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MIT Lecturer Defends His Standing As Email Inventor

Posted by timothy on 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."

12 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. Doesn't believe in patents by Squiddie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If only the rest of the world saw it his way. If he did invent email, that is.

    1. Re:Doesn't believe in patents by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Which he didn't. The ancestor of the mail systems used on the Internet today was the mail command from the original versions of Unix, way back around 1971 or so. This guy is either a lunatic or a liar, but the one thing he isn't is the inventor of email.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:Doesn't believe in patents by the+linux+geek · · Score: 5, Interesting

      CTSS had email before UNIX did - 1964, if I recall.

    3. Re:Doesn't believe in patents by tysonedwards · · Score: 5, Interesting

      From TFA: VA Shiva Ayyadurai claims is to have created the first "graphical front end for an electronic mail system", and was the first to copyright the term "EMAIL".

      It is the craziness of the mass media that translates a copyright filing as "Invention".

      --
      Thirty four characters live here.
    4. Re:Doesn't believe in patents by larry+bagina · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The first GUI email claim seems a little questionable to me. The Xerox Alto (1973) had a GUI, WYSIWYG, mice, ethernet, and email (Laurel and Hardy). I can't find a date reference for Laurel and Hardy, but Steve Jobs visited them in December of 1979 and later said:

      And they showed me really three things. But I was so blinded by the first one I didn't even really see the other two. One of the things they showed me was object orienting programming they showed me that but I didn't even see that. The other one they showed me was a networked computer system...they had over a hundred Alto computers all networked using email etc., etc., I didn't even see that. I was so blinded by the first thing they showed me which was the graphical user interface. I thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen in my life. Now remember it was very flawed, what we saw was incomplete, they'd done a bunch of things wrong. But we didn't know that at the time but still though they had the germ of the idea was there and they'd done it very well and within you know ten minutes it was obvious to me that all computers would work like this some day.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  2. Patents... by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd love to test our Social Networking application we ran in college, long before this interweb thing came along, against some of the patents people are claiming now.

    As for email, I've got junk from my Dad's Model 14 Teletype, with headers and all, which could certainly pass for early email. Back then it was passed between stations until intended recipient was expected to have received it - your TTY was always expected to be left on.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  3. Uh, 1980? by leighklotz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I got to MIT in 1979 email had been in use for a long time. Both " at " and "@" were in equal use on ITS to send mail over ARPAnet via NCP. I'm not sure what this guy is claiming about having invented email in 1980.

  4. Good point. by khasim · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Many DIFFERENT items go into a modern email system.

    Tomlinson "invented" the practice of using the @ sign.

    Ayyadurai may have been the first person to use the term "email".
    But there is no evidence that he invented the concept of electronic messages between people.

  5. AUTODIN by nsaspook · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Digital_Network
    http://jproc.ca/crypto/autodin.html

    I managed a few Technical Control sites long ago. We could route normal telegrams on the system with a little creative address routing.

    --
    In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
  6. Re:Maybe... by smitty97 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    doesn't anyone remember bang paths?

    --
    mod me funny
  7. Shiva Ayyadurai by rlk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As it happens, I actually knew Shiva in high school (I was one year behind him in Livingston -- class of 1982; he was class of 1981). We lived about 1/4 mile apart, and took the same bus to and from school. We were both science/math geeks.

    I do remember (not the details) the project he's talking about. We discussed it on the bus. He did indeed submit it to the Westinghouse Talent Search, and as I recall he got past the first round. It certainly was an interesting project for the time, and my recollection is that he designed it very well and he well deserved to advance. I don't know one way or the other whether he came up with it independently, but he most certainly didn't invent email.

    It has been well over a decade since I last saw him.

  8. Re:Maybe... by avm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nonsense :-) I drive a truck, have forgotten most of my IT related knowledge, and my UID is lower than his. I also have no beard, use a Mac, and have never managed to monetize any IT chops I may have once possessed.

    In my defense, I do possess an original boxed set of SCO Xenix manpages and 3.5" diskettes, as well as a copy of the original Softlanding Linux distro on same media. :-)