MIT Lecturer Defends His Standing As Email Inventor

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MIT Lecturer Defends His Standing As Email Inventor

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 23, 2012 @11:33AM from the for-some-values-of-invented dept.

hapworth writes "IT professionals were recently outraged to hear that the Smithsonian acquired some code from MIT lecturer VA Shiva Ayyadurai who has convinced no less august pubs than Time Magazine and The Washington Post that he invented email. While objectors howl on forums and message boards, VA Shiva Ayyadurai spoke up today to defend his standing as email's creator, claiming he doesn't regret not patenting it because he doesn't believe in software patents."

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Maybe... by pedantic+bore · 2012-02-23 11:38 · Score: 5, Funny

... but Ray Tomlinson at BBN invented the use of the "@" sign.

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Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
1. Re:Maybe... by ackthpt · 2012-02-23 11:42 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  ... but Ray Tomlinson at BBN invented the use of the "@" sign.
  Yeah, but Chuck Norris was the first one to use it.
  oh, and ..
  In Soviet Russia email patents YOU!
  
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  A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
2. Re:Maybe... by forkfail · 2012-02-23 12:21 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Only after Bruce Lee showed him how. Twice.
  
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  Check your premises.
3. Re:Maybe... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-23 13:23 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Just your mother
4. Re:Maybe... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-23 13:49 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  I invented the iPad in 1974, didn't tell anyone about it though.
5. Re:Maybe... by Xtifr · 2012-02-23 13:51 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Wow, you've sure got a lot of digits in your slashdot ID for someone who once had a bang path! :) ...!apple!darkside!xtifr
6. Re:Maybe... by jhoegl · 2012-02-23 13:56 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Judge not by the size of ones slashID, for they may have been too busy inventing the interwebs to know about such sites as slashdot.
7. Re:Maybe... by DMFNR · 2012-02-23 15:34 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  You are wrong. One's Slashdot UID is the sole determiner of technical proficiency, age, penis size, and validity of opinion, .
  
  For example, I have mastered HTML and gaining proficiency in Visual Basic 6. I am 12 years old and my penis is large enough not to be considered a micropenis by only a few millimeters. Of course, at my level of Slashdot inexperience, my words should be taken with a grain of salt.
  
  A person like Xtifr however, he received a blowjob for Ada Lovelace and can speak machine code in to a processor and hear the results coming out of the other end. He is older than most trees, and has the Unix beard to prove it. If he ever manages to get his elderly penis erect, we have solved our space elevator problem. Every word he speaks is handed down to Moses on stone tablets and entered in to Slashdot with care.
8. Re:Maybe... by bratwiz · 2012-02-23 17:10 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Yes, he is the Most Interesting Programmer in the World.
  "Friends, I don't always use parametric polymorphism, but when I do, I prefer hand-rolled Assembly."
Re:Doesn't believe in patents by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-23 11:48 · Score: 5, Funny

Dude, you're talking about the mail command versus email -- E mail! Don't you know that if you take something that already exists and put an e or an i in front of it, it's completely new computer wizardry? The entire USPTO is based around this concept. Anyone with a UID of fewer than seven figures should know this stuff.
Re:Doesn't believe in patents by elrous0 · 2012-02-23 11:51 · Score: 4, Funny

iAgree

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SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Re:Uh, 1980? by elrous0 · 2012-02-23 11:53 · Score: 4, Funny

According to Time, he's also the King of Mars and Jennifer Aniston's husband. Not a bad life.

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SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Re:Good point. by dbIII · 2012-02-23 19:12 · Score: 3, Funny

He even goes so far as to admit that the word "email" was in use previously
Yes, I had a fridge (and stove) with EMAIL written on it in big chromed letters in the 1970s. Maybe that's where the "internet fridge" meme came from :)