Last weekteam email had its 50th anniversary. Yes, it's been 50 years since the first email was sent.
1971 seems far away for many, while many were not even born. For the latter, there were always emails.
The first email was sent by Ray Tomlinson in March 1971. Tomlinson sent the first email because he thought it was cool (cool doesn't come from cool, never mind). A lot of people, including himself, didn't really see the point of emails. With telephones as the primary means of communication, the idea of email seemed redundant.
Because electronic mail was not considered a viable method of communication that could survive, the original purpose of email was to transport files.
Email was and is a way to easily send files to other computer users on a network without having to make copies on a floppy disk (then) or USB. Even today, as mentioned above, many people still use emails to send files to each other - much larger files, however.
In his first email, Tomlinson sent the letters “QWERTYUIOP” a string of seemingly random characters that is actually the first line of a standard keyboard.
For his email, Tomlinson developed the use of the "@" symbol. The reason behind this symbol, which is now used daily without a second thought, is to literally indicate where the sender is. Tomlinson also created the fields of an email, such as the sender, subject, date, body of the email, and the "from" field.
Email has come a long way since 1971. Now they can use many features like Auto-Advance. Email has adapted and changed over the years, but maybe Tomlinson was right. Email is not a great method of communication.
While e-mail was widely used from the 90s to the mid-2000s, we are now moving away.
Email is instant, but it is not instantaneous for the modern era. Chat, video calls and social networks have taken over the email space. Emails are usually used only for formal communications in the workplace or for really annoying email marketing.
Email was undoubtedly useful, and an important step in the development of modern communication. Everything else came from the humble email.
