Ray Tomlinson

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Ray Tomlinson (2004)

Raymond Samuel "Ray" Tomlinson (born October 2, 1941 in Amsterdam , New York , † March 5, 2016 in Lincoln , Massachusetts ) was an American computer scientist . He is considered to be the inventor of email .

Life

Tomlinson studied electrical engineering at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . During his studies in 1960 he began to write computer programs.

After graduating, Tomlinson worked as a computer technician at Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) in Cambridge, Massachusetts , a private research company that was commissioned by the United States Department of Defense in 1968 to build the Arpanet - the predecessor of the Internet .

Initially CPYNET was created , a protocol which could transfer files between interconnected computer systems. It should be expanded so that messages can also be transmitted. Tomlinson used the program SNDMSG for this purpose , which was only designed for local use and created so-called mailboxes, which were actually nothing more than files. He combined SNDMSG and CPYNET into a separate program. In order to be able to distinguish between the addressee and the computer, Tomlinson chose the @ sign as a unique separator , since this was not used in the written language.

While Tomlinson was developing his email messaging system, no one saw its utility today; his work was seen more as a gimmick. When Tomlinson demonstrated his system to a colleague, he jokingly remarked:

“Don't tell anyone! This isn't what we're supposed to be working on. "

“Don't tell anyone! That's not what we're supposed to be working on. "

In 1971 Tomlinson presented the program to his employees and sent the first email. Their exact content is unknown; Tomlinson could only remember explaining, among other things, the use of the @ symbol. In 2009, Tomlinson and Martin Cooper received the Prince of Asturias Prize in the science and research category .

Tomlinson was no longer involved in the further development of e-mail.

Ray Tomlinson died on March 5, 2016 of complications from a heart attack.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Email inventor Ray Tomlinson dies at 74
  2. ↑ "That was really said in jest"
  3. ↑ Sasha Cavender: Legends . Forbes, October 5, 1998. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
  4. ↑ Detlef Borchers: Ray @ Heaven: on the death of Ray Tomlinson. Heise, March 6, 2016, accessed March 7, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Tomlinson, Ray
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tomlinson, Raymond Samuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American programmer, believed to be the inventor of email
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Amsterdam , New York
DATE OF DEATH 5th March 2016
Place of death Lincoln , Massachusetts