Tales of Ancient E-Mail

[Bob Brown]

Do you have some hp-2000 magnetic tapes of software?  Those can 
easily be loaded into an emulated hp2000 system and therefore made
usable again.

-Bob


>Hello, All,
>
>     At the risk of setting some folks off, I'd like to institute a claim
>that I was involved one of the very first e-mail projects in history.
>Recently, I saw a couple of alpha geeks arguing over which one of them
>wrote the first e-mail program, based on full functionality versus first
>actual use, and some other technical considerations.  I was interested,
>and kept watching.  I was totally shocked when they started talking
>about the dates involved (no, not dates with women -- get real.) because
>they were in 1975 and 1976.  I was wondering what it was that caused
>them to ignore things about which I know...
>
>     I know that Fernando Corbato's group at M.I.T. developed something
>like e-mail, which was functionally identical to the system we
>developed, in 1965.  It required all users to use the same computer
>system.  I also know that, in 1971 or 1972, about the time we did our
>project, Ray Tomlinson developed the first e-mail system that sent mail
>between computers, incidentally using the "@" character to signify the
>beginning of the host name.  But, when we were working on our program,
>we knew nothing of either of these projects.
>
>     When I was in my senior year of high school, around Novmber of 1971,
>I "took over" the computer that served our school district.  I hacked
>through, and figured out the scheme used to create passwords for the
>various schools.  Therefore, I could log into the area of all of the
>schools, with one or two exceptions, whose codes I either figured out or
>"James Bonded" over the next couple of weeks, while I simultaneously
>learned all the system administration functions and commands.  (ASR-33
>paper tape, set to punch, short strip of tape, positioned to curl up
>inside the mechanism - viola!  Key logging...)  Much to my surprise,
>however, when I broke in I found convincing evidence that there were not
>one, but two other people who did the same thing at, apparently, EXACTLY
>the same time.  Before long, we were all talking on the phone, and got
>together.
>
>     One of the others was named Chet Heiber, also a senior, and after I
>graduated, I never saw him again.  The other guy was Max Rubow, a
>junior, who remains a close personal friend to this day.  On the
>computer, we would leave text files for each other with suggestive
>names, in various directories.  Soon, we found one directory which was
>given to a school which didn't have anyone interested in the computer,
>leaving an empty directory, which we appropriated.
>
>     I was grousing about our system of messaging one day, and Max
>challenged me to come up with a better way.  Okay, I said, and started
>describing a database of records with sender, recipient, "has been
>read", and time/date stamp fields.  I got into it, and actually, on the
>spot, fleshed out a pretty good working arrangement for e-mail.  Max was
>impressed.  Much to my surprise, about two weeks later, he approached me
>with a program (which almost worked) to implement what I had been
>blue-skying with him.  We worked together on the system, and actually
>had it working, and used, before I graduated in June of 1972.  Over the
>next year, without me, Max polished it up, and had a very good, stable,
>and functional system which stored every sort of information available
>to a running HP-2000B BASIC program in the file.  It was, actually,
>full-featured e-mail, albeit limited to one machine.
>
>     While I had the original inspiration, Max wrote the vast majority of
>the code.  I helped out for a couple of months before I graduated, but
>my estimate is that less than 10% of the code was mine by the time it
>worked, and even less, after all the enhancements the next year brought.
>Now, if these jokers can argue over whether their 1975 or 1976 programs
>were first...  why can't I argue that our 1972 program was first?  I
>STILL want to know how they passed over Tomlinson and Corbato...
>
>     Anyway, I have, somewhere, a spool of paper tape from a Teletype
>33-ASR punch which contains a version (I'm not sure WHICH version) of
>the READER program.  I would imagine that this is relatively easy to get
>moved into the modern world.  Yes?  I'd kind of like to get all my old
>stuff, hollerith cards, paper tape, HP store tape, etc. on a disk...
>
>
>
>             Peace,
>
>             Warren E. Wolfe
>             wizard at voyager.net


-- 
bbrown at harpercollege.edu   ####  ####    Bob Brown - KB9LFR
Harper Community College   ##  ##  ##    Systems Administrator
Palatine IL USA            ####  ####    Saved by grace