From the first email to the first YouTube video: a definitive internet history
The first email
In late 1971 Ray Tomlinson, an engineer working on a time-sharing system called Tenex, combined two programs named Cpynet and SNDMSG in order to send the first ever network email. It had been possible to send email from one user to another on a single computer for nearly 10 years but Tomlinson was the first to use the primitive Arpanet to send text from one computer to another.
While the same principles are used to send emails across the world today, the very first email (the contents of which Tomlinson says he has long forgotten) was sent between two computers sitting right next to each other. At the same time, Tomlinson also devised the format of modern emails, with the @ symbol dividing the user name from the name of the host computer (although he did not invent the symbol itsel). And why did he do it?"Mostly because it seemed like a neat idea."
The first virus
Computer viruses and worms, essentially just self-replicating programs, were predicted as early as 1949 by the mathematician John von Neumann. It is generally accepted that the first was a virus called the Creeper, which infected Arpanet in 1971.
It was created by an engineer called Bob Thomas working for BBN, the same company that employed email creator Ray Tomlinson. The Creeper was not, however, malicious. Infected machines would simply display the message,"I'm the creeper: catch me if you can," but did not suffer any lasting damage. The first piece of anti-virus software was created as a direct response to the Creeper's challenge.
The Reaper was also a self-replicating program, which spread through the system in much the same way that the Creeper had, and removed the offending virus from infected computers. Just as quickly as it had spread, the Creeper was caught...
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
In late 1971 Ray Tomlinson, an engineer working on a time-sharing system called Tenex, combined two programs named Cpynet and SNDMSG in order to send the first ever network email. It had been possible to send email from one user to another on a single computer for nearly 10 years but Tomlinson was the first to use the primitive Arpanet to send text from one computer to another.
While the same principles are used to send emails across the world today, the very first email (the contents of which Tomlinson says he has long forgotten) was sent between two computers sitting right next to each other. At the same time, Tomlinson also devised the format of modern emails, with the @ symbol dividing the user name from the name of the host computer (although he did not invent the symbol itsel). And why did he do it?"Mostly because it seemed like a neat idea."
The first virus
Computer viruses and worms, essentially just self-replicating programs, were predicted as early as 1949 by the mathematician John von Neumann. It is generally accepted that the first was a virus called the Creeper, which infected Arpanet in 1971.
It was created by an engineer called Bob Thomas working for BBN, the same company that employed email creator Ray Tomlinson. The Creeper was not, however, malicious. Infected machines would simply display the message,"I'm the creeper: catch me if you can," but did not suffer any lasting damage. The first piece of anti-virus software was created as a direct response to the Creeper's challenge.
The Reaper was also a self-replicating program, which spread through the system in much the same way that the Creeper had, and removed the offending virus from infected computers. Just as quickly as it had spread, the Creeper was caught...