[ih] SMTP History

[Noel Chiappa]

    > On 3/28/2022 9:41 AM, Emiliano Spinella via Internet-history wrote:

    > Lately, I have been looking for information regarding the history of
    > SMTP but could not find much information.
    >
    > Basically, I am interested in the initial Email system protocols and
    > how SMTP got its final form. I imagine there must have been multiple
    > protocol alternatives for Email but somehow SMTP became a standard.

I was working on different stuff when SMTP happened, so I can't provide
details from personal memory, but I knew it was happening

I think your mental model of the _very_ early days of networking
is probably wrong. There wasn't a big organized effort; it was just a few
people (originally communicating via telephone and/or printed memos, with an
occasional in-person meeting - no email yet, right?)

Before SMTP, there was email mode in FTP - because FTP was there, and it was
a minor hack to add email transfer. (Open a different file, and for
appending...) (Ironically, much the same logic was applied when we added
'mail' mode to TFTP.)


Probably the best source for how SMTP in particular came to be, as a
replacement for mail in FTP (and why a replacement was needed) is the email
archives of the 'msggroup' list (available at:

  http://www.chiappa.net/~jnc/tech/msggroup/

after I made an effort to save it); it covers June '75 through March 1986,
and so definitely covers the time when SMTP was done.

The 'header-people archives:

  http://www.chiappa.net/~jnc/tech/header/

might also have some information; it was mostly about the _format_ of email
messages, not the _transport_ of them, but there was some leakage. (If anyone
has the first two volumes of that, please let me know, so I can add them to
that collection.)

	Noel