[ih] propagation of early email?

[Miles Fidelman]

Thanks to all who've provided some great history!  Now, just to add to 
the question... Unix was developing pretty much in parallel with the 
ARPANET.  Anybody happen to know when UUCP based file transfer and email 
started up?

Miles


Dave Crocker wrote:
> In line with most of the responses you've already gotten:
>
> BBN's Tenex was the preferred computer science computing platform. 
> Anything written on one was therefore readily available to the rest of 
> the community.
>
> Ray modified SNDMSG to use CPYNET, adding the @-based string to refer 
> to the remote host.  I believe CPYNET was indeed Tenex-specific.  Mail 
> reading was done with READMAIL that dumped out all 'recent' message, 
> received since the last running of READMAIL.
>
> Ray's work was in reaction to email protocol discussions that had 
> already started for something more elaborate with rather less 
> integration (targeting printing out rather than online reading.)
>
> I had repeatedly heard the anecdote of Abhay's adding the MAIL and 
> MLFL commands to FTP.  But some years ago, Abhay denied it, saying 
> that email was "always" part of the FTP discussion.  Certainly the 
> documentation suggests a long consideration of the capability.
>
> On the other hand, Craig's recounting is specific to MLFL, rather than 
> including MAIL, and I didn't ask Abhay anything that specific.
>
> Anonymous FTP was quite separate from email, in a push vs. pull 
> distinction.  I characterize anonymous FTP as the beginning of the 
> web, since it was how public documents were published and made readily 
> accessible.
>
> For reference, there is now a web site for discussing the origins of 
> email, to develop a consensus view of the details:
>
>    emailhistory.org
>
> Note that a timeline is under development, seeking feedback, 
> corrections and additions.
>
> Folks are encouraged to join in the discussions.
>
> d/
> On 5/22/2012 7:17 AM, Miles Fidelman wrote:
>> Hi Folks,
>>
>> So... harkening back to the recent discussions on the "invention of
>> email".....
>


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra