Ray Tomlinson - wikipedia Ray Tomlinson Raymond Tomlinson Tomlinson in 2004 Raymond Samuel Tomlinson ( 1941 - 04 - 23 ) April 23, 1941 Amsterdam, New York, U.S. March 5, 2016 ( 2016 - 03 - 05 ) ( aged 74 ) Lincoln, Massachusetts, U.S. Cause of death Heart attack Nationality American Alma mater Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Massachusetts Institute of Technology Occupation Computer programmer, inventor, electrical engineer Known for Invented the first email system Raymond Samuel `` Ray '' Tomlinson ( April 23, 1941 -- March 5, 2016 ) was a pioneering American computer programmer who implemented the first email program on the ARPANET system, the precursor to the Internet, in 1971. It was the first system able to send mail between users on different hosts connected to ARPANET. Previously, mail could be sent only to others who used the same computer. To achieve this, he used the @ sign to separate the user name from the name of their machine, a scheme which has been used in email addresses ever since. The Internet Hall of Fame in its account of his work commented `` Tomlinson 's email program brought about a complete revolution, fundamentally changing the way people communicate ''. Tomlinson is internationally known and credited as the inventor of the email. Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Career 3 Death 4 Awards and honors 5 Notes 6 Further reading 7 External links Early life and education Tomlinson was born in Amsterdam, New York, but his family soon moved to the small, unincorporated village of Vail Mills, Broadalbin, New York. He attended Broadalbin Central School in nearby Broadalbin, New York. Later he attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ( RPI ) in Troy, New York where he participated in the co-op program with IBM. He received a bachelor 's degree in electrical engineering from RPI in 1963. After graduating from RPI, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ) to continue his electrical engineering education. At MIT, Tomlinson worked in the Speech Communication Group and developed an analog - digital hybrid speech synthesizer as the subject of his thesis for the master 's degree in electrical engineering, which he received in 1965. Career In 1967 he joined the technology company of Bolt, Beranek and Newman ( now BBN Technologies ), where he helped develop the TENEX operating system including the ARPANET Network Control Program, implementations of Telnet, and implementations on the self - replicating programs Creeper and Reaper. He wrote a file transfer program called CPYNET to transfer files through the ARPANET. Tomlinson was asked to change a program called SNDMSG, which sent messages to other users of a time - sharing computer, to run on TENEX. He added code he took from CPYNET to SNDMSG so messages could be sent to users on other computers -- the first email. The first email Tomlinson sent was a test. It was not preserved and Tomlinson describes it as insignificant, something like `` QWERTYUIOP ''. This is commonly misquoted as `` The first e-mail was QWERTYUIOP ''. Tomlinson later commented that these `` test messages were entirely forgettable and I have, therefore, forgotten them. '' At first, his email messaging system was not considered important. Its development was not a directive of his employer, with Tomlinson merely pursuing it `` because it seemed like a neat idea ''. When Tomlinson showed it to a colleague, Tomlinson said `` Do n't tell anyone ! This is n't what we 're supposed to be working on ''. Tomlinson said he preferred `` email '' over `` e-mail '', joking in a 2010 interview that `` I 'm simply trying to conserve the world 's supply of hyphens '' and that `` the term has been in use long enough to drop the hyphen ''. Death Tomlinson died at his home in Lincoln, Massachusetts, on March 5, 2016, from a heart attack. He died at the age of 74. Awards and honors In 2000 he received the George R. Stibitz Computer Pioneer Award from the American Computer Museum ( with the Computer Science Department of Montana State University ). In 2001 he received a Webby Award from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for lifetime achievement. Also in 2001 he was inducted into the Rensselaer Alumni Hall of Fame. In 2002 Discover magazine awarded him its Innovation Award. In 2004, he received the IEEE Internet Award along with Dave Crocker. In 2009, he along with Martin Cooper was awarded the Prince of Asturias award for scientific and technical research. In 2011, he was listed 4th in the MIT150 list of the top 150 innovators and ideas from MIT. In 2012, Tomlinson was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame by the Internet Society. Notes Jump up ^ `` Email pioneer Ray Tomlinson dead at 74 ''. The Sydney Morning Herald. Jump up ^ `` E-mail inventor Ray Tomlinson, who popularized @ symbol, dies at 74 ''. Ars Technica. Jump up ^ ABC News. `` Inventor of Modern Email, Ray Tomlinson, Dies ''. ABC News. Jump up ^ Claudio Müller ( 7 March 2016 ). `` E-Mail - Pionier ist tot : Rest @ Peace, Ray Tomlinson ''. CHIP Online. ^ Jump up to : `` Official Biography : Raymond Tomlinson ''. Internet Hall of Fame. Retrieved 6 March 2016. Jump up ^ Ray Tomlinson. `` The First Network Email ''. Jump up ^ `` Alumni / ae Notes - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ( RPI ) ''. Jump up ^ `` Ray Tomlinson, email inventor and selector of @ symbol, dies aged 74 ''. the Guardian. Jump up ^ Dante D'Orazio ( 6 March 2016 ). `` Inventor of email and savior of the @ sign, Ray Tomlinson, is dead at 74 ''. The Verge. Vox Media. Jump up ^ `` Ray Tomlinson, Inventor Of Modern Email, Dies ''. NPR.org. 6 March 2016. Jump up ^ `` Email inventor Ray Tomlinson dies aged 74 ''. The Telegraph. 6 March 2016. Jump up ^ Todd Leopold, CNN ( 6 March 2016 ). `` Ray Tomlinson, the creator of email, has died ''. CNN. Jump up ^ `` Email inventor Ray Tomlinson dies at 74 ''. BBC News. ^ Jump up to : Grimes, William ( March 7, 2016 ). `` Raymond Tomlinson, Who Put the @ Sign in Email, Is Dead at 74 ''. The New York Times. Jump up ^ Subik, Jason ( 17 October 2010 ). `` Broadalbin native put the @ in your e-mail address ''. The Daily Gazette. Schenectady, NY. Retrieved 4 April 2016. Jump up ^ Varghese, Sam ( March 7, 2016 ). `` Email inventor Ray Tomlinson dead at 74 ''. iTWire. ^ Jump up to : Evan Koblentz ( March 5, 2016 ). `` Email inventor Ray Tomlinson dies at 74 ''. TechRepublic. Jump up ^ Hafner, Katie ; Lyon, Matthew ( 1998 ). Where Wizards Stay Up Late : The Origins Of The Internet. Simon and Schuster. p. 191. ISBN 978 - 0684832678. Jump up ^ `` Ray Tomlinson, who sent the first e-mail, has died ''. The Economist. March 7, 2016. Jump up ^ Kawamoto, Dawn ( March 7, 2016 ). `` Creator Of Network Email Ray Tomlinson Dies ''. InformationWeek. Jump up ^ Ray Tomlinson. `` Frequently Made Mistakes ''. Jump up ^ Mackey, Robert ( 2009 - 05 - 04 ). `` Internet Star @ Least 473 Years Old ''. The New York Times. Retrieved 2010 - 05 - 22. Jump up ^ Sasha Cavender ( October 5, 1998 ). `` Legends ''. Forbes. Retrieved February 2, 2016. Jump up ^ Pasternack, Alex ( 2010 - 04 - 20 ). `` Ray Tomlinson Sent the First Email But His Inbox Is Still a Mess ''. Motherboard. Retrieved 2016 - 03 - 07. Jump up ^ `` The Stibitz / Wilson Awards ''. American Computer & Robotics Museum. Retrieved 6 March 2016. Jump up ^ `` Raymond S. Tomlinson : Inventor of Network Electronic Mail ''. Alumni Hall of Fame. Rensselaer. Retrieved 6 March 2016. Jump up ^ `` The fathers of the mobile phone and email, Prince of Asturias Award Laureates for Technical and Scientific Research '' ( Press release ). Fundación Príncipe de Asturias. 2009 - 06 - 17. Retrieved 2009 - 06 - 17. Further reading Pasternack, Alex ( April 20, 2010 ). `` Q + A : Ray Tomlinson Sent the First Email, But His Inbox Is Still a Mess ''. Motherboard.tv. Archived from the original on March 24, 2012. Raz, Guy ( November 21, 2009 ). `` The Man Who Made You Put Away Your Pen ''. New England Public Radio. Ward, Mark ( October 8, 2001 ). `` H@ppy birthday to you ''. BBC. External links Tomlinsons ' e-mail webpage Internet Hall of Fame Pioneers 2012 Paul Baran Vint Cerf Danny Cohen Steve Crocker Donald Davies Elizabeth J. Feinler Charles Herzfeld Robert Kahn Peter T. Kirstein Leonard Kleinrock John Klensin Jon Postel Louis Pouzin Lawrence Roberts 2013 David Clark David Farber Howard Frank Kanchana Kanchanasut J.C.R. Licklider Bob Metcalfe Jun Murai Kees Neggers Nii Quaynor Glenn Ricart Robert Taylor Stephen Wolff Werner Zorn 2014 Douglas Engelbart Susan Estrada Frank Heart Dennis Jennings Rolf Nordhagen Radia Perlman Global connectors 2012 Randy Bush Kilnam Chon Al Gore Nancy Hafkin Geoff Huston Brewster Kahle Daniel Karrenberg Toru Takahashi Tan Tin Wee 2013 Karen Banks Gihan Dias Anriette Esterhuysen Steve Goldstein Teus Hagen Ida Holz Qiheng Hu Haruhisa Ishida Barry Leiner George Sadowsky 2014 Dai Davies Demi Getschko Masaki Hirabaru Erik Huizer Steven Huter Abhaya Induruwa Dorcas Muthoni Mahabir Pun Srinivasan Ramani Michael Roberts Ben Segal Douglas Van Houweling Innovators 2012 Mitchell Baker Tim Berners - Lee Robert Cailliau Van Jacobson Lawrence Landweber Paul Mockapetris Craig Newmark Raymond Tomlinson Linus Torvalds Philip Zimmermann 2013 Marc Andreessen John Perry Barlow François Flückiger Stephen Kent Anne - Marie Eklund Löwinder Henning Schulzrinne Richard Stallman Aaron Swartz Jimmy Wales 2014 Eric Allman Eric Bina Karlheinz Brandenburg John Cioffi Hualin Qian Paul Vixie Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ray_Tomlinson&oldid=799892469 '' Categories : 1941 births 2016 deaths American inventors Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni Webby Award winners People from Amsterdam, New York Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni American computer programmers American electrical engineers Email Hidden categories : Articles with hCards Talk Contents About Wikipedia Azərbaycanca বাংলা Bân - lâm - gú Català Čeština Cymraeg Dansk Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français Gaeilge Galego 한국어 हिन्दी Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית Basa Jawa Latina Latviešu Magyar Malagasy മലയാളം Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Polski Português Русский Simple English Suomi తెలుగు Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt 吴语 粵語 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 10 September 2017, at 12 : 54. 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Question: when was email invented and who is considered the inventor
Answer: 1971