Author:
Lon W. McDaniel
Internet 4 U

E-mail


Contents


E-mail was invented by Ray Tomlinson in 1972 in the United States. He wanted to be able to exchange messages between Universities connected to ARPANET. In this manner researchers could avoid the cost of stamps and the time spent waiting for the US postal service to get the mail to them. The University researchers, teachers and students were of course delighted. The Post Office less so.

Universities soon swamped available computer time with loads of E-mail, much to the irritation of the Military. That is why the Military started up their own network (MILNET). (more on all that in the section on Internet History).

The business community, always eager to make an extra buck/D-Mark/Pound or whatever, has now woken up to the power and price of E-mail. Most large corporations have their own E-mail functions today, as do County Authorities and others.

With the lower cost of individual E-mail addresses in the early 1990īs it has now become more and more popular for everyman (to use the British expression) to have an E-mail address at home.

Some of the things E-mail can be used for:

Netscape has even built in E-mail functions in their Web-browser, so now you do not have to be a techie in order to send and receive E-mail.

Copywrite © Lon W. McDaniel 1996