The first email was sent about 30 years ago. When RayTomlinson sent the first email, he didn't fully realize that his invention could record information or data. Tomlinson recalled that at about the end of 197 1, he sent information from one computer to another adjacent computer. In the first email to colleagues at BN Institute of Technology, Tomlinson explained how his new system works. B BN Institute of Technology is a research and development company in Cambridge, and now it is a subsidiary of Verizon Communications. Tomlinson and his collaborators used e-mail flexibly, which opened the curtain of the written communication revolution.

Inventor information:

Ray Tomlinson invented an amazing communication tool-e-mail, but it was associated with a very inconspicuous little mark. Why use @? He explained: "I considered using other symbols, but only @ didn't appear in any name, so I chose it, and it looked good."

The effect is not only good! Now, the symbol @ has become a very popular symbol.

Remember, it represents our era of using hyperlinks to communicate. It is almost everywhere, appearing in bulletin boards, advertisements, enterprise names (such as @ @Home), magazine names (such as inter @ activieweek) and even works of art (if there is a ballet called F @ ust). At present, at least 654.38+25 billion people in the world use the symbol @ in their email addresses. For many of them, this symbol is even more important than the house number where their home is located.

Although Tomlinson's invention had a profound impact on our way of life, study and work, it started from a very humble way.

1965, after graduating from the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tomlinson spent two years getting a doctorate in computer engineering, and then went to a company near MIT called Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN for short) to do computer research. At that time, the company was employed by the US military and participated in the construction and maintenance of ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet. Jerry Burchfair, Tomlinson's colleague and friend for many years at BBN University, recalled: "Our job was to build an operating system on those simple hardware devices. Ray designed a program to "send information". At first, this program can only be used locally, but soon, it enables it to go further, and finally it can even deliver mail on the whole ARPANET.

Unlike Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, who made the first famous call to his assistant Watson, no one remembers the details of the first email except that it was sent by Tomlinson from one computer to another. The recipient is himself, of course. Even Tomlinson himself did not realize the importance of his invention at that time. Burchfair recalled: "He showed me what he had achieved and kept telling me,' Don't tell anyone else! That's not why we take the money. "

However, after a guy named Larry Roberts appeared, this kind of worry became completely unnecessary. Larry Roberts is the head of the government agency in charge of the ARPANET project. He loves Tomlinson's invention and takes email as the only way of communication in his work. His extreme behavior forced researchers who depended on his support to connect themselves to the Internet. Therefore, Tomlinson's system of transmitting information through the Internet quickly changed from a convenient move to an indispensable tool.

Like many other pioneers in the information age, Tomlinson changed the face of the whole world and brought great wealth to many people, but he never benefited a penny from it. He laughed at himself and said: "Innovation can sometimes bring huge returns. But this innovation (mine) does not belong to this category.

Last year, BBN was acquired by GTE. Now, in the Internet department of GTE, Tomlinson is involved in the development of a software program called "Network Trust". This software can make e-commerce more secure and reliable by issuing certificates that can confirm the identity of customers. Tomlinson said, "It's much better than electronic signature because it can't be forged. Moreover, certificates can increase anonymity and better ensure that your privacy rights are not violated.

E-mail has changed the way many enterprises do business (from internationally renowned large enterprises to little-known small enterprises), changed the way millions of people shop and engage in financial activities, and become the best way to keep in touch with their families thousands of miles away ... but not all these changes and rapid development can make Tomlinson happy. He remembers the chaotic but energetic situation in the early university campus, but hates those behaviors that abuse the openness of e-mail, such as sending spam and mail bombs. As e-mail goes deeper and deeper into modern people's lives, it is inevitable to establish some kind of organization to manage it (good or bad) in its explosive development. Tomlinson was deeply impressed, but said in a slightly anxious tone, "I miss that anarchy more."

A Note on Tomlinson's Invention of E-mail

Previously, Tomlinson worked in a company named Bolt Beranek and Newman(BBN), which was employed by the US Department of Defense in 1968 and founded Arpanet, the predecessor of the Internet. 197 1, he debugged with Sndmsg, which is a digital information program. Tom linson wrote this program, which enables programmers and researchers who use digital PDP- 10 (an early Arpanet computer) to send information to each other.

However, this is not a real email. Like many electronic information programs that existed at that time (dating back to the early 1960s), Sndmsg was only applicable to a certain extent. Only suitable for information transmission between users sharing the same machine. These users can create a text file and send it to the designated "mailbox".

Tomlinson later said that the mailbox is just a file with a specific name. Its only special performance is that users can add more information at the end of the mailbox, but they can't read or overwrite the existing content.

When Tomlinson used Sndmsg, he also used an experimental file transfer tool called Cypnet to transfer files on the Internet in Arpanet. (ARPANET includes 15 sites in different locations, such as UCLA in California, Utah University in Salt Lake City, BBN in Cambridge, Massachusetts, etc. Tomlinson explained that he had a hunch that Cypnet, like Sndmsg, could attach files to the mailbox.

Using the method originally written by Cypnet, Cypnet can send and receive files, but it cannot be attached to files. Therefore, he managed to get Cypnet to send information to the mailbox through Arpanet using Sndmsg.

At that time, Tomlinson realized that if he fully grasped the importance of this technology, what he did later would make him have a high position in the field of communication.

First, he used the @ symbol to distinguish the information in the local mailbox from the information on the Internet. He recalled that the meaning of the @ symbol was that I could use it to judge whether the user was at another site, not at the local site. Then Tomlinson sent himself an email. He said that BBN has two PDP- 10S computers connected through Arpanet, and the first message is transmitted between two closely connected computers, and the two computers are only connected through Arpanet.

In Cambridge, information is transmitted through the network connecting two computers in the same room. The message is Qwertyiop, or something like this.

After Tomlinson was satisfied with Sndmsg, he sent a message to his colleagues, telling them the new news and telling them to add the symbol @ between the user name and the address of his computer. Tomlinson said that the first use of online mail showed its existence.