From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: paul.winalski@gmail.com (Paul Winalski) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 15:50:14 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] RIP Ray Tomlinson In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/4/18, Dave Horsfall wrote: > > In the meantime, some tosser (his name is not important) is claiming that > he invented email first; I recall that APL\360 had a "mailbox" facility, > but it certainly didn't use "@". > VAX/VMS version 1 (1978) had email, capable of sending messages either locally or over a DECnet network. In keeping with standard DECnet syntax, it used "::" instead of "@". Len Kawell was the author of VMS mail. He got the idea, and copied the UI, from the University of Illinois PLATO CAI system, which had email capability. I don't know if PLATO's email was capable of transmitting messages between computer systems; Tomlinson may have been the first to do that. But the concept of email goes way back. -Paul W.