[ih] Reporter query on the history of greater-than in quoted replies

[John Levine]

In article <45A45A2A-4855-4459-9E91-6E8BC3C94588 at icloud.com> you write:
>Noel Chiappa wrote:
>
>> Inclusion in a news reader is probably what made it _popular_. But there may
>> have been an _individual_ who came up with it, and it got taken up into the
>> news reader(s) after people saw it and started copying it.

I'd guess it came via the >From convention in unix format mailboxes to quote
lines that would otherwise look like messages separators.

Perhaps one of the early unix guys will remember why they did it that way.



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