[ih] Fwd: Re: Early Internet history

[Jack Haverty]

On 07/05/2018 05:11 AM, Vint Cerf wrote:
> what was the time frame for CSS Mail?
> 
> v

In 1968/9 I was a regular user of CTSS and remember using MAIL.  It
wasn't new then, just another command in the system.

If "email" is considered broadly as electronic communication, I remember
using IBM JCL in 1967 to send messages from one human to another, via
punch cards - e.g., asking the operator to mount a tape.

Prior to that, of course there was the telegraph and telegrams.  Perhaps
that would be "electric mail".

I was in Paris recently and spent several hours at the Musee des Arts et
Metiers, essentially a museum of technology.  One section is devoted to
"Communications".  I noticed one display cabinet containing a machine
that was somehow used to "allow several telegraph operators to share the
same wire" - so I guess Multiplexing has been around since the 19th century.

Apparently humans need to communicate, and as each new means of
transporting messages comes around, someone figures out a way to use it
to talk with others.

There's lots of interesting old stuff preserved in those glassed-in
display cases.

When you look into one of those cases and see a well-worn and carefully
preserved piece of history, and your immediate reaction is "Hey, I used
to use one of those!" -- that's when you know you're getting old.....

/Jack Haverty