<div dir="ltr">Hi All, <div><br></div><div>Thanks for this interesting discussion and citations. It's clear that there were people sending electronic mail messages even before there were digital computers, as Paul points out. There is also documentation about the early days of electronic messages from the 1970s. </div><div><br></div><div>Certainly there can always be more scholarship about these topics, and it's important to recognize the collective effort that is behind innovation in computing, but I am not sure it's worth trying to discredit Ayyadurai. If nothing else, his circle seems to be interested in publicity, and attacking his claim will simply create another opportunity for them to get back into the news. </div><div><br></div><div>It seems to me that there are other, more pressing issues we could tackle as a group. The new head of the FCC has raised some concern because he might be opposed to net neutrality. The film Hidden Figures, which is drawing huge audiences and has been nominated for an Oscar, is proof of a widespread interest in diversity in the history of computing. These topics, in my mind, seem more pressing than the claim that one person invented email.</div><div><br></div><div>Chris </div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 7:59 PM, Pierre MOUNIER-KUHN <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mounier@msh-paris.fr" target="_blank">mounier@msh-paris.fr</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;color:#000000"><div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;color:#000000"><div><div><span style="font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif">Hi,</span></div><div><span style="font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif">Just to add footnotes to the chronicle of email, I just asked about early development and use of electronic mail on the list of Bull-GE and CII-Honeywell-Bull veterans. Among the first answers:<br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif">• Claude Ducarouge : "In late 1970-early1971, to integrate GCOS7 [one of the major OS under development within Honeywell Information Systems, ex-GEIS] we used the Boston Multics system with TTY33 consoles ( 2 or 3 consoles). To communicate daily with the developers in Boston and to organize exchanges of files (shipment of magnetic tapes through Air France pilots, processing in Boston and retrieval of printed results of compilations 24 h later at Orly airport), we exchanged messages between the TTY33s of Paris and Boston. Some texts started to be processed with the Worpro function on Multics to edit documents... And the messages would point at "attachments", to a path toward a file on the system.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif"><br>• Alain Bron, who worked in the early 1970s at the national champion CII on the large IRIS 80 computer, participated in the development of an OS dedicated to teleprocessing, Stratege, which "offered already multi-windows and a message functionnality of up to 160 characters". </span></div><div><span style="font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif">Note that, if we apply here the Shiva Ayyadurai logic, this Frenchman can claim to have invented Twitter 45 years ago – with 20 extra signs as a bonus.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif"><br>Hope this helps – at least to start a bright year,</span></div><div><div><span style="font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif">Pierre Mounier-Kuhn</span></div></div></div><br><hr id="m_5076921810052932486zwchr"><div><b>De: </b>"Murray Turoff" <<a href="mailto:murray.turoff@gmail.com" target="_blank">murray.turoff@gmail.com</a>><br><b>À: </b>"Ian S. King" <<a href="mailto:isking@uw.edu" target="_blank">isking@uw.edu</a>><br><b>Cc: </b>"members" <<a href="mailto:members@sigcis.org" target="_blank">members@sigcis.org</a>><br><b>Envoyé: </b>Lundi 23 Janvier 2017 05:54:23<br><b>Objet: </b>Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Resources on Ayyadurai saga<br></div><div><div class="h5"><br><div><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">GE had general time sharing internationally using BASIC a number of us internationally used it for "email" we all had the same account access and an email identified who it was to in the title of the basic program which turned out to be a set of REM(ark) statements with what ever message we want to share internationally.<br><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 6:09 PM, Ian S. King <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:isking@uw.edu" target="_blank">isking@uw.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Another bit of interesting information I found while doing some research for my dissertation, take a look at this oral history on the CHM site: <a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102658003" target="_blank">http://www.<wbr>computerhistory.org/<wbr>collections/catalog/102658003</a>.<wbr> Warner Sinback, in discussing his work with General Electric, talks about creating an email system. The timeframe is not clearly defined but it is obvious from the text that it is prior to 1979, easily placed in the early 1970s and perhaps as early as the late 1960s. <br><div>The body of 'prior art' accumulates. It certainly seems that the idea of email was a parallel evolution across the computer industry, not a point event - and certainly not in 1979 (or whatever date Ayyadurai is claiming this week). -- Ian </div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div><div class="m_5076921810052932486h5"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 10:42 AM, Glenn Bugos <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Glenn@momentllc.com" target="_blank">Glenn@momentllc.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Don’t think this tidbit has appeared on the list...A few years back there was a rock musical in London called Loserville. It’s now closed, though American high schools are picking it up. It is set in 1971, focusing on Michael Dork, a nerdy high school student confused by girls, with a tight group of friends, striving to invent email as his “one way ticket out of Loserville."<br>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDUqgUylpVA" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?<wbr>v=ZDUqgUylpVA</a><br>
<br>
Here’s a high school in Oregon, performing the last act of the play, where the brilliant, beautiful and underestimated Holly, blackmailed by the scion of military contractor Arch Systems, enjoys the Eureka moment of putting “@“ in the address (:45) then passes her secret along to her friend Michael (3:30). “After all this time/it seems so obvious/we’re making history/we’ll be notorious/so many sleepless nights/it never came to us/it’s so simple/it’s genius.” Then “It’s the birth of the digital/God what a miracle/we are really living in the future now.”<br>
<div class="m_5076921810052932486m_-3127760821508988324HOEnZb"><div class="m_5076921810052932486m_-3127760821508988324h5"><br>
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