The Origin of Email
A recent study estimated that approximately 100 billion emails were sent worldwide in 2007[1]. This figure is so vast as to be almost unfathomable. A nice way to begin to appreciate its enormity is to reflect that one calculation puts the total number of human beings born since 50,000 B.C. at about this same figure[2]. Given this fantastic volume it might be useful to take a look at the genesis of electronic mail and the individuals behind its development.
Not surprisingly, the origin of email is intimately connected with the beginnings of the internet. The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (or ARPANET) was the forerunner of the Internet as we know it. ARPANET was a system developed in the late 1960s to link separate defense department computers together[3] ARPANET researchers and engineers had been utilizing a program called SNDMSG to conveniently leave messages for each other on their computers. However, the major limitation was that a message could only be left on a machine for the next user of that specific terminal to view. Nothing could be sent between different computers. This program might be thought of as a sort of electronic Post-it note or bulletin board.
Ray Tomlinson was a computer engineer working for a company called Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN) during ARPANET's development[4]. He was responsible for writing the SNDMSG program that his coworkers were using on a regular basis. Another program he worked on was known as CYPNET. This application pioneered file transferring within ARPANET. With these two programs percolating in his mind Tomlinson then made what we might see as a breakthrough: he could use CYPNET to allow SNDMSG to deliver messages between two different computers rather than just append notes for the next user on a single machine. In his unassuming words “It seemed like a neat idea.”[5] While a far cry from the “Eureka!” of an Archimedes[6], this simple statement masks a great discovery.
Once this connection was made Tomlinson realized that some sort of distinction was necessary to differentiate between destinations for messages. Previously, messages posted on one computer using SNDMSG were simply routed to a mailbox file with the recipient's name. But messages that were to be delivered to a remote computer would need to be more precise. Therefore he settled on the “@” symbol, which would be inserted between the user's name and the host/recipient machine. Logically, the message recipient would be “so and so” @ “such and such” destination. Now that messages could be sent rather than just posted more than names were needed to ensure proper delivery; addresses were a must.
What message did the first email contain? Something stirring and profound like Armstrong's transmission from the moon? Not quite. Tomlinson sent the first email to himself as a test in 1971. It read something like “QWERTYUIOP.”[7] The nature of the message and the fact that he doesn't recall exactly what he wrote serves to reveal both the utilitarian workings of an engineer's mind as well as the modesty of someone who was simply trying to find a way to make communication between his coworkers easier. Glory and recognition was not his goal. In any case Tomlinson's associates appreciated his new program and within two years three quarters of ARPANET usage was email[8].
From these beginnings email continued to grow and evolve[9]. After Tomlinson another programmer named Marty Yonke reconfigured SNDMSG into a new program eventually known as BANANARD. This strange sounding program was the first easy to use email application. John Vittal in turn improved on Yonke's work with an update he termed simply MSG. This incarnation of email incorporated the first ability to answer a message quickly with an automatically addressed reply.
Over the next several years more programmers contributed their ideas here and there until by 1988 the first true commercial email was launched with MCI Mail on the National Science Foundation Network. Finally, by the early 1990s America Online and Delphi integrated their own email systems to the Internet.
Today Internet users have many free email providers from which to choose, endless ways to customize and manage their experiences, and the ability to store masses of messages indefinitely. In addition, most people maintain more than one email address to facilitate the different parts of their lives, both business and personal. Along with all this good have come some negative aspects as well e.g. spam and virus attachments to name just two. Yet even so, most people would find it very hard to conduct their lives without access to their email. Tomlinson and those like him may not have foreseen all of this, but without their ambition and curiosity we would all lack a vital means of simple and quick communication.
References
[1] The study, Worldwide Email Usage 2007-2011 Forecast, was published by the International Data Corporation.
[2] 106,456,367,669 total births according to a calculation by the Population Reference Bureau.
[3] An overview and brief history of ARPANET can be found on Wikipedia.
[4] Mr. Tomlinson's website provides the clearest overview of his invention and does a good job at dispelling several myths related to email.
[5] Ibidem.
[6] Greek philosopher and engineer 287-212 B.C. After discovering while sitting in his bathtub that the volume of displaced water was equal to the volume of the amount of his body submerged he ran through the streets of Syracuse shouting “Eureka! Eureka!” (I've found it!). See Vitruvius' De Architectura 9.9-12.
[7] http://openmap.bbn.com/~tomlinso/ray/mistakes.html
[8] Pretext Magazine 1998.
[9] The following is drawn mainly from: http://www.livinginternet.com/e/ei.htm