[SIGCIS-Members] Email Invention: Homing in on Compuserve "GO EMAIL"

[Thomas Haigh]

Hello,

 

I'm now homing in on CompuServe as a possible vector for the popularization
of the word "email," perhaps as early as 1979.

 

What I know so far:

 

.         In 1979 Compserve, formerly a business oriented timesharing
business, launched a consumer oriented $5 an hour service called Micronet.
In 1980 this was rebranded as Compuserve Information Service.

 

.         Electronic mail using numerical DEC userIDs as account names seems
to have been there from the outset. 

 

.         There was some attempt to brand a Compuserve email service as
"Infoplex," circa 1978/9 onward but this may have been a separate service
aimed at business. 

 

.         By 1984 email was definitely accessed on compuserve by typing "GO
EMAIL"
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1984IAPPP..17...11H/0000011.000.htm
l
<http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1984IAPPP..17...11H/0000011.000.htm
l> 

 

.         Compuserve filed a trademark application for email in 1983, citing
a first use in commerce in 1981. It was abandoned in 1984. (Verified with
TESS database).

 

Anyone find anything to firmly document "GO EMAIL" before 1984? Micronet was
used particularly with the TRS-80, so user group materials might be one
source.

 

Tom

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