[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[ih] "email"-- an opportunity.
- Subject: [ih] "email"-- an opportunity.
- From: jack at 3kitty.org (Jack Haverty)
- Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 16:20:03 -0700
- In-reply-to: <[email protected]>
- References: <[email protected]>
Yes, they were more than a little concerned. But it was all under
control....
That 1980 workshop I cited also contains a paper by the President of the
National Association of Letter Carriers, which notes:
"eventually, however, the Postal Service too recognized that it could
not afford to ignore the revolution in electronic technology, and in
September, 1978, it submitted its E-COM proposal to the Postal Rate
Commission. ... ...we took the position that if the Postal Service were
excluded from the field of electronic mail, the Service's demise was
inevitable".
Another paper, by the Senior Assistant Postmaster General, notes:
"Over ten years ago, the Postal Service saw the rapidly increasing
technological innovations in electronic communications as an
evolutionary change that could be adapted ... transporting the mail
electronically..." and "E-COM will be our initial domestic service
using common carriers" and "we have accepted the President's Directive
of July 19, 1979 to establish a separate and clearly identifiable
electronic mail entity"
Note that last quote was from 1980, so "over ten years ago" would have
been before the ARPANET even existed. So, the "official" direction for
electronic mail was established. It would be provided by the Postal
Service in an evolutionary way. The ARPANET "network mail" was an
interesting experiment -- not to be confused with the implementation of
"electronic mail" which was already being handled through proper
channels. Or so it seemed.
I suspect there's some fascinating history of electronic mail involving
that E-COM proposal and why it never happened. Sounds like another case
where the experimental system trounced the official one......later
repeated by TCP, etc., etc.
But I can't find anywhere either where they call it email. But I agree
with Noel -- I think the term "email" came from outside our community.
I vaguely recall first seeing it in something like a trade magazine or
newspaper article.
/Jack
On 06/05/2013 03:09 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
> > From: Larry Sheldon <LarrySheldon at cox.net>
>
> > (y'all frightened the post office? that's funny.)
>
> Why? It was not without reason; check out the stats on first-class mail
> volume - it's estimated that it's taken a _huge_ hit from email.
>
>
> On the subject of the term 'email' - I have this vague memory that it came
> from outside 'our' community, which would explain why it doesn't appear in
> archives. I think we just called it 'mail' or 'network mail'.
>
> I have some very old business cards from MIT/etc which give my email address,
> and one labels it 'ARPANet Address', another just 'Net'.
>
> Noel
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://elists.isoc.org/pipermail/internet-history/attachments/20130605/408d4ee8/attachment.html>