Email Milestones Timeline
This list is a developing record of major achievements in the history of electronic mail. It is being produced through open discussions at emailhistory.org. Major milestones are of many types, ranging from basic functionality to operational enhancement. Anything that the discussion group thinks might have been a noteworthy breakthrough is a candidate for inclusion. Community rough consensus -- in this case, the views of participants in the open mailhist list -- will be the arbiter.
As editor, I have taken the liberty of guessing at some of data. If there's a question mark, it means I'm not even close to sure that the guess is right. Even without a question mark, the list is certain to have errors and omissions. The current task, is to brainstorm, research and discuss entries and their details. Do post comments, corrections and additions to the mailing list. Please be gentle.
I've added the 'type' column to distinguish among categories of milestones. There is not (yet) consensus to include this column of information in the timeline, but I took editor's prerogative for the current version. I believe it aids in dealing with scaling; There are many milestones and being able to look at subsets within categories is likely to make discussion more tractable and it is certain to make reading more tractable for those being introduced to the timeline (when presented as a layered timeline.)
So:
Distinguish: UA vs. MTA vs. Systems architecture vs, ?
Distinguish: Invention vs. Commercialization vs. Standardization
("invention" means first demonstration or documentation)
When |
What |
Who |
Description |
Type |
Citation |
1965? |
T. Van Vleck, MIT |
First popular computer-based electronic mail service as a posting/delivery construct with addressing |
System |
||
1971 |
Networked Mail |
R. Tomlinson, BBN |
Exchange of mail across machines |
Transfer |
|
1972? |
Memo style |
R. Tomlinson, BBN? |
Message object with header fields |
User |
|
1972 |
Message Management |
L. Roberts, ARPA |
Per-message mail reader - RD |
User |
http://www.packet.cc/internet.html |
1973 |
Basic transfer standard |
A. Bhushan, MIT |
Mail commands in File Transfer Protocol |
Standard |
|
| 1973 | Message object | Abhay Bhushan/MIT-DMCG, Ken Pogran/MIT-MULTICS, Ray Tomlinson/BBN-TENEX, Jim White/SRI-ARC |
informal mail header | de facto Standard | RFC 561 |
1975 |
Reply |
J. Vittal, USC-ISI |
Answer command formulates new message from old |
User |
|
1975 |
Integrated reader/writer |
J. Vittal, USC-ISI |
Reply & Forward dispatched creation program |
User |
|
? |
Commercial email |
OnTyme/Tymnet? |
First email service available to public |
Commercial |
{I can't find online references to this! /d} |
DB Store |
MIT / MSGDMS |
Common message store |
User |
||
1977 |
Message object |
RFC733 / D. Crocker, Rand; J. Vittal, BBN; K. Pogran, MIT; D. Austin Henderson, BBN |
Formal standardization of message |
(de jure) Standard |
RFC733 |
| < 1979 | Client/Server |
Laurel / Xerox PARC |
UA & MTA on different machines |
System |
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/xerox/alto/stanford/StanfordAltoUsersGuideSep80.pdf p. 131 |
< 1979 |
Graphical UI |
Laurel / Xerox PARC |
|
User |
|
Auto-reply |
Delivermail / E. Allman, Berkeley |
Vacation notification, etc. |
User / System ? |
||
Auto-alias |
.forward / Delivermail / E. Allman, Berkeley |
Forward to alternate mailbo |
System ? |
||
Multi-standard Interconnect |
(arpanet/uucp) / Delivermail / E. Allman, Berkeley ? |
Linking services with different mail technologies |
System |
||
Newsletter |
EMMS |
Industry trade periodical |
Commercial |
||
1978 |
Active content |
J. Vittal | Content that executes on receiver's system | User |
First demonstration |
1982 |
Transfer Standard |
J. Postel |
SMTP - Internet protocol for relaying mail {but really, shouldn't FTP, 1972 get credit for this? /d} |
Standard |
RFC821 |
1982 |
Message Standard |
D. Crocker |
RFC822 - Internet-capable standard for object - domain names {and shouldn't RFC733 get credit for this? /d} |
Standard |
RFC822 |
Department product |
Enterprise-oriented group messaging (w/DB) |
Commercial |
|||
Delivery confirmation |
DSN? / Internet? |
Automatic confirmation of delivery into mailbox |
Standard |
||
Reading confirmation |
MDN / Internet |
Automatic confirmation of processing by recipient |
Standard |
||
1985? |
Commercial Interconnect |
MCI Mail? |
Commercial |
||
Enterprise Interconnect |
MCI Mail? |
Commercial |
|||
Client/Server Standard |
POP / M. Rose |
Common protocol for UA/MTA exchange |
Standard |
||
1987? |
Seamless Addressing |
(possibly not a technical innovation?) |
Unified addressing across heterogeneous mail services |
System |
|
Seamless Routing |
MX / Partridge |
Transparent off-net and gatewayed relaying |
System |
||
1986 |
Unification of Independent Services |
Dick Edmiston, CSNET; M. Horton, UUCP; J. Feinler, SRI |
Administrative merge of addressing, routing and object for CSNet, Bitnet, Usenet, Internet |
System ? |
|
? |
Attachment ad hoc |
M. Horton |
Common encoding for attachment-like data |
User ? |
|
Attachment syntax |
Andrew? |
Multi-media construct built in |
User |
||
Message confidentiality |
PGP? |
||||
Message authentication |
PGP? |
||||
Address Book |
Eudora? |
Stored addresses for aiding message creation |
User |
||
International Characters |
Support of alternative character sets |
User |
|||
Common attachments & alternate characters |
MIME / N. Borenstein, N. Freed |
Single basis for multi-media and non-ASCII text. |
Standard |