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Dave Crocker has a website that points to several documents on the long
history of contributions by various people to the "invention"
of email as we know it today:<br>
<a href="http://emailhistory.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://emailhistory.org/</a><br>
Most inventions involve prior technology; but as Dave noted to me
recently, some come into existence relatively fully developed by one
person or a small group of people, while others (like email) take a lot
of small steps from here and there over a protracted period of time to
reach a fairly fully developed state. <br><br>
At 08:05 PM 5/11/2012, Alex McKenzie wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Ray is generally acknowledged to
have been the first person to build/adapt and demonstrate programs to
transfer messages from one computer to another via the ARPAnet, and to
use the symbol "@" to denote the specific computer where the
intended recipient had an account. But the transfer of messages
from one computer user to another within a single computer was many years
older, and this was email too, as MAP correctly pointed out. A recent
article in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing talks about
several of the earlier single-computer message systems.<br><br>
<br>
<font size=2><b>From:</b> Vint Cerf <vint@google.com><br>
<b>To:</b> Alex McKenzie <amckenzie3@yahoo.com> <br>
<b>Cc:</b> Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux@gmail.com>;
"internet-history@postel.org"
<internet-history@postel.org> <br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, May 11, 2012 6:41 PM<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [ih] MAP & BBN<br>
</font><br>
I thought it was reasonable to assert that Ray Tomlinson invented<br>
networked email, Alex - do you see it differently?<br><br>
vint<br><br>
<br><br>
On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 5:55 PM, Alex McKenzie
<<a href="mailto:amckenzie3@yahoo.com">amckenzie3@yahoo.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
> Bill,<br>
><br>
> I know MAP was perpetually annoyed by BBN and always felt BBN
claimed to<br>
> have invented everything. I was at BBN the entire time and I
always felt<br>
> most of Mike's criticism was unjustified. BBN wrote a lot of
papers, with<br>
> ARPAs strong encouragement, about what we did do, and BBN did a
lot. We<br>
> didn't write about what others did- that was up to them. So if
others<br>
> didn't write so much, the written history got kind of
BBN-centric.<br>
><br>
> One notable exception: Ray Tomlinson was credited by a lot of
non-BBN<br>
> people with "inventing email" and Mike was justifiably
upset every time he<br>
> heard that claim. Mike seems to have blamed BBN for making
that claim.<br>
> However, I think you can look as carefully as you want at BBN
publications<br>
> and you will not find that claim made by BBN.<br>
><br>
> Sincerely,<br>
> Alex<br>
><br>
> ________________________________<br>
> From: Bill Ricker
<<a href="mailto:bill.n1vux@gmail.com">bill.n1vux@gmail.com</a>><br>
> To: David Elliott Bell
<<a href="mailto:bell1945@offthisweek.com">bell1945@offthisweek.com</a>
><br>
> Cc:
"<a href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org">
internet-history@postel.org</a>"
<<a href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org">
internet-history@postel.org</a>><br>
> Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2012 10:59 PM<br>
> Subject: Re: [ih] Hesitating to disagree with one of the fathers of
the<br>
> Internet…..<br>
><br>
> On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 5:34 PM, David Ellliott Bell<br>
>
<<a href="mailto:bell1945@offthisweek.com">bell1945@offthisweek.com</a>
> wrote:<br>
><br>
> the need for layers (3 will do if you know what you're going; if you
don't,<br>
> 11 won't help you);<br>
><br>
><br>
> Correction, it is canonically '17 won't help you' .<br>
> The ironic allusion to the hol(e)y 7 of the Other Reference Model
("ISORM")<br>
> makes this MAPhorism much funnier than mere exaggeration.<br>
><br>
> a world view about which layers and the rigidity required to enforce
layers;<br>
> proposing alternate protocols for achieving a desired goal; things
like that<br>
> are part of design-ARPANET.<br>
><br>
><br>
> Mike having come to protocol design and programming via poetry
rather than<br>
> prosaic electrical engineering, yes, he viewed layering as the
design, as<br>
> the essense. The fact that both the IMPs and NCP have been retired
but the<br>
> network that (D)ARPA wrought lives on as "the
Internet", over a hybrid<br>
> hodgepodge of physical subnets, militates that his logical view of
The Net<br>
> has won out over the physical, just as the pragmatic, good-enough
ARM has<br>
> won out of the overly baroque OSI ISORM .<br>
><br>
> However ...<br>
><br>
> The Popular History of the Net has largely been told from the BBN
POV. As an<br>
> editorial/authorial decision, this is understandably so, much though
it may<br>
> annoy those who worked on upper layers. Having a for-profit's PR
office on<br>
> the case doesn't hurt, but that is not solely responsible. It's
easier to<br>
> follow BBN'S IMP/TIP narrative than a narrative spread over
several<br>
> campuses and multiple OS's no one uses anymore, and far easier to
explain<br>
> challenges of hardware than challenges of software to a general
audience. I<br>
> have corroboration on that bald assertion -- Tracey Kidder
interviewed the<br>
> DG 'Eagle' operating system team manager while researching 'Soul of
the New<br>
> Machine', and couldn't figure out how to explain it, so went back
to<br>
> focusing on hardware and microcode teams. Networking may be easier
to make<br>
> metaphor than an OS, but not compared to modems.<br>
><br>
> [I worked for said DG manager at his next gig, and volunteered with
a<br>
> 'microkid' a few years later. The microkid taught me to drink cognac
at ACM<br>
> committee meetings; Mike's whisky lessons cured me of that
quickly.]<br>
><br>
> --<br>
> Bill<br>
> @n1vux
<a href="mailto:bill.n1vux@gmail.com">bill.n1vux@gmail.com</a><br>
><br>
><br><br>
</blockquote>
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<br>
--<br>
home address: 12 Linden Rd., E. Sandwich, MA 02537<br>
home ph=508-888-7655; cell ph = 503-757-3137 <br>
email address: dave@walden-family.com; website:
<a href="http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/">http</a>
://<a href="http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/" eudora="autourl">
www.walden-family.com/bbn/</a> </body>
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