Hello everyone,
Good news from the email battle. The Washington Post's Ombudsman has posted
a lengthy and detailed retraction of his previous column.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/omblog/post/origins-of-e-mail-my-mea-cul
pa/2012/03/01/gIQAiOD5kR_blog.html
This will also make my life easier, as I no longer have to try to present
the actual history of email, correct the Post's errors in the original story
and Ombusman blog, and debunk Ayyadurai all in one article. We can shift the
focus to the real history, which is ultimately more productive.
Best wishes,
Tom
Tom --- the earliest reference I have seen to electronic mail in a relatively mainstream publication is from the Harvard Business Review in 1972. Here is the cite. If you want the article, let me know. I have a PDF
Bryan Carne. Telecommunications: its impact on business. Harvard Business Review; Jul/Aug72, Vol. 50 Issue 4, p125-132
There is also an "electronic speed mail" system that was pioneered under the Eisenhower administration. I found at least one reference to it from 1959 that uses the term "electronic mail."
Tours Scheduled to Put Electronic Mail on View. Washington Post, March 6, 1959.
-Nathan
--
Nathan Ensmenger
School of Information
University of Texas at Austin
www.ischool.utexas.edu/~nathan/
Hi Sigcis Members,
More of our extended community in the press. Chris Kelty (is he in SIGCIS) of UCLA has a good piece in Al Jazeera on the shutdown of library.nu (gigapedia).
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/02/2012227143813304790.html
And great work Tom et al on the Wash Post piece.
Best,
B
Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan
Institut für Kulturwissenschaft
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
www.bernardg.com
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
Hello everyone,
I want to announce the SHOT IEEE Life Member's Prize in Electrical History. Computer history is considered electrical history--the last two winning articles have been pieces in computer history. It is a nice award and nice recognition. The deadline for submitting articles is April 15. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. The details are given in the link below.
http://www.historyoftechnology.org/awards/ieee.html
Best,
Ross Bassett
Ross Bassett
Associate Professor of History
North Carolina State University
Box 8108
Raleigh, NC 27695 USA
ross_bassett(a)ncsu.edu
