Inventor of email and savior of the @ sign, Ray Tomlinson, is dead at 74
http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/6/11168718/ray-tomlinson-dead-inventor-of-email-obituary
A computing legend has died. The inventor of email, Ray
Tomlinson, suffered an apparent heart attack on Saturday,
according to reports. He was 74 years old. Tomlinson sent the
very first email back in 1971; at the time, he was working in
Boston at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN), a company that was
instrumental in the development of a very early version of the
internet, called ARPANET. As an employee, he was "looking for
problems [ARPANET] could solve," Tomlinson told The Verge in a
2012 interview. // "IT'S THE ONLY PREPOSITION ON THE KEYBOARD"
// Others had thought about sending messages to other users
before, and there were some early versions that let you share
notes to users on the same computer, but Tomlinson came up with
the SNDMSG command. Unlike what came before it, SNDMSG actually
sent mail files to the recipient's computers. It was the first
networked messaging program. He also decided to use the @
symbol to designate a user from its host.
- - -
Way too young. PEACE.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently
doing so -- my opinions expressed here are mine alone.
_______________________________________________
pfir mailing list
http://lists.pfir.org/mailman/listinfo/pfir
