CSE103

• Early History (see http://www.multicians.org/thvv/mail-history.html)
  Electronic mail started as messaging systems for the community of users sharing time-shared computers
• By 1973, 3/4 of ARPANET traffic was email
• Late 1970's -- extensive use of email between computers via store-and-forward techniques
  Newgroups born (see http://www.netvalley.com/archives/mirrors/davemarsh-timeline-1.htm)
• 1981 -- BITNET, CSNET email and listservers
• 1980's -- TCP/IP and SMTP -- internet email (see http://www.coruscant.demon.co.uk/mike/sendmail/history.html)
• Current practice
  • Mail Transfer Agents -- sendmail (http://www.sendmail.com), qmail (http://www.qmail.org), postfix (http://www.postfix.org)...
  • Mail User Agents -- pine, BSD mail, ... (see http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Mail-User-HOWTO/mua.html)
  • PC support -- Eudora, Outlook, Netscape
  • Instant messaging

Prepared by Herbert J. Bernstein yaya@cs.sunysb.edu, 11 December 2001.