The History of Email
Email is a system that was actually in existence before the "Internet" as we know it today. According to some sources that discuss the construction of the modern Internet, email was actually useful, if not essential, in the development and creation of the Internet.
The first multi-user network was developed in 1961 by MIT and was called the "Compatible Time Sharing System." This early network allowed users to store files on a central server from remote locations by dialing in to the server by way of modems. Email was first utilized in 1965 as a means of communication between those logged onto the multi-user computer network simultaneously from their remote terminals.
This system of communication between time-sharing users on the same system was soon expanded to include other systems which were tied together in the earliest iteration of the Internet—the Department of Defense's ARPANET, in 1969. Ray Tomlinson, a developer working with the new electronic mail system, was the first to use the @ symbol in email addresses. It was used as a means of separating a user name from the name of the system on which they were working. The use of this symbol continues more than 35 years later.
