7 Nov
2006
7 Nov
'06
12:14 p.m.
That's the problem with making a claim to be the
"first". Many
concepts are evolutionary instead of revolutionary.
Nearly all, I think. Then the waters get muddy with lies, half-truths,
politically charged claims, ignorance, and so forth.
With email, one
has to ask "what's the first time someone cobbled together a JCL
script or program to see if someone had left a message in a pre-
agreed upon place?" and "When is the first time that someone did
this on two connected systems?"
Another problem with record breaking claims is that often strings are
attached, and that just cheapens everything. "Hey, I have the worlds
largest garden gnome with a green hat holding a mushroom in United
States" is simply not as impressive at "Hey, I have the worlds largest
garden gnome".
I suppose Western Union might have originated the
first email system
using teletypes, no? It's a networked system and messages are stored
in hardcopy form with routing information, so the receiving end can
run unattended. I submit that the presence or absence of a
"computer" in the middle of all of this is a minor quibble.
Yes, the WU networks were surprisingly advanced for a bunch of
switches and relays. It is a good thing the Greenkeys people have an
interest in this stuff, as I have found a lot of computer people
conveniently ignore* the networks that existed before ARPAnet. AUTODIN
anyone?
*A good example of adding strings, I think. Strings being first
packet-based peer to peer network, or something like that.
Who knows, perhaps there was a similar setup in the
days of
telegraphy? Didn't Edison work on a printing telegraph?
They may have predated Edison. Certainly by Edisons time telegraph
inkers and keyers were reasonably common.
--
Will