Email was invented by a school boy in 1978 says Washington Post & Time Magazine
Hello everyone, Did you know that email was invented in 1978 by a 14 year old called V.A. Shiva Ayyadura? The shocking news was broken recently by the Washington Post in what I think was a print story http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/MEPMRJ/NSC4SB/ZCNCKZ/FVLP7K/7278IF/50 /h Time Magazine's website has a blogger who reported the same story on "The Man Who Invented Email." http://techland.time.com/2011/11/15/the-man-who-invented-email/ For most SIGCIS members this story probably does not pass the "sniff test" but to save you looking anything up: There are two obvious senses in which something could be the "first email system." 1) The first "mail" system to let a user write a message to another user of the same computer system, who could read it when he/she next logged in. This was a step beyond earlier chat/talk capabilities that only allowed instant display of messages. Mail features became common on the timesharing computers of the late 1960s. MIT is a strong contender for the first place where this happened. A series of NY Times blog stories suggested that MIT CTSS in 1965 might have been the first system to include such a mail feature. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/did-my-brother-invent-e-mail -with-tom-van-vleck-part-one/. <http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/did-my-brother-invent-e-mai l-with-tom-van-vleck-part-one/> This seems plausible, though I would not be stunned to learn of an earlier use. 2) The first system to send a message to someone using a DIFFERENT computer, via a network. This appears to have been on the ARPANET in 1971, with initial implementation by Ray Tomlinson. Janet Abbate's book Inventing the Internet includes a solid treatment of this, making clear that "network mail" became the "killer application" for ARPANET even though remote logins had been the application for which it was originally designed. Craig Partridge gave more technical detail and covered later developments in "The Technical Development of Internet Email" published in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 30:2, April-June 2008:3-29. I looked at the commercialization of email in "Protocols for Profit: Web and E-mail Technologies as Product and Infrastructure" in The Internet and American Business, edited by William Aspray and Paul Ceruzzi, MIT Press, 2008: 105-158. (http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/Writing/ProtocolsForProfitDRAFT.pdf) The Washington Post article is unclear of what Ayyadura is supposed to have done . A "clarification" now says that "Ayyadurai holds the copyright to the computer program called "email," establishing him as the creator of the "computer program for [an] electronic mail system" with that name, according to the U.S. Copyright Office." A caption on the story notes that "He holds the copyright to both EMIAL and the term E-mail" which of course is meaningless. They seem to be confusing copyright protection with patent protection, and implying that he would only have copyright on a program he created if it was the first of its kind. I could write a program called "OPERATING SYSTEM" tomorrow and hold the copyright, but it wouldn't mean I invented operating systems. Wouldn't mean I could trademark the term either, which could also be what they are confusing copyright with. I have to admit that I'm forming an uneasy fascination with V.A. Shiva Ayyadura's website. It's full of new age/cybernetic waffle and extravagant self promotion. He bills himself as "Founder, Chairman and President of the Institute for Integrative Systems" in a video promoting "Turmeric: Wonder Herb of India." There's a "featured article" on "The Theatrics of Healing." He is also "world's foremost authority on integrating systems of medicine." The description on his publications page http://www.vashiva.com/publications.asp of his book "The EMAIL Revolution" is the old placeholder text: "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...." His list of "Chapters in Books" includes his 1990 masters thesis, a paper at "Document Analysis Conference" in 1994 "submitted for publication" and items described only as "Chapter in Communications Arts" and "Chapter on Electrodynamics, Dynamics,". Meanwhile his page on himself as "the inventor of EMAIL" (http://www.vashiva.com/inventing_email.asp) includes two headings of "First US Copyright for EMAIL, 1982" one above a copyright certificate and once above a 2004 patent for an automated reply system. The kindest thing one can say is that he does consistently capitalize EMAIL, allowing for a legalistic defense that he only means to claim to have invented a program called "EMAIL" rather than the idea of electronic mail. On the other hand his poster "The History of EMAIL" http://www.vashiva.com/innovation/email/vashiva-inventor-of-email.asp clearly lays claim to creation of the entire electronic mail concept. Little people graphics show the growth of email users from 2 in 1979 to 3.1 billion today. His 1982 copyright registration looms as a major event. Van Vleck, Tomlinson, etc. appear only as "Pre-EMIAL Innovators." He appears to claim that everything prior to his system was just "text messaging" and that he was the first to have fields for "to," "from," etc. which is also clearly false. Here's an incoherent Q and A from the Time "interview." Ray Tomlinson is often credited as the inventor of email. Is he credited correctly, in your opinion, or should he be credited for something else? Shiva: I think that's the thing that's sort of resulted in this confusion. Since '94, people have always said something's going to kill e-mail-and the latest was text messaging, right? Ray and Tom Van Vleck really did text messaging. In fact, in one of Tom's early communications he says his boss wouldn't let him do electronic letters internally, which is actually the mail piece of it. So they were more focused from a messaging standpoint: How do you get a message from point A to point B to manipulate another machine at that more core level? What shocks me is that real newspapers could print this kind of thing. Obviously journalists are too busy to read the historical literature. Even calling a historian might take an hour or two to arrange. But are they even incapable of using Wikipedia and Google? Why is the Washington Post employing as the "editor of ideas@innovations" http://www.washingtonpost.com/emi-kolawole/2011/03/02/AB6t4sM_page.html someone who doesn't know the difference between patent, trademark and copyright? Did all the real journalists get downsized? Should we look forward to "William Shatner: the Inventor of Television." Anyway, it does make me sad about the gap between all the great historical work that has been done by our community and the complete lack of use made of it by the media in this case. Despite a mass of criticism on the comments thread and presumably in emails from readers the Washington Post has done no more that append it's its defensive and absurd "clarification." Tom
Newspapers exist to gather eyeballs for advertisers. The absurdity and self-promotion of this inventor¹ served the purpose of attracting attention and buzz¹, which seems to have been the point all along from the newspaper¹s point of view. Anyone being interviewed by the press should keep this in mind and try to find out pretty quickly what the reporter¹s desired spin¹ is on a story is, and plan your response or rebuttal to his position accordingly. On 2/22/12 8:18 AM, "Thomas Haigh" <thaigh@computer.org> wrote:
Anyway, it does make me sad about the gap between all the great historical work that has been done by our community and the complete lack of use made of it by the media in this case. Despite a mass of criticism on the comments thread and presumably in emails from readers the Washington Post has done no more that append it¹s its defensive and absurd ³clarification.²
Naturally this was discussed on the exBBN list. In my view, this "new guy" has described something not quite like what the rest of us understand when we say "email". I think there are three useful documents on the actual history of email as we know it linked to under "Relevant to Chapter 20" at
<http://walden-family.com/bbn/#ref-email>http://walden-family.com/bbn/#ref-email
-- home address: 12 Linden Rd., E. Sandwich, MA 02537 home ph=508-888-7655; cell ph = 503-757-3137 email address: dave@walden-family.com; website: <http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/>http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/
Hi all, Tom, would you consider posting a shortened version of your initial email on the sigcis.org blog? And SIGCIS members, would you consider going over there and commenting on it? It strikes me that this is a perfect opportunity to have a public conversation, on our terms, about the history of computing--one that will hopefully be enlightening for a broader public. As you pointed out, the news outlets did a poor job of sourcing these articles: "Even calling a historian might take an hour or two to arrange. But are they even incapable of using Wikipedia and Google?" Let's stack the deck a bit more in our favor. Let's put some high quality content out there on the SIGCIS blog for folks to read now, and refer back to in the future. Best, Marie (SIGCIS Vice Chair, Operations) _______________ Marie Hicks, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of History of Technology Lewis Department of the Humanities Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago, IL mhicks1@iit.edu twitter: @histoftech www.mariehicks.net On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 12:07 PM, Dave Walden <dave.walden.family@gmail.com> wrote:
Naturally this was discussed on the exBBN list. In my view, this "new guy" has described something not quite like what the rest of us understand when we say "email". I think there are three useful documents on the actual history of email as we know it linked to under "Relevant to Chapter 20" at
<http://walden-family.com/bbn/#ref-email>http://walden-family.com/bbn/#ref-email
-- home address: 12 Linden Rd., E. Sandwich, MA 02537 home ph=508-888-7655; cell ph = 503-757-3137 email address: dave@walden-family.com; website: <http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/>http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Thanks Marie, I had already suggested to our main web content volunteer, Chris McDonald, that he consider doing this. He agreed. Meanwhile I'm spending far too much of my afternoon following this story. My message got forwarded to the "Interesting People" list, and has been picked up in turn by the techdirt blog. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120222/11132917842/how-guy-who-didnt-inve nt-email-got-memorialized-press-smithsonian-as-inventor-email.shtml There is a Wikipedia page on Shiva Ayyadurai, presumably created by the man himself. Look at recent edits to the "Talk page" and the section "Email Claims." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Ayyadurai So the forces of the web have begun to correct things. His resume is at http://stuff.mit.edu/people/vashiva/index.html. He claims to be a "Faculty Lecturer" at MIT in the Biological Engineering division and director of its "EMAIL LAB" -- however his link for the "lab" goes to another vanity domain featuring his own take on history. http://theemaillab.org/home.asp. The MIT people directory lists him merely as "Visiting Lecturer" in the Comparative Media Studies department. The Media and Organizationl Biometrics Initiative" he claims to direct has another very skimpy site, though it is at least hosted at MIT: http://mdg.mit.edu/home.asp. He has also set up a site to promote his claim at http://www.historyofemail.net/. In answer to Jon Lindsay, the exact status of the Smithsonian involvement is unclear. I did find a Smithsonian blog post that just went up today at http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2012/02/a-piece-of-email-histo ry-comes-to-the-american-history-museum/. This calls the system "one of the first to include a number of features we take for granted" which is rather more nuanced than Ayyadurai's own claim. My guess is that someone agreed to take a box of papers documenting what is, after all, a system whose code and design will be of genuine interest to future historians. Ayyadurai then puffed this up into being "honored by the Smithsonian," endorsement of his claims, etc. Tom -----Original Message----- From: Marie Hicks [mailto:mhicks1@iit.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 2:40 PM To: Thomas Haigh; members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Email was invented by a school boy in 1978 says Washington Post & Time Magazine Hi all, Tom, would you consider posting a shortened version of your initial email on the sigcis.org blog? And SIGCIS members, would you consider going over there and commenting on it? It strikes me that this is a perfect opportunity to have a public conversation, on our terms, about the history of computing--one that will hopefully be enlightening for a broader public. As you pointed out, the news outlets did a poor job of sourcing these articles: "Even calling a historian might take an hour or two to arrange. But are they even incapable of using Wikipedia and Google?" Let's stack the deck a bit more in our favor. Let's put some high quality content out there on the SIGCIS blog for folks to read now, and refer back to in the future. Best, Marie (SIGCIS Vice Chair, Operations) _______________ Marie Hicks, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of History of Technology Lewis Department of the Humanities Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago, IL mhicks1@iit.edu twitter: @histoftech www.mariehicks.net On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 12:07 PM, Dave Walden <dave.walden.family@gmail.com> wrote:
Naturally this was discussed on the exBBN list. In my view, this "new guy" has described something not quite like what the rest of us
understand
when we say "email". I think there are three useful documents on the actual history of email as we know it linked to under "Relevant to Chapter 20" at
<http://walden-family.com/bbn/#ref-email>http://walden-family.com/bbn/#ref-e mail
-- home address: 12 Linden Rd., E. Sandwich, MA 02537 home ph=508-888-7655; cell ph = 503-757-3137 email address: dave@walden-family.com; website: <http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/>http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Colleagues, This conversation is getting a bit excited. Perhaps it would be helpful to know that I had the initial conversation with Prof. Ayyadurai as he was interested in donating his original program code and other documents associated with the development of this software to the MIT Museum. I viewed the development as one of the many tiny streams that contributed to the development of the technology we call "email" (Small "e"). Frankly, the personal story is touching and interesting and a reminder that not all developments in computing history came from big universities, companies or the military. However, I referred my colleague to the Smithsonian, Lemelson and Computer History Museum as I felt his small collection would be better served by these institutions. I don't think my colleagues were under any illusions about Ayyadurai's place in history was and is. I am delighted this material is being preserved and I hope you all are as well. It's not very often that you have all of the original programming materials, along with the materials that document an individual's effort to make their claim in the sun. The decline of American science writing and journalism is a well-documented fact but it is true for all aspects of reporting. Everyday, I spot major errors and I'm sure you do too. The flurry of emails, comments, blogs, is a healthy corrective. I promise to share your comments with Ayyadurai as I'm sure he will be interested and perhaps he may even want to respond. With best regards, Debbie Douglas On Feb 22, 2012, at 5:06 PM, Thomas Haigh wrote:
Thanks Marie,
I had already suggested to our main web content volunteer, Chris McDonald, that he consider doing this. He agreed.
Meanwhile I'm spending far too much of my afternoon following this story. My message got forwarded to the "Interesting People" list, and has been picked up in turn by the techdirt blog. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120222/11132917842/how-guy-who-didnt-inve nt-email-got-memorialized-press-smithsonian-as-inventor-email.shtml
There is a Wikipedia page on Shiva Ayyadurai, presumably created by the man himself. Look at recent edits to the "Talk page" and the section "Email Claims." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Ayyadurai So the forces of the web have begun to correct things.
His resume is at http://stuff.mit.edu/people/vashiva/index.html. He claims to be a "Faculty Lecturer" at MIT in the Biological Engineering division and director of its "EMAIL LAB" -- however his link for the "lab" goes to another vanity domain featuring his own take on history. http://theemaillab.org/home.asp. The MIT people directory lists him merely as "Visiting Lecturer" in the Comparative Media Studies department. The Media and Organizationl Biometrics Initiative" he claims to direct has another very skimpy site, though it is at least hosted at MIT: http://mdg.mit.edu/home.asp.
He has also set up a site to promote his claim at http://www.historyofemail.net/.
In answer to Jon Lindsay, the exact status of the Smithsonian involvement is unclear. I did find a Smithsonian blog post that just went up today at http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2012/02/a-piece-of-email-histo ry-comes-to-the-american-history-museum/. This calls the system "one of the first to include a number of features we take for granted" which is rather more nuanced than Ayyadurai's own claim. My guess is that someone agreed to take a box of papers documenting what is, after all, a system whose code and design will be of genuine interest to future historians. Ayyadurai then puffed this up into being "honored by the Smithsonian," endorsement of his claims, etc.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: Marie Hicks [mailto:mhicks1@iit.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 2:40 PM To: Thomas Haigh; members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Email was invented by a school boy in 1978 says Washington Post & Time Magazine
Hi all,
Tom, would you consider posting a shortened version of your initial email on the sigcis.org blog? And SIGCIS members, would you consider going over there and commenting on it? It strikes me that this is a perfect opportunity to have a public conversation, on our terms, about the history of computing--one that will hopefully be enlightening for a broader public.
As you pointed out, the news outlets did a poor job of sourcing these articles: "Even calling a historian might take an hour or two to arrange. But are they even incapable of using Wikipedia and Google?"
Let's stack the deck a bit more in our favor. Let's put some high quality content out there on the SIGCIS blog for folks to read now, and refer back to in the future.
Best,
Marie (SIGCIS Vice Chair, Operations) _______________ Marie Hicks, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of History of Technology Lewis Department of the Humanities Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago, IL mhicks1@iit.edu twitter: @histoftech www.mariehicks.net
On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 12:07 PM, Dave Walden <dave.walden.family@gmail.com> wrote:
Naturally this was discussed on the exBBN list. In my view, this "new guy" has described something not quite like what the rest of us
understand
when we say "email". I think there are three useful documents on the actual history of email as we know it linked to under "Relevant to Chapter 20" at
<http://walden-family.com/bbn/#ref-email>http://walden-family.com/bbn/#ref-e mail
-- home address: 12 Linden Rd., E. Sandwich, MA 02537 home ph=508-888-7655; cell ph = 503-757-3137 email address: dave@walden-family.com; website: <http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/>http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Deborah G. Douglas, Ph.D. • Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum, Room N51-209 • 265 Massachusetts Avenue • Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 • http://web.mit.edu/museum • http://museum.mit.edu/150 • ddouglas@mit.edu • 617-253-1766 phone • 617-253-8994 fax Spring Semester 2012 • Research Associate, Program in Science, Technology, and Society • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Room E51-179B • 77 Massachusetts Avenue • Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 • 617-452-3545 phone
If anyone knows more about the Smithsonian angle on this, that would be interesting to hear. It's clearly the institute's credibility that the Post is riffing off of for this story, though the newspaper may well have misinterpreted what was really going on. The official website returns an amusing result, given this discussion: Searched for "*Ayyadurai*" - Found NO results. On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 8:18 AM, Thomas Haigh <thaigh@computer.org> wrote:
Hello everyone,****
** **
Did you know that email was invented in 1978 by a 14 year old called V.A. Shiva Ayyadura? The shocking news was broken recently by the Washington Post in what I think was a print story http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/MEPMRJ/NSC4SB/ZCNCKZ/FVLP7K/7278IF/50...
****
Time Magazine’s website has a blogger who reported the same story on “The Man Who Invented Email.” http://techland.time.com/2011/11/15/the-man-who-invented-email/****
** **
For most SIGCIS members this story probably does not pass the “sniff test” but to save you looking anything up:****
** **
There are two obvious senses in which something could be the “first email system.”****
** **
1) The first "mail" system to let a user write a message to another user of the same computer system, who could read it when he/she next logged in. This was a step beyond earlier chat/talk capabilities that only allowed instant display of messages. Mail features became common on the timesharing computers of the late 1960s. MIT is a strong contender for the first place where this happened. A series of NY Times blog stories suggested that MIT CTSS in 1965 might have been the first system to include such a mail feature. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/did-my-brother-invent-e-mail.... <http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/did-my-brother-invent-e-mail-with-tom-van-vleck-part-one/> This seems plausible, though I would not be stunned to learn of an earlier use.****
** **
2) The first system to send a message to someone using a DIFFERENT computer, via a network. This appears to have been on the ARPANET in 1971, with initial implementation by Ray Tomlinson. Janet Abbate's book Inventing the Internet includes a solid treatment of this, making clear that "network mail" became the "killer application" for ARPANET even though remote logins had been the application for which it was originally designed.****
** **
Craig Partridge gave more technical detail and covered later developments in "The Technical Development of Internet Email" published in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 30:2, April-June 2008:3-29. I looked at the commercialization of email in "Protocols for Profit: Web and E-mail Technologies as Product and Infrastructure" in The Internet and American Business, edited by William Aspray and Paul Ceruzzi, MIT Press, 2008: 105-158.****
(http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/Writing/ProtocolsForProfitDRAFT.pdf)****
** **
The Washington Post article is unclear of what Ayyadura is supposed to have done . A “clarification” now says that "Ayyadurai holds the copyright to the computer program called “email,” establishing him as the creator of the “computer program for [an] electronic mail system” with that name, according to the U.S. Copyright Office." A caption on the story notes that “He holds the copyright to both EMIAL and the term E-mail” which of course is meaningless. They seem to be confusing copyright protection with patent protection, and implying that he would only have copyright on a program he created if it was the first of its kind. I could write a program called "OPERATING SYSTEM" tomorrow and hold the copyright, but it wouldn't mean I invented operating systems. Wouldn't mean I could trademark the term either, which could also be what they are confusing copyright with.****
** **
I have to admit that I’m forming an uneasy fascination with V.A. Shiva Ayyadura's website. It’s full of new age/cybernetic waffle and extravagant self promotion. He bills himself as "Founder, Chairman and President of the Institute for Integrative Systems" in a video promoting "Turmeric: Wonder Herb of India." There’s a “featured article” on “The Theatrics of Healing.” He is also “world's foremost authority on integrating systems of medicine.” The description on his publications page http://www.vashiva.com/publications.asp of his book "The EMAIL Revolution" is the old placeholder text: "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...." His list of "Chapters in Books" includes his 1990 masters****
thesis, a paper at "Document Analysis Conference" in 1994 "submitted for publication" and items described only as "Chapter in Communications Arts" and "Chapter on Electrodynamics, Dynamics,". ****
** **
Meanwhile his page on himself as "the inventor of EMAIL" (http://www.vashiva.com/inventing_email.asp) includes two headings of "First US Copyright for EMAIL, 1982" one above a copyright certificate and once above a 2004 patent for an automated reply system. The kindest thing one can say is that he does consistently capitalize EMAIL, allowing for a legalistic defense that he only means to claim to have invented a program called "EMAIL" rather than the idea of****
electronic mail.****
** **
On the other hand his poster “The History of EMAIL” http://www.vashiva.com/innovation/email/vashiva-inventor-of-email.asp clearly lays claim to creation of the entire electronic mail concept. Little people graphics show the growth of email users from 2 in 1979 to 3.1 billion today. His 1982 copyright registration looms as a major event. Van Vleck, Tomlinson, etc. appear only as “Pre-EMIAL Innovators.” ****
** **
He appears to claim that everything prior to his system was just “text messaging” and that he was the first to have fields for “to,” “from,” etc. which is also clearly false. Here’s an incoherent Q and A from the Time “interview.”****
** **
*Ray Tomlinson is often credited as the inventor of email. Is he credited correctly, in your opinion, or should he be credited for something else?** ***
*Shiva:** *I think that’s the thing that’s sort of resulted in this confusion. Since ’94, people have always said something’s going to kill e-mail—and the latest was text messaging, right? Ray and Tom Van Vleck really did text messaging. In fact, in one of Tom’s early communications he says his boss wouldn’t let him do electronic letters internally, which is actually the mail piece of it. So they were more focused from a messaging standpoint: How do you get a message from point A to point B to manipulate another machine at that more core level?****
** **
What shocks me is that real newspapers could print this kind of thing. Obviously journalists are too busy to read the historical literature. Even calling a historian might take an hour or two to arrange. But are they even incapable of using Wikipedia and Google? Why is the Washington Post employing as the “editor of ideas@innovations” http://www.washingtonpost.com/emi-kolawole/2011/03/02/AB6t4sM_page.html someone who doesn’t know the difference between patent, trademark and copyright? Did all the real journalists get downsized? Should we look forward to “William Shatner: the Inventor of Television.” ****
** **
Anyway, it does make me sad about the gap between all the great historical work that has been done by our community and the complete lack of use made of it by the media in this case. Despite a mass of criticism on the comments thread and presumably in emails from readers the Washington Post has done no more that append it’s its defensive and absurd “clarification.”****
** **
Tom ****
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Dear SIGCISers, I've created a blog post recapping Tom's e-mail from this morning, along with a few additional thoughts and links: http://www.sigcis.org/node/321 Please feel free to discuss this topic further on the blog, and to forward it to anyone who's interested. Best, Chris McDonald ________________________________________ From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Jon Lindsay [jonrlindsay@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 4:09 PM To: Thomas Haigh Cc: members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Email was invented by a school boy in 1978 says Washington Post & Time Magazine If anyone knows more about the Smithsonian angle on this, that would be interesting to hear. It's clearly the institute's credibility that the Post is riffing off of for this story, though the newspaper may well have misinterpreted what was really going on. The official website returns an amusing result, given this discussion: Searched for "Ayyadurai" - Found NO results. On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 8:18 AM, Thomas Haigh <thaigh@computer.org<mailto:thaigh@computer.org>> wrote: Hello everyone, Did you know that email was invented in 1978 by a 14 year old called V.A. Shiva Ayyadura? The shocking news was broken recently by the Washington Post in what I think was a print story http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/MEPMRJ/NSC4SB/ZCNCKZ/FVLP7K/7278IF/50... Time Magazine’s website has a blogger who reported the same story on “The Man Who Invented Email.” http://techland.time.com/2011/11/15/the-man-who-invented-email/ For most SIGCIS members this story probably does not pass the “sniff test” but to save you looking anything up: There are two obvious senses in which something could be the “first email system.” 1) The first "mail" system to let a user write a message to another user of the same computer system, who could read it when he/she next logged in. This was a step beyond earlier chat/talk capabilities that only allowed instant display of messages. Mail features became common on the timesharing computers of the late 1960s. MIT is a strong contender for the first place where this happened. A series of NY Times blog stories suggested that MIT CTSS in 1965 might have been the first system to include such a mail feature. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/did-my-brother-invent-e-mail-with-tom-van-vleck-part-one/.<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/did-my-brother-invent-e-mail-with-tom-van-vleck-part-one/> This seems plausible, though I would not be stunned to learn of an earlier use. 2) The first system to send a message to someone using a DIFFERENT computer, via a network. This appears to have been on the ARPANET in 1971, with initial implementation by Ray Tomlinson. Janet Abbate's book Inventing the Internet includes a solid treatment of this, making clear that "network mail" became the "killer application" for ARPANET even though remote logins had been the application for which it was originally designed. Craig Partridge gave more technical detail and covered later developments in "The Technical Development of Internet Email" published in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 30:2, April-June 2008:3-29. I looked at the commercialization of email in "Protocols for Profit: Web and E-mail Technologies as Product and Infrastructure" in The Internet and American Business, edited by William Aspray and Paul Ceruzzi, MIT Press, 2008: 105-158. (http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/Writing/ProtocolsForProfitDRAFT.pdf) The Washington Post article is unclear of what Ayyadura is supposed to have done . A “clarification” now says that "Ayyadurai holds the copyright to the computer program called “email,” establishing him as the creator of the “computer program for [an] electronic mail system” with that name, according to the U.S. Copyright Office." A caption on the story notes that “He holds the copyright to both EMIAL and the term E-mail” which of course is meaningless. They seem to be confusing copyright protection with patent protection, and implying that he would only have copyright on a program he created if it was the first of its kind. I could write a program called "OPERATING SYSTEM" tomorrow and hold the copyright, but it wouldn't mean I invented operating systems. Wouldn't mean I could trademark the term either, which could also be what they are confusing copyright with. I have to admit that I’m forming an uneasy fascination with V.A. Shiva Ayyadura's website. It’s full of new age/cybernetic waffle and extravagant self promotion. He bills himself as "Founder, Chairman and President of the Institute for Integrative Systems" in a video promoting "Turmeric: Wonder Herb of India." There’s a “featured article” on “The Theatrics of Healing.” He is also “world's foremost authority on integrating systems of medicine.” The description on his publications page http://www.vashiva.com/publications.asp of his book "The EMAIL Revolution" is the old placeholder text: "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...." His list of "Chapters in Books" includes his 1990 masters thesis, a paper at "Document Analysis Conference" in 1994 "submitted for publication" and items described only as "Chapter in Communications Arts" and "Chapter on Electrodynamics, Dynamics,". Meanwhile his page on himself as "the inventor of EMAIL" (http://www.vashiva.com/inventing_email.asp) includes two headings of "First US Copyright for EMAIL, 1982" one above a copyright certificate and once above a 2004 patent for an automated reply system. The kindest thing one can say is that he does consistently capitalize EMAIL, allowing for a legalistic defense that he only means to claim to have invented a program called "EMAIL" rather than the idea of electronic mail. On the other hand his poster “The History of EMAIL” http://www.vashiva.com/innovation/email/vashiva-inventor-of-email.asp clearly lays claim to creation of the entire electronic mail concept. Little people graphics show the growth of email users from 2 in 1979 to 3.1 billion today. His 1982 copyright registration looms as a major event. Van Vleck, Tomlinson, etc. appear only as “Pre-EMIAL Innovators.” He appears to claim that everything prior to his system was just “text messaging” and that he was the first to have fields for “to,” “from,” etc. which is also clearly false. Here’s an incoherent Q and A from the Time “interview.” Ray Tomlinson is often credited as the inventor of email. Is he credited correctly, in your opinion, or should he be credited for something else? Shiva: I think that’s the thing that’s sort of resulted in this confusion. Since ’94, people have always said something’s going to kill e-mail—and the latest was text messaging, right? Ray and Tom Van Vleck really did text messaging. In fact, in one of Tom’s early communications he says his boss wouldn’t let him do electronic letters internally, which is actually the mail piece of it. So they were more focused from a messaging standpoint: How do you get a message from point A to point B to manipulate another machine at that more core level? What shocks me is that real newspapers could print this kind of thing. Obviously journalists are too busy to read the historical literature. Even calling a historian might take an hour or two to arrange. But are they even incapable of using Wikipedia and Google? Why is the Washington Post employing as the “editor of ideas@innovations” http://www.washingtonpost.com/emi-kolawole/2011/03/02/AB6t4sM_page.html someone who doesn’t know the difference between patent, trademark and copyright? Did all the real journalists get downsized? Should we look forward to “William Shatner: the Inventor of Television.” Anyway, it does make me sad about the gap between all the great historical work that has been done by our community and the complete lack of use made of it by the media in this case. Despite a mass of criticism on the comments thread and presumably in emails from readers the Washington Post has done no more that append it’s its defensive and absurd “clarification.” Tom _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org<mailto:members@sigcis.org>, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
Thanks, Chris, for the blog post. It is very useful and well-written. My business card does say "Smithsonian" on it, and I have been known to write about the history of computing and the Internet :-), but I learned about this like everyone else, from the Washington _Post_ on Saturday morning. As I told Tom, I almost choked on my Cheerios when I opened the paper. I thought of the famous words of Brendan Sullivan, "I am not a potted plant." Paul E. Ceruzzi Chair, Division of Space History National Air & Space Museum MRC 311; PO Box 37012 Washington, DC 20013-7012 202-633-2414 <http://www.nasm.si.edu/staffDetail.cfm?staffID=24> -----Original Message----- From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of McDonald, Christopher Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 5:51 PM To: Thomas Haigh Cc: members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Email was invented by a school boy in 1978 says Washington Post & Time Magazine Dear SIGCISers, I've created a blog post recapping Tom's e-mail from this morning, along with a few additional thoughts and links: http://www.sigcis.org/node/321 Please feel free to discuss this topic further on the blog, and to forward it to anyone who's interested. Best, Chris McDonald ________________________________________ From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Jon Lindsay [jonrlindsay@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 4:09 PM To: Thomas Haigh Cc: members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Email was invented by a school boy in 1978 says Washington Post & Time Magazine If anyone knows more about the Smithsonian angle on this, that would be interesting to hear. It's clearly the institute's credibility that the Post is riffing off of for this story, though the newspaper may well have misinterpreted what was really going on. The official website returns an amusing result, given this discussion: Searched for "Ayyadurai" - Found NO results. On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 8:18 AM, Thomas Haigh <thaigh@computer.org<mailto:thaigh@computer.org>> wrote: Hello everyone, Did you know that email was invented in 1978 by a 14 year old called V.A. Shiva Ayyadura? The shocking news was broken recently by the Washington Post in what I think was a print story http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/MEPMRJ/NSC4SB/ZCNCKZ/FVLP7K/7278IF/50... Time Magazine's website has a blogger who reported the same story on "The Man Who Invented Email." http://techland.time.com/2011/11/15/the-man-who-invented-email/ For most SIGCIS members this story probably does not pass the "sniff test" but to save you looking anything up: There are two obvious senses in which something could be the "first email system." 1) The first "mail" system to let a user write a message to another user of the same computer system, who could read it when he/she next logged in. This was a step beyond earlier chat/talk capabilities that only allowed instant display of messages. Mail features became common on the timesharing computers of the late 1960s. MIT is a strong contender for the first place where this happened. A series of NY Times blog stories suggested that MIT CTSS in 1965 might have been the first system to include such a mail feature. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/did-my-brother-invent-e-mail-with-tom-van-vleck-part-one/.<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/did-my-brother-invent-e-mail-with-tom-van-vleck-part-one/> This seems plausible, though I would not be stunned to learn of an earlier use. 2) The first system to send a message to someone using a DIFFERENT computer, via a network. This appears to have been on the ARPANET in 1971, with initial implementation by Ray Tomlinson. Janet Abbate's book Inventing the Internet includes a solid treatment of this, making clear that "network mail" became the "killer application" for ARPANET even though remote logins had been the application for which it was originally designed. Craig Partridge gave more technical detail and covered later developments in "The Technical Development of Internet Email" published in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 30:2, April-June 2008:3-29. I looked at the commercialization of email in "Protocols for Profit: Web and E-mail Technologies as Product and Infrastructure" in The Internet and American Business, edited by William Aspray and Paul Ceruzzi, MIT Press, 2008: 105-158. (http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/Writing/ProtocolsForProfitDRAFT.pdf) The Washington Post article is unclear of what Ayyadura is supposed to have done . A "clarification" now says that "Ayyadurai holds the copyright to the computer program called "email," establishing him as the creator of the "computer program for [an] electronic mail system" with that name, according to the U.S. Copyright Office." A caption on the story notes that "He holds the copyright to both EMIAL and the term E-mail" which of course is meaningless. They seem to be confusing copyright protection with patent protection, and implying that he would only have copyright on a program he created if it was the first of its kind. I could write a program called "OPERATING SYSTEM" tomorrow and hold the copyright, but it wouldn't mean I invented operating systems. Wouldn't mean I could trademark the term either, which could also be what they are confusing copyright with. I have to admit that I'm forming an uneasy fascination with V.A. Shiva Ayyadura's website. It's full of new age/cybernetic waffle and extravagant self promotion. He bills himself as "Founder, Chairman and President of the Institute for Integrative Systems" in a video promoting "Turmeric: Wonder Herb of India." There's a "featured article" on "The Theatrics of Healing." He is also "world's foremost authority on integrating systems of medicine." The description on his publications page http://www.vashiva.com/publications.asp of his book "The EMAIL Revolution" is the old placeholder text: "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...." His list of "Chapters in Books" includes his 1990 masters thesis, a paper at "Document Analysis Conference" in 1994 "submitted for publication" and items described only as "Chapter in Communications Arts" and "Chapter on Electrodynamics, Dynamics,". Meanwhile his page on himself as "the inventor of EMAIL" (http://www.vashiva.com/inventing_email.asp) includes two headings of "First US Copyright for EMAIL, 1982" one above a copyright certificate and once above a 2004 patent for an automated reply system. The kindest thing one can say is that he does consistently capitalize EMAIL, allowing for a legalistic defense that he only means to claim to have invented a program called "EMAIL" rather than the idea of electronic mail. On the other hand his poster "The History of EMAIL" http://www.vashiva.com/innovation/email/vashiva-inventor-of-email.asp clearly lays claim to creation of the entire electronic mail concept. Little people graphics show the growth of email users from 2 in 1979 to 3.1 billion today. His 1982 copyright registration looms as a major event. Van Vleck, Tomlinson, etc. appear only as "Pre-EMIAL Innovators." He appears to claim that everything prior to his system was just "text messaging" and that he was the first to have fields for "to," "from," etc. which is also clearly false. Here's an incoherent Q and A from the Time "interview." Ray Tomlinson is often credited as the inventor of email. Is he credited correctly, in your opinion, or should he be credited for something else? Shiva: I think that's the thing that's sort of resulted in this confusion. Since '94, people have always said something's going to kill e-mail-and the latest was text messaging, right? Ray and Tom Van Vleck really did text messaging. In fact, in one of Tom's early communications he says his boss wouldn't let him do electronic letters internally, which is actually the mail piece of it. So they were more focused from a messaging standpoint: How do you get a message from point A to point B to manipulate another machine at that more core level? What shocks me is that real newspapers could print this kind of thing. Obviously journalists are too busy to read the historical literature. Even calling a historian might take an hour or two to arrange. But are they even incapable of using Wikipedia and Google? Why is the Washington Post employing as the "editor of ideas@innovations" http://www.washingtonpost.com/emi-kolawole/2011/03/02/AB6t4sM_page.html someone who doesn't know the difference between patent, trademark and copyright? Did all the real journalists get downsized? Should we look forward to "William Shatner: the Inventor of Television." Anyway, it does make me sad about the gap between all the great historical work that has been done by our community and the complete lack of use made of it by the media in this case. Despite a mass of criticism on the comments thread and presumably in emails from readers the Washington Post has done no more that append it's its defensive and absurd "clarification." Tom _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org<mailto:members@sigcis.org>, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
participants (8)
-
Al Kossow -
Ceruzzi, Paul -
Dave Walden -
Deborah Douglas -
Jon Lindsay -
Marie Hicks -
McDonald, Christopher -
Thomas Haigh