Evolution of Email
About Email > History of Email
Evolution of Email
- Early Communication
- Morse Code and the Telegraph
- Host Based Email Systems
- Email Networks
- LAN Based Email
- ARPANET Mail
- Internet Email
Early Communication
It all started with the first humans and our inherent need to communicate. We communicate to persuade, to provide information, to seek information, and to express emotion [3]. Sometime during our evolution, a symbol or pictogram expressing an idea was carved or painted onto an object. Shortly after, the object was likely handed to or shown to another person. It's impossible to know exactly how or when this occurred, but it could have occurred over 200,000 years ago on an object that has since disintegrated and will never be found.
The first known written language came from the Sumerians in Mesopotamia around 3100 BC [4]. Messages written on clay tablets were physically transferred from one person to another. Over 2000 years ago paper was invented in China [5], making it significantly easier to transport communication from one location to another.
Morse Code, the Telegraph and Telecommunication
Smoke signals and other forms of optical signaling gave way to one of the first telegraph system, called a synchronous telegraph system. The system was first created on a large scale and demonstrated in public by Claude Chappe in 1791. This later gave way to the semaphore telegraph system, constructed in 1793 and brought into service in France in 1794 [6][7].
In 1835 the first practical, commercial, electromagnetic telegraph was built by Samuel F. B. Morse [8]. Morse's telegraph turned a press of a "button" on one end, into a movement of a lever or hole punch in a piece of paper on the other end. This allowed the transmission of long and short pulses across an insulated wire between long distances [9]. All that was missing was a code to turn those pulses into letters and numbers.
In 1840 [10].
London - Cooke & Wheatstone 1837 - england
Host Based Email Systems
Email Networks