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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I can offer a little perspective on
this...it's been a long time!<br>
<br>
"Electronic mail" came in a lot of forms in the 1970s -- even
telegrams, telex, fax, etc., but if we limit the context to
"network mail" in the ARPANET, I think the history of FTP provides
a good timeline.<br>
<br>
I was at MIT in the "Dynamic Modelling" or DM group, from 1970
through 1977 as grad student and then staff. Licklider ran this
group, so it was focussed on his interests, i.e., how to use
computers to assist human activities. Abhay Bhushan was also in
that group. With our shiny new ARPANET IMP connection and NCP, we
experimented with lots of things, including how to use the ARPANET
to do things that we had been doing within our own isolated
machine environment previously. One of those was "mail", which
was simply the ability to drop a small "note" that another user
would see when he or she next logged in. That was a feature
common to many operating systems of the day. Everyone on the
ARPANET was doing similar things.<br>
<br>
Abhay was involved in the FTP genesis, and authored the first spec
(RFC 114) in April 1971, describing what was being done at MIT on
at least 2 machines - MIT-Multics and MIT-DM - to create a file
transfer capability. That capability was then used to implement
crude "electronic mail", which worked simply by connecting to the
"other" machine with FTP, and either STORing, or more likely
APPEnding your "mail" to the existing mail file in the recipient's
directory. People quickly wrote little wrapper programs so you
didn't have to interact directly with FTP commands, and little
programs that would run when you logged in and see if the file had
been changed since last logout. ("You have new mail") It was
crude but it worked.<br>
<br>
There was no structure to such messages -- no headers at all. The
message was just whatever the human sender wrote. But people
quickly started using standard office conventions for their mail,
e.g., to show who it was from, what it was about, etc. Of course
there were many such formats, since everyone could make their own
just as they did on typewriters.<br>
<br>
The FTP spec was revised by Abhay in RFC 265, 17 November 1971,
where it mentions that the minimal implementation provided the
primitives necessary for the most common uses, i.e., it provided
the "basic control functions necessary for basic file transfer and
"mail" operations". As far as I have found, this is the earliest
ARPANET community reference to "mail", almost certainly referring
to the shenanigans going on at MIT and elsewhere to use the new
ARPANET. "Mail" was accomplished by opening an FTP connection to
the recipient's machine and using APPEnd to add your message to
the recipient's mailbox file. The FTP spec was further expanded
and revised in RFC 354 in July 1972.<br>
<br>
About that time, I was doing the mail implementation on MIT-DM
(Lick *really* wanted to send mail to people at ARPA), and Ken
Pogran was doing the Multics implementation. MIT-DM was an ITS
operating system, which meant it was wide open, no security at
all. Multics, OTOH, had very strict ideas about who was allowed
to do what, and this was causing all sorts of problems with using
those crude "mail" procedures involving who was allowed to write
into files in someone else's space, and how to have a "server"
process that acted on behalf of many users.<br>
<br>
As I recall, it was easy to collar Abhay -- his office was just
down the hall. After sufficient badgering about the problems with
using FTP to do these mail activities, he issued RFC 385 (August
18, 1972) which extended the FTP spec by the addition of two new
commands "MAIL" and MLFL", which separated electronic mail
functions from the rest of file transfer and manipulation. By
distinguishing those as separate functions from regular operations
like APPEnd, it became possible to write programs that had
different capabilities for the different functions -- in
particular a "mail server" that could have permission to
manipulate certain files like "mailboxes". I view that RFC as
the point where "mail" on the ARPANET began as a distinct service,
and set the stage for further development of headers, mail
protocols, etc., which occurred later through the 70s - as
captured in RFCs 524, 561, 680, 724, and finally 733.<br>
<br>
All during the 70s, there was a *lot* of discussion about the
"network mail" technology, but I can believe that the term "email"
didn't arise until later. The term "electronic mail" would of
course have to arise before the contraction to "email". But
there were legal and political issues that, IMHO, forced the use
of "ARPANET mail", or "network mail" during that period. <br>
<br>
"Electronic mail" was a forbidden term, in the ARPANET community.
Here's why...<br>
<br>
In December 1980, AFIPS hosted an invitational workshop on
"technical and policy issues in electronic mail and message
systems" in Washington DC. I still have a copy of the
Proceedings (I was listed as an author, which is probably why I
still have it). There's unfortunately no publication number or
other identification - it's a paperback 207-page book titled
"Electronic Mail and Message Systems, Technical and Policy
Perspectives", editted by Robert E. Kahn, Albert Vezza, and
Alexander D. Roth, copyright 1981 by AFIPS. It's a good resource
for anyone curious about the non-technical perspective on
electronic mail at that time, and also the view from people
outside the ARPANET community (i.e., most of the world).<br>
<br>
For example, one of the papers (by Steve Lukasik of the FCC)
traces the origin of "electronic mail", or "electrical mail" to
"the Post-Office-operated telegraph line between Baltimore and
Washington starting in 1845". Yes, email began in 1845. Bet you
didn't know that. I didn't.<br>
<br>
The paper from the White House notes: "Electronic Mail as
'Communication' -- there is a question about whether or not this
new service is 'communications' or is something else. The FCC
has not really attempted to answer that question." <br>
<br>
So, the Rest of World knew about "Electronic Mail" but wasn't
quite sure what it was or how it fit in to the legal and
bureaucratic framework. Whatever was going on within the ARPANET
community was just an experiment, not to be worried about.<br>
<br>
Getting to the original question about "email"....<br>
<br>
As I recall, during the early 70s, we techies naturally used the
postal system as a model for a starting point for our own work in
"electronic mail". But we were also strongly encouraged to
*avoid* saying anything that could be interpreted as working on a
project to compete with or replace "snail mail" or any other form
of established communications service. Such a project would have
strong domestic and international ramifications, with the
regulations, treaties, labor relations, tariffs, etc., associated
with interstate and international commerce, PTTs, etc., etc.,
etc. So whatever we were doing, it wasn't that.<br>
<br>
"Electronic mail", in those days, meant things like Western Union,
Telex, TWX, Fax, etc., all of which were well established, heavily
regulated, defended by stacks of laws and treaties, and
entrenched. So whatever we were doing couldn't possibly be
"electronic mail". It was far better to call it "network mail".
And just wait.<br>
<br>
IMHO, the ARPANET created "network mail". Some time later, people
recognized it as yet another form of "electronic mail". Some time
after that, they forgot about all the earlier forms like TWX etc.,
and "email" became synonymous with and subsumed "network mail".<br>
<br>
Enjoy!<br>
<br>
/Jack Haverty<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 06/05/2013 05:33 AM, Alex McKenzie wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:1370435615.39347.YahooMailNeo@web142404.mail.bf1.yahoo.com"
type="cite">
<div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times
new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt">
<div><span>On January 4, 1978 ARPA published a "Completion
Report" for the ARPAnet project
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/chris/DIGITAL_ARCHIVE/ARPANET/DARPA4799.pdf">http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/chris/DIGITAL_ARCHIVE/ARPANET/DARPA4799.pdf</a>).
In that report there are discussions of what we call email
on pages III-113 to III-115 and III-131. In both instances
the term "network mail" was used. This leads me to believe
that the word "email" was not in common use in the ARPAnet
community in the second half of 1977 when the report was
written. So it is easy for me to believe that the 1979 date
given by the OED is correct.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family:
times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color:
transparent; font-style: normal;"><br>
<span></span></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family:
times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color:
transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>Cheers,</span></div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family:
times new roman,new york,times,serif; background-color:
transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>Alex<br>
</span></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times,
serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times,
serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<div dir="ltr">
<hr size="1"> <font face="Arial" size="2"> <b><span
style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Dave
Crocker <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:dhc2@dcrocker.net"><dhc2@dcrocker.net></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Miles
Fidelman <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:mfidelman@meetinghouse.net"><mfidelman@meetinghouse.net></a> <br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org">"internet-history@postel.org"</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org"><internet-history@postel.org></a> <br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b>
Tuesday, June 4, 2013 11:23 AM<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b>
Re: [ih] first use of "email" (redux)<br>
</font> </div>
<div class="y_msg_container"><br>
On 6/4/2013 3:44 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:<br>
> Apropos recent discussions of the "inventor of
email"....<br>
><br>
> Just came across this:<br>
> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://public.oed.com/appeals/email/"
target="_blank">http://public.oed.com/appeals/email/</a><br>
><br>
> An appeal from the folks at the Oxford English
Dictionary, seeking any<br>
> use of the term earlier than 1979.<br>
<br>
<br>
I've sent them a query, to find out their basis for citing
1979.<br>
<br>
I also just search the msggroup and header-people archives
for the 1970s <br>
and could not find an occurrence of "email" or "e-mail".
This surprised me.<br>
<br>
d/<br>
<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Dave Crocker<br>
Brandenburg InternetWorking<br>
bbiw.net<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
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</blockquote>
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