
locally or over a DECnet network.  In keeping with standard DECnet
syntax, it used "::" instead of "@".  Len Kawell was the author of VMS
mail.  He got the idea, and copied the UI, from the University of
Illinois PLATO CAI system, which had email capability.  I don't know
if PLATO's email was capable of transmitting messages between computer
systems; Tomlinson may have been the first to do that.

But the concept of email goes way back.

-Paul W.