3/5/2016 My Good Friend Ray Tomlinsonby Harry Forsdick, BBN Colleague, Retired My good friend and colleague, Ray Tomlinson, died this morning March 5, 2016. In 1971, Ray came up with the idea of being able to exchange email messages between computers connected by the ARPANET. For this he is rightfully credited with inventing the concept of email as we know it today. Ray is the person who decided that the @-sign should separate the user's name from her computer's name. There are many pictures on the Internet of Ray posing with an @-sign. I carpooled with Ray to BBN every day for 15 years. Over those two trips a day, we discussed every topic imaginable -- with the possible exception of politics and religion -- we had more important technical things to talk about. Curiously enough, like many inventors, the invention for which he is known, email, probably represents less of his talent and imagination than many other ideas and projects he worked on over his career. Ray was truly a special person with an unsurpassed talent, imagination and whit who I know we will all miss. I am sad for the loss of a good friend, who died too early. For more information about Ray, please see his official biography at the Internet Hall of Fame: http://www.internethalloffame.org/official-biography-raymon… Also for a very good sampling of Ray's style of thinking and humor, please see his speech when he was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJp0NHkBIAY Comments are closed.
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