[ih] "email"-- an opportunity.

[Jack Haverty]

Yes, they were more than a little concerned.   But it was all under 
control....

That 1980 workshop I cited also contains a paper by the President of the 
National Association of Letter Carriers, which notes:

"eventually, however, the Postal Service too recognized that it could 
not afford to ignore the revolution in electronic technology, and in 
September, 1978, it submitted its E-COM proposal to the Postal Rate 
Commission. ...  ...we took the position that if the Postal Service were 
excluded from the field of electronic mail, the Service's demise was 
inevitable".

Another paper, by the Senior Assistant Postmaster General, notes:

"Over ten years ago, the Postal Service saw the rapidly increasing 
technological innovations in electronic communications as an 
evolutionary change that could be adapted ... transporting the mail 
electronically..."  and "E-COM will be our initial domestic service 
using common carriers" and "we have accepted the President's Directive 
of July 19, 1979 to establish a separate and clearly identifiable 
electronic mail entity"

Note that last quote was from 1980, so "over ten years ago" would have 
been before the ARPANET even existed.  So, the "official" direction for 
electronic mail was established.  It would be provided by the Postal 
Service in an evolutionary way.   The ARPANET "network mail" was an 
interesting experiment -- not to be confused with the implementation of 
"electronic mail" which was already being handled through proper 
channels. Or so it seemed.

I suspect there's some fascinating history of electronic mail involving 
that E-COM proposal and why it never happened.  Sounds like another case 
where the experimental system trounced the official one......later 
repeated by TCP, etc., etc.

But I can't find anywhere either where they call it email.  But I agree 
with Noel -- I think the term "email" came from outside our community.   
I vaguely recall first seeing it in something like a trade magazine or 
newspaper article.

/Jack

On 06/05/2013 03:09 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>      > From: Larry Sheldon <LarrySheldon at cox.net>
>
>      > (y'all frightened the post office?  that's funny.)
>
> Why? It was not without reason; check out the stats on first-class mail
> volume - it's estimated that it's taken a _huge_ hit from email.
>
>
> On the subject of the term 'email' - I have this vague memory that it came
> from outside 'our' community, which would explain why it doesn't appear in
> archives. I think we just called it 'mail' or 'network mail'.
>
> I have some very old business cards from MIT/etc which give my email address,
> and one labels it 'ARPANet Address', another just 'Net'.
>
> 	Noel

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