[inforoots] early email

[Michael Hart]

On Wed, 7 May 2008, Stan Sieler wrote:

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> Re:
>
> Michael writes:
>> I remember back in 65,66 and 68,69, and again in 71 getting
>> messages on Teletype machines that looked exactly like email.
>
> Most likely mail within the local machine.  We also had similar
> email in 1970 on the Burroughs B6700.
>
> When we got on the ARPAnet in 1971 (35th node), there was no email
> I remember ... IIRC, I'd connect to BBN (which had a DEC 10)
> and leave a note on their machine for Danny Bobrow, that was the "email" I was using then.
>
> Stan

I was at The Materials Research Lab att he U of Illinois,
and they told us we got on around May, June, July of 1971,
via a connection to The Center for Advanced Computation,
next door.  However, I can't tell you how many modern people
who were not ever there say this could never have happened.


Perhaps you could tell me our node number???



Nevertheless, I managed to send and receive messages from coast to 
coast on this new network, and it was enough to start Project 
Gutenberg and to send out the first eText/eBook files just after
July 4, 1971.


Having been familiar with Teletype machines [I still have mine down
in the basement], i thought nothing of sending and receiving notes,
on printouts, paper tape, mag tap, or even the latest "terminals,"
though only the big cheeses got those.

I still have my first two terminals down there, too.

Any way, I sent and received countless messages from all over the
new network, my login was OP000005 at MRL, though I usually used one
of the others with an even lower number.


Our machine was a Xerox Sigma V. . .

Thanks!

Thanks!!!

Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg

Recommended Books:

Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury:  For The Right Brain
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand:  For The Left Brain [or both]
Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson:  To Understand The Internet
The Phantom Toobooth, by Norton Juster:  Lesson of Life. . .