Tales of Ancient E-Mail

[Warren Wolfe]

On Tue, 2006-10-31 at 16:31 -0700, cctech at porky.vax-11.org wrote:

> I do NOT want to start a flame war here.
> 
> <Proceed with inflammatory comments>
> 
> I would argue that since the program you co-developed did not actually 
> move the message from one place to another, it is better described as a 
> bulletin board system than an email system.
> 
> <End of inflammation>


    Flame war?  Is THAT all you got?  Sheesh.  My baby sister slaps
harder.  </testosterone pump>

    You might be right... but, it was an odd bird.  Messages were NOT
public.  Each person signed in, and could only see messages addressed to
them, or to "ALL".  If everyone addressed messages to "ALL," it would be
VERY much like a modern BBS.  (Actually, I ran an RBBS system for about
ten years, and wrote some utility programs for the RBBS message base.)
READER messages could be sent to multiple recipients, too.  I forget how
many.

    Like many things, this hinges upon the definitions one places on
"e-mail" and "bulletin board" systems.  READER made private mail, but
kept it on one computer.  Except for the fact that it didn't chase down
the recipient, it was e-mail.  Machs nicht.



> On the other hand, Tomlinson's work is moving message from one place to 
> another, presumably with some form of routing, so it qualifies (in my tiny 
> brain) as email.


    Oh, I think that's true by any rational definition.  His program set
would ALMOST work today...



> Do you know what the mechanism for moving messages was? It is my belief 
> that UUCP was used to move the first email messages, but I could be wrong.


    That's it.  File transfers were arranged either by UUCP or by FTP
between servers on the "mail runs."  Thanks for your comments, Clint.
I'm not very flammable, by the way, but really good at it if I am
triggered.  I generally don't mind anything if it's true and
well-intentioned, or as close as is reasonable.



            Peace,

            Warren E. Wolfe
            wizard at voyager.net