Ray Tomlinson and the Invention of Networked Email (1971)

December 30, 2025

Ray Tomlinson and the Invention of Networked Email

Raymond Samuel Tomlinson (1941–2016) was an American computer engineer who is widely credited with sending the first networked email in 1971. At the time, he was working for Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN Technologies) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a company contracted to develop ARPANET, the early packet-switching network that later evolved into the modern internet.

Computing and messaging before 1971

Before Tomlinson’s work, computers already supported basic messaging systems. These allowed people to leave messages for other users on the same computer. But there was no standardised method for sending messages between people using different computers connected via a network.

ARPANET connected multiple computers at different institutions, but originally focused on file transfer, remote access, and resource sharing, rather than person-to-person messaging across machines.

In 1971, Tomlinson adapted an existing local messaging program called SNDMSG and combined it with file transfer protocols already in use on ARPANET. This allowed a message to be sent from one computer to another across the network.

To make this work, he needed a way to distinguish between a user name and the destination computer. Tomlinson chose the @ symbol to separate the two components, creating the format:

user@host

The symbol was chosen because it was rarely used in names and conveyed the meaning “at”.

The first email message

The first networked email was sent between two computers located in the same room and connected through ARPANET. It has been suggested that the message contained the text ‘QWERTYUIOP’. However, Tomlinson has stated that the content of the message was unimportant and that he couldn’t even remember the wording used.

Adoption and impact

After the introduction of networked email, the system was quickly adopted by other ARPANET users. Email became one of the most widely used applications on the network and contributed significantly to ARPANET’s growth and usefulness.

Over the decades that followed, email systems were expanded and standardised through additional protocols, including SMTP, POP, IMAP, and MIME. Although these developments occurred after Tomlinson’s original work, the user@host addressing format remained unchanged.

Intellectual property and recognition

Tomlinson did not patent email, trademark the addressing format, or attempt to commercialise his work. He continued his career as an engineer and described the development of email as a practical solution to an existing technical problem.

He received professional recognition later in life, including induction into the Internet Hall of Fame.

Death and legacy

Ray Tomlinson died of a heart attack in 2016 at the age of 74. Following his death, numerous technology organisations publicly acknowledged his role in the development of email, including Google.

Email remains one of the most widely used forms of digital communication worldwide, with hundreds of billions of messages sent daily. The core addressing structure introduced in 1971 continues to underpin global electronic communication.

References and Further Reading