Email inventor Raymon Tomlinson dies at 74

The US computer programmer, Raymond Samuel Tomlinson, the inventor of email and Internet Pioneer has died of heart attack, on Saturday March 5, 2016, at the age of 74. His ground-breaking use of the @ symbol in email addresses, is now an universal standard and his idea of sending electronic messages from one network to another in 1971. He sent first ever email while working in Boston as an engineer for research company Bolt, Beranek and Newman ( now Raytheon BBN Technologies). He also helped to develop the TENEX operating system, including implementation of the ARPANET and TELNET protocols. In 1971, he developed ARPANET’s first application for network email by combining the SNDMSG and CPYNET programs, allowing messages to be sent to users on other computers. He chose the @ sign to separate local from global emails in the mailing address. Person to person network email was born and user £host becae the standard for email addresses, as it remains today.

He attended college at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where has an internship program with IBM and received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1963. He went on to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) earning an S.M. in Electrical engineering in 1965.

The firm played a big role in developing an early version of the internet called Arpanet. His work was recognised by his peers in 2012, when he was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame.

Tomlinson’s email program brought a complete revolution , changing the way people communicate, including the way businesses from large corporations to tiny corner shops operate and the way millions of people shop, bank and keep in touch with friends, family, relatives and friends, across oceans, Today Billions of email-enabled devices are in use everyday. E mail remains the most popular means of communications used by over a billion and half users spanning the entire globe and communicating across traditional barriers of space and time.

In 2000, Tomlinson received the George R Stibitz Computer Pioneer Award from the American Computer Museum. In 2002, discover magazine awarded him its Innovation Award. In 2004 he earned the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Internet Award. In 2009 he was named the Prince of Asturias Award Laureate for Technical and Scientific Research. He was ranked number four on the MIT list of top 150 innovators and ideas from MIT.