Section
History
How a by-product of the ARPANET became the most-used communication system in the world — and which decisions from back then are still with us.
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The first email across a network
1971, two machines side by side, and a character on the keyboard nobody else was using.
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The first email in Germany
3 August 1984, 10:14, Karlsruhe: a service confirmation from Boston that put a country on the network.
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Why the @ of all characters
A commercial symbol from typesetting becomes the separator between person and machine.
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The RFC culture
How a pile of numbered text files became the constitution of the internet.
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The invention of spam
From the first bulk advertisement on the ARPANET to the economics of unwanted sending.