Interesting Article on the Birth of Email

We recently came across this interesting paper by Ian R. Hardy on the early history of email. Email happened without much planning. All the issues we face today, like privacy, preservation, security, and storage, really began over 30 years ago.

Here's an excerpt:

Email caught on fast after its 1971 invention. It became by far and away one of the most popular user applications on the ARPANET. In the words of one ARPANET researcher, the email service sparked by Tomlinson's first SNDMSG utility was "an instant success." Given the original emphasis of ARPANET planners such as J.C.R. Licklider and Lawrence Roberts on purely technical resource sharing, the huge popularity of ARPANET email as a communication medium came to many as a rather unexpected shock.

Our very own David Ferris was an early SNDMSG user. He likes to think he was one of the first 100 email users.

... Bob Spurzem