When was email invented
What is email?
Email is the abbreviated form of electronic mail. It is system by which a person can create, receive, send and store electronic messages. With the rise in popularity of the internet a new way to communicate with others was developed. People could now communicate via the internet with email. Web providers such as hotmail and yahoo allowed people to personalized free accounts that they could use to contact others.
When was email invented?
Email was first used widely in the business world in the 1970’s. The first type of electronic messaging required both the sender and the recipient to have access to a computer at the same time. It was more akin to instant messaging. This system was developed by American Ray Tomlinson. He created the first ARPANET email program in 1971. He created a command (CYPNET) within the send message that allowed for electronic mail to be stored and sent to a specific person via the network. Tomlinson was the first to use an email address in the format of username@usercomputer. Email addresses still use the same formatting today.
The development of email
The first email programs were fairly limited in their abilities and did not allow recipients to save or reply to emails received. In the 1980’s Lawrence Roberts was asked to improve on the current email system. He wrote a new program called RD that allowed the user to sort, read, save and delete emails as they wished. This gave users greater flexibility in their email use. Then John Vittal improved again upon the email program and developed MSG. This allowed users to forward messages and hit a reply button to send an email back without retyping the address. In 1993 large network service providers connected their email systems to the internet which began the adoption of email as a form of communication globally.
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