Sending "emails" before the Internet

Sending "emails" before the Internet

    Just like any other inventions, email also has a great history to look at. There were interesting stories which happened in the past which then became the premise of our great electronic mail system. For example, a fun fact is that the first version of email existed before the Internet! How is that possible? Well, then it is time to dive deeper!

Image: Collection

    Most of you might knew that in the past, computer was at the size of a room, what a massive machine. Back then, there was no "personal computer" because people had to share it. Everything started in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At first, people had to sign up for time to work with the computer (just like how I have to sign up for group study room at university). Email didn't exist, so if they want to leave a message to another user, their method was to leave a file on the computer and the receiver will read it when it is their time to work with the machine. To be easier to understand, it is just like leaving a note paper on a friend's table and they will read it when they come back. I think there was no privacy because everyone could read those messages.

The Whirlwind computer, MIT's first computer machine - Image: MIT News

    In 1965, Noel Morris and Tom Van Vleck, two people who were working at MIT, found a memo which mentioned about creating a new command line which allows users to send private messages to the others. So, they together developed a way which allow the users of the same computer to send messages to others, but only they can read it. They didn't invented the email yet, but that was the very first idea which will be developed later.

    Many people believe Ray Tomlinson, an U.S programmer, was the email's inventor. He was working for Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN). At that time, this company developed a system called ARPANET (acronym for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). If at MIT, programmers had to share a computer, with ARPANET, there will be a central computer but people could access it from their own computer (via terminal) from different locations, as long as they're connected to the system. ARPANET is also being considered to be the precursor of the Internet.

Ray Tomlinson
(23/4/1941 - 05/3/2016)

    So, Ray Tomlinson took the idea of leaving private messages between users and merged with the ARPANET system that he was using. He made a program which allowed the users of ARPANET system to send and receive messages from a long distance. Tomlinson sent the world's first email in 1971, but the content was something like "Test mail 123", according to him, it was something meaningless. 

APARNET logical map - Image: Wikipedia

    Not only that, Tomlinson was also the one who introduced the "@" symbol to a new meaning. It's purpose was to be the synonym of "at the price of", but he used it to separate the name of the user from the hosting name.

    So, that was the general story of how "email" worked in the first days. There are many other fun facts that you can read if you're interested to. You can read all of them in the links I included in the end, like the birth of email spams, Microsoft Outlook's "ancestor, email in space, etc.

    That's all! Thank you so much for reading this post, I'll try to, hmmm, find another interesting tech facts next time? Yes, thank you and goodbye!e

Works Cited

Bergamini, Paola. “Email Turns 50: Here’s Its History, and How It’s Changed over Time.” Mailup, 6 May 2021, mailup.com/blogs/email-anniversary/. Accessed 12 June 2025.

Steinbrinck, Kasey. “The History of Email: Digging into the Past, Present, and Future.” Email on Acid, 30 Nov. 2023, www.emailonacid.com/blog/article/needs-improvement/history-of-email/. Accessed 12 June 2025.