Re: V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai: Inventor of e-mail honored by Smithsonian

Dave, I hope you continue following up on this.  Even in his wikipedia 
(I presumed self created), he doesn't claim to be the inventor and 
pointed out there was existing systems. But he registered the 
copyright the term "EMAIL" and I guess from there, any layman may 
assume he invented email:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Ayyadurai#EMAIL_management

    Prior to becoming a student at the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, while
    a high school student at Livingston High School, New Jersey, he 
implemented an email
    system at the medical school of University of Medicine and 
Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ).
    Email had been previously sent on other networks such as AUTODIN, 
PLATO and ARPANet.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

But he is claiming as the first to tie a database:

    This was the first database-driven system that translated all 
elements of an
    inter-office memorandum/mail, then in paper form, along with 
features of Inbox, Outbox
    and Folders, to an electronic mail format. In 1981, this system 
was recognized
    by the Westinghouse Science Talent Search receiving an Honors 
Award. Later, in 1982,
    the US Copyright Office issued him the first copyright of his 
system called “EMAIL”.
    [11][12]

It is pretty silly to claim a "Database" tie in since early systems 
were essentially centralized and unless he was using systems like 
Fidonet, which I believe he is very aware of since his company need 
borrows the name "EchoMail",  each BBS system has its own database system.
He needs to be asked one question:

    If you claim to be the inventor of "Email," then want hosting 
system did you use?
    Did you also write your own Mail Hosting software and also Mail 
Transport System?
The then cyber space expansion really started with people as 3rd party 
developers, its how I started, and you had to work with some existing 
platform and if the existing platform already had a database tie on, 
then obviously he did not invent this natural law concept.  There is 
always a database or store of some kind.
But he seems to be taking credit for the UI and I am curious to know 
what package he had because if one thing was true, there was a lot of 
proprietary, contract work people did - that is how I started as well 
with the development of an smart terminal/PC X.400 Email Interface 
with the basic idea of printing out the email for your morning 
reviews.  That started for me in 81, but I recall during the late 70s 
during college, using Prime mini-computers to send/receive electronic 
mail. I don't remember the packages, but it was surely commercial.
This Westinghouse Science kid (I was associated with the selection 
committee as a Minority Representation and Speaker at High Schools, 
but didn't have any voting responsibility, just a token minority 
symbol) simply had exposure to existing commercial systems and perhaps 
wrote a fancy UI (had to be dial up) and got a big pat on the back and 
not surprising because it was really still new.   But he went ahead 
and copyrighted the term "EMAIL" and some how was awarded the 
copyright. Also, not surprising with the era but I am very surprised 
at what appears to be a Smithsonian lack of due diligence here.
--


Dave CROCKER wrote:
> For reference, I just sent this message:
>
>
>
>
> Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:14:29 -0800
> From: Dave CROCKER <dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net>
> Reply-To: dcrocker(_at_)bbiw(_dot_)net
> Organization: Brandenburg InternetWorking
> To: Peggy Kidwell <kidwellp(_at_)si(_dot_)edu>
> CC: Emi Kolawole <emi(_dot_)kolawole(_at_)washtingtonpost(_dot_)com>
> Subject: V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai's purported invention of email
>
>
> Ms. Kidwell,
>
> Hello.
>
> I just saw the Washington Post article about V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai's work 
> being
> acknowledged by the Smithsonian as the invention of email.  In the video
> associated with the article, he cites contact with you.  So I thought 
> you might
> be appropriate to contact for possible followup through the Smithsonian. 
> I'm
> trying to copy Post article's author, but am guessing at her email address.
>
> Unfortunately, Ayyadurai's work was not even close to the earliest email.
>
> Email dates back to the 1960's with the earliest computer timesharing 
> systems,
> such as at MIT.
>
> Networked email was invented by Ray Tomlinson at Bolt, Beranek & Newman 
> (BBN) in
> 1971; the email object from then looks remarkably similar to the basic 
> message
> that Internet Mail; the  service has actually been in continuous 
> operation since
> then.
>
> Ray added inter-machine transfer -- ie, networking -- to the existing 
> "sndmsg"
> mail system on BBN's timesharing system and it already had To:, cc: and 
> From:.
> I don't recall whether it had bcc, but bcc was certainly in use shortly 
> after
> that.  For example, it was in the system that I built in 1976.  I've 
> attached
> some documentation about that system (MS).  This core functionality 
> pre-dates my
> own efforts; this is just the easiest way I can document it for you.  I 
> should
> also mention that Ray and I were given the IEEE Internet Award for our
> respective work on email.
>
> Over the last year or so, Ayyadurai contacted me about with his claims.  I
> ignored them because they are so easy to disprove. (As one of my 
> colleagues just
> noted, try looking up email in Wikipedia.)  Again referring to the 
> attached Rand
> Report, note that the first paragraph in the Preface has the term 
> 'electronic
> mail'.  And again I'll note that mine was not original use of the term.
>
> I'm glad to chat with you or anyone else about the real history of email,
> although I wasn't in at its actual start.  My own involvement did not begin
> until 1972...
>
>
> [attachment:  Framework & Functions of the MS Message System, Rand 
> Report R-2134]
--
Sincerely

Hector Santos
http://www.santronics.com
jabber: hector(_at_)jabber(_dot_)isdg(_dot_)net