At 17:28 05/12/03, John C Klensin wrote:
The first "mail" program at MIT, as well as what was probably the the
first instance of what we would now call instant messaging, was specified
and implemented by Tom Van Vleck and Noel Morris in around 1964 or 65,
maybe a bit earlier (I have documentation in hand from the 64-65 period).
Louis deserves credit for many important accomplishments and advances, but
that is not one of them.
Dear John,
this is the kind of remark I do not understand. Please contact Tom, or read
from him. He developped that program with Noel Morris upon the programing
notes written by Louis (of memory I think it was PSN 69) as a main author
and two other persons. From this, Tom is not sure of the year as the
numbering may mean december or january.
We had some serious exchange on that with Tom and others of that period, to
understand why that "old" (postal) approach was chosen, and not a more
modern approach of mail pointer passing (I discuss in the prospective
"weemail" architecture I quoted).
Why this bickering, instead of working together? A waste of time IMHO.
jfc
PS. My mail to Erik was not intended to be copied to the list. My mistake.
I am sorry as it lead to this kind of exchange.