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Re: Text of the 'first email ever sent'

2011-01-08 12:58:48

Mystery solved.

It's a mis-statement of something Ray Tomlinson said:

   <http://openmap.bbn.com/~tomlinso/ray/mistakes.html>

d/

On 1/8/2011 9:56 AM, Dave CROCKER wrote:

Folks,

Wikipedia's article on email includes the text:

The first email ever sent contained the letters "Qwertyuiop".

This is repeated in other articles on the net.

Seems like such a claim should be validated. I don't recall ever hearing about
it and would assume that it's incorrect, since I haven't seen any definitive
agreement on what the first email system was, nevermind what its first message
contained.

My understanding is that email was a feature of the first timesharing systems,
which puts the likely first message in the first half of the 1960s.

d/

--

  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net

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