[ih] Internet-history Digest, Vol 45, Issue 38

[John Shoch]

Dave Crocker wrote:
"At the earliest stages of effort to build the Arpanet, perhaps email was
not in the minds of the immediate workers.

And in the motivating paper from Licklider and Taylor:
    https://bbiw.net/reports/lick-taylor-1968.pdf
there is no concept of person-to-person 'messaging' explicitly stated.

What /was/ stated was people interacting.? Push that requirement and it
has to lead to asynchronous, as well as synchronous communications."

--On email matters I will ALWAYS defer to Dave.
--For more background, I hope people are familiar with the comprehensive
"Email Innovation Timeline" by Jake Feinler and John Vittal:
https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2022/08/102806104-05-01-acc.pdf
--They have a pointer to a retrospective paper by Larry Roberts published
in 1986, about his thoughts in 1967 (19 years earlier):
"The initial plan for the ARPANET was published in October 1967 at the ACM
Symposium on Operating System Principles in Gatlinburg Tennessee (3). The
reasons given at that time for establishing a computer network were:
A. Load Sharing: Send program and data to remote computer to balance load.
B. Message Service: Electronic mail service (mailbox service).
C. Data Sharing: Remote access to data bases.
D. Program Sharing: Send data, program remote, e.g. Supercomputer.
E. Remote Service: Log-in to remote computer, use its programs and data."
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/12178.12182
--If you read the original SOSP 1967 paper it touches upon these 5
elements;  but the actual comments on messaging are a bit
more......ambivalent:
 "Attempts at computer networks have been made in the past; however, the
usual motivation has been either load sharing or interpersonal message
handling."
"Message Service: In addition to computational network activities, a
network can be used to handle interpersonal message transmissions. This
type of service can also be used for educational services and conference
activities. However, it is not an important motivation for a network of
scientific computers."
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/800001.811680

John Shoch