Email 1.0: First Email Systems and Their Importance

The development of the first email systems marked a pivotal moment in the history of communication, setting the stage for an entirely new way people could interact both professionally and personally. Prior to email, electronic communication was largely limited to telegraphs, telephone conversations, and early forms of computer networking that did not facilitate easy messaging. In the early 1970s, however, groundbreaking innovations like SNDMSG and CPYNET paved the way for the dynamic world of electronic messaging we know today.

SNDMSG, or “Send Message,” was one of the earliest programs that allowed users to send simple text-based messages to one another’s mailboxes. Created for the ARPANET network, SNDMSG was initially quite rudimentary. It permitted users to send messages only to other users logged onto the same host computer or connected through ARPANET. The messages were stored as flat files in a common directory, which the recipients could read at their convenience. Though primitive by modern standards, SNDMSG laid the groundwork for the concept of asynchronous communication over a network, setting it apart from real-time, synchronous methods like phone calls or teletypes.

CPYNET, another seminal program, was developed by Ray Tomlinson, an engineer at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN), the company contracted to work on ARPANET. While SNDMSG allowed for basic messaging, it had limitations, including the inability to send messages between different kinds of computers and networks. CPYNET was designed to fill this gap. It enabled the transfer of files and text between computers, essentially acting as a protocol to copy data from one machine to another. What made it historically significant was Tomlinson’s idea to integrate CPYNET with SNDMSG, thereby allowing messages to be sent to users on other computers in the ARPANET network.

Ray Tomlinson’s role in this story cannot be overstated. It was he who chose the “@” symbol to designate the destination for a message, laying the basis for the email addresses we use today. The “@” symbol served to separate the user’s name from the name of their host computer—a simple yet effective way to direct messages across a network. So, an email address like “johndoe@host” signified user “johndoe” at the “host” computer. This seemingly minor decision had far-reaching implications, essentially defining the way we think about electronic addresses.

Both SNDMSG and CPYNET were command-line-based programs, requiring users to type in specific commands to send or receive messages. This may sound cumbersome to contemporary users accustomed to graphical interfaces and easy-to-use apps, but in the early ’70s, these programs were revolutionary. They ushered in a new era of communication, breaking down barriers of time and distance. Now, messages could be sent at any hour and received at the recipient’s leisure, enabling a level of flexibility that was previously unthinkable.

The implications of these early email systems were immediate and profound. Academic researchers, military personnel, and scientists, who were the primary users of ARPANET, found that email vastly simplified the exchange of ideas and data. No longer did one have to wait for postal deliveries or coordinate phone calls across time zones; an email could be sent in an instant and read at the recipient’s convenience. This convenience spurred email’s rapid adoption, and by the late 1970s, it was reported that 75% of all ARPANET traffic was email.

The technologies introduced by SNDMSG and CPYNET laid the foundation for subsequent developments in email systems. Features we take for granted today, such as subject lines, folders, and attachments, were later innovations built upon these early programs. Over time, proprietary and commercial email systems came into being, and with the advent of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, web-based email services became popular, making email accessible to the general public.

In essence, the early email systems of SNDMSG and CPYNET were much more than technical novelties. They were transformative tools that altered the way we communicate, collaborate, and share information. These humble beginnings have evolved into a global system of interconnected mail servers and billions of email users, proving that sometimes the simplest innovations can have the most profound impacts.

The development of the first email systems marked a pivotal moment in the history of communication, setting the stage for an entirely new way people could interact both professionally and personally. Prior to email, electronic communication was largely limited to telegraphs, telephone conversations, and early forms of computer networking that did not facilitate easy messaging.…