Email Turns 40, Says It Doesn't Feel a Day Over 20
Email Turns 40, Says It Doesn't Feel a Day Over 20
Posted 06/08/2011 at 9:48am
| by Paul Lilly
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Believe it or not, email turns 40 years old today, though you'd never know it by looking. Unlike MySpace, BBSing, and Val Kilmer, email is still contributing to society and is arguably the most important form of communication, if not the most used. That wasn't always the case and email is quite a bit different than it was when the first electronic mail was sent back in 1971.
Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson invented email 40 years go while experimenting with a program he wrote called SNDMSG, which was used by ARPANET programmers to leave messages for one another. The first ever email message didn't travel very far, going from one computer to another one right next to it. The message read "QUERTYUIOP."
Sharing the same birthday month is the World Wide Web as a whole, which was created by Tim Berners-Lee back in 1989.
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SJTereau
June 08, 2011 at 11:11am
40 years... hard to believe. Wasn't the first message "QWERTYUIOP" though (second line of keys on a keyboard), not "QUER..." Or, was there a typo in the very first message? :)
Holly Golightly
June 08, 2011 at 10:12am
Wow, it is hard to believe how old the internet and email really is. Although most people starting using them in the early 90s I am sure. So it should look and feel 20 of course.
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