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http://inventorofemail.com/thefacts/index.asp#fact_4

FACT #4
Ray Tomlinson Didn’t Invent Email.
What Did He Actually and Factually Do?

Ray Tomlinson modified a pre-existing program called SNDMSG. SNDMSG was not created by Tomlinson. Even before Tomlinson’s modification to SNDMSG, SNDMSG allowed a user connected to a local computer to append text to an electronic file located on that same local computer. Tomlinson’s modification to SNDMSG involved copying code from another pre-existing program called CPYNET into the SNDMSG program. CPYNET was a file transfer protocol, which Tomlinson also did not create. Tomlinson’s modification allowed a user connected on a local computer to append text to an electronic file located on a remote computer.

This modified version of SNDMSG, like the original SNDMSG, still required the user to have knowledge of cryptic commands, mainly accessible to highly trained technical people, to achieve even this modest result. John Vittal, one of Tomlinson’s contemporaries and another “internet pioneer,” unequivocally described these early simple systems as rudimentary and incomplete:
“The very simple systems [including] SNDMSG... did not integrate the reading and creation functions, had different user interfaces, and did not provide sufficient functionality for simple message processing.” [John Vittal, 1981]

At best, what Tomlinson “invented,” was a “caveman Reddit.” Tomlinson, by his own admission, said his modification was a “no brainer.” Fourteen-year-old Shiva Ayyadurai, in contrast, wrote 50,000 lines of original software code that implemented numerous features and functions to replicate the entire interoffice mail system, with a very easy-to-use-interface enabling anyone to use the system. This is email -— the email we all know and experience today.

This is not to say that someone else would not have created email, given the march of technology history to integrate computing with office automation. However, the fact remains, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai was the first to do it. The conflation of Tomlinson’s modification to SNDMSG as “email,” is a deliberate marketing campaign to enhance the brand value and reputation of Tomlinson’s employer, Raytheon/BBN, in the lucrative cybersecurity market (see below).