[inforoots] early email

[Dave Crocker]

Michael Hart wrote:
>> Stan Sieler wrote:
>>> 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.
> 
> Definitely not local messages.  These came in on dedicated phone
> lines in most cases, but my own TeleType machine,
...
>> The first *networked* email was by Ray Tomlinson at BBN on Tenex in 
>> 1971. See:
...
> The messages I sent and received in 1971, from what I presumed
> was what eventually became the Internet, were definitely coast
> to coast, and close enough to the nodes I knew that presumed a
> link through those nodes, much as I now presume MRL had links,
> probably throught The Center for Advanced Computation.


One of the challenges in discussing this sort of topic is in making sure 
everyone is using the same model of computing and communications.

So, for example, I believe that Telex did not feed into a computer's email 
system until quite a few years later than we are discussing here. Classic 
Telex was certainly long-distance, but it was really a classic telephone 
switching model between standalone i/o devices without computing or storage 
(other than paper tape...).

And I believe that email between remote people, prior to Arpanet email, really 
mean everyone accessed the same single computer, albeit possibly over a tty 
communicating link like dial-up.

So, by saying "networked" email, I mean that two, independent computer email 
systems exchanged messages.  Hence, in pseudo computer science-ese: 
distributed processing, rather than remote access.

d/

ps. A mark of progress or ignorance is that it is finally common to find that 
some/many people in a technical audience don't know what Telex is, even though 
it is still the only long-distance communications infrastructure in a few 
remote places.

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net