sourced story
Late 1971Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Tomlinson sends the first networked email

A BBN programmer picks the @ sign because no one was using it for anything else

On the timeline · around Late 1971 · Chips, Software, and the First NetworksChips, Software, and the First NetworksThe Personal Computer RevolutionTomlinson sends the first networked email1966196819701972197419761978

Quick facts

Inventor
Ray Tomlinson, BBN
Year
1971
Programs combined
SNDMSG and CPYNET
Key innovation
The @ symbol separating user from host

What happened

Ray Tomlinson, a programmer at Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), had helped build ARPANET's networking software. In 1971 he adapted an existing local messaging program called SNDMSG, combining it with a file transfer program called CPYNET, so a message could be sent to a user on a different, remote host computer rather than only to someone logged into the same machine. To make that possible, he needed a way to separate the recipient's username from the name of the machine it lived on, so he picked the @ symbol, chosen mainly because it wasn't already used in usernames or in the TENEX programming environment. He tested the new capability by sending a message between two computers sitting only a few feet apart.

Why it matters

The user@host format Tomlinson invented for that test message is still exactly how every email address is written today. Email became, and long remained, the single most-used application on the networks that grew into the internet.

How we know

The Internet Hall of Fame's official biography of Tomlinson, written for his 2012 induction, documents the SNDMSG/CPYNET combination and his reasoning for choosing the @ symbol.

Sources

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