The founder of e-mail Ray Tomilson dies: 10 things to know
Computing legend Ray Tomlinson, who is credited inventing the contemporary email system, has died at the age of 74.
1.According to media reports, Tomlinson died of an apparent heart attack.
2.Tomilson was presently working with Raytheon Company, a technology company specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.
3.Confirming his death, Raytheon said in a statement, “It is with great sadness we acknowledge the passing of our colleague and friend, Ray Tomlinson. A true technology pioneer, Ray was the man who brought us email in the early days of networked computers.”
4.Originally from New York, Tomlinson was a graduate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and MIT.
5.Tomilson came up with the idea of electronic messages that could be sent from one network to another in the year 1971. Before his invention, electronic messages could be shared only on a very limited network.
6.Tomilson's invention included the use of the '@' symbol in e-mail addresses, which is now a standard. He used '@' symbol to connect the username with the destination address. Speaking to CNET in 2002, Tomlinson said he had just been looking for a way "of separating the user and the computer name".
7.He sent what is now regarded as the first e-mail while working in Boston as an engineer for research company Bolt, Beranek and Newman. The company was instrumental in the development of early version of the internet, called ARPANET. According to Wikipedia, he wrote a file-transfer program called CPYNET to transfer files through the ARPANET. Regarded as predecessor to internet, ARPANET allowed people to send person-to-person messages to other computer users on other servers.
8.In an interview to Wired in 2012, Tomlinson said he couldn’t remember his first message. "They were all test messages, and whatever came to hand as I put my fingers on the keyboard is what I would send," he said. "The first one could have said almost anything."
9.In 2000, Tomilson received the George R Stibitz Computer Pioneer Award from the American Computer Museum. Other honours included a Webby Award from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Science and an Innovation award from Discover magazine and the Eduard-Rhein Cultural Award. In 2011 he was ranked fourth on the list of the 150 most significant innovators of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Tomlinson was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2012.
10."Thank you, Ray Tomlinson, for inventing email and putting the @ sign on the map," read a Tweet from Gmail's official Twitter account.
