Ray made a way to send mail. He used computers to do it. He used the @ sign too. This helps us talk to friends. It is a very good idea. Do you use mail on a computer?
Ray was a man who worked with computers. He made a new way to send mail. Before Ray, mail only went to one computer. Ray's new way sent mail to many computers. He used the @ sign to help. This sign tells the computer where to go. It is still used today! Ray sent a test message to see if it worked. The first message was just random letters. He did a great job with his idea. Now, many people use his way to talk.
Ray Tomlinson was a computer programmer. He changed how we talk to each other. In 1971, he made the first email program. Before his work, mail only went to people on one computer. Ray found a way to send mail between different machines. He used the @ sign to make this work. The @ sign separates the person's name from the machine's name. We still use this sign in email addresses today!
Ray studied electrical engineering. He went to school at RPI and MIT. He became interested in computers after seeing a video game. He worked at a company called BBN. There, he worked on a system called ARPANET. This system was like an early version of the Internet. Ray sent the first test email between two computers. He said the message was just random letters. It was not a special word.
Ray won many awards for his great ideas. One honor is an asteroid named after him. People even created Email Day to celebrate his work. It happens every year on his birthday, April 23.
Ray Tomlinson was a computer programmer who changed how the world talks. He invented the first email program in 1971. Before his invention, people could only send messages to others on the same computer. Ray worked on a system called ARPANET. This was an early version of the Internet. His new program allowed users to send mail between different machines. This was a huge change for how people communicate.
To make this work, Ray had to find a way to show where a message should go. He used the @ sign to separate a person's name from their machine's name. He chose this symbol because it was not used in names or programming. It helped show the intended meaning clearly. The first message he ever sent was just a test. It was sent between two computers sitting side by side. Ray said the message was likely just a random string of letters like "QWERTYUIOP."
Ray grew up in New York. He studied electrical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy. He also went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT, he worked on speech synthesis. He became very interested in computers after seeing a video game called Spacewar!. This led him to work with digital systems for his master's degree. He finished that degree in 1965.
Ray spent much of his career at a company called BBN. In 1971, he adapted a program called SNDMSG to work on the TENEX system. He used code from a file transfer program called CPYNET to make this happen. This created the first networked email system. Ray lived in Lincoln, Massachusetts, for much of his later life. He died there on March 5, 2016. He was 74 years old.
Many people have honored Ray for his great work. He was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2012. An asteroid was even named after him in 1992. Every year on April 23, people celebrate Email Day. This date is also Ray's birthday. His work is part of many things we use today. Even the way we write email addresses stays the same.
Ray Tomlinson was an American computer programmer who changed how the world communicates. He is best known for inventing the first email program on the ARPANET system in 1971. ARPANET was the early precursor to the modern Internet. Before Tomlinson's work, digital mail was very limited. People could only send messages to others using the exact same computer. Tomlinson's invention allowed users to send messages between different hosts on a network. This breakthrough turned a simple messaging tool into a global communication system.
To create this system, Tomlinson had to solve a specific technical problem. He needed a way to tell the computer which person to message and which machine to send it to. He decided to adapt an existing program called SNDMSG. This program previously only worked for users on a single time-sharing computer. Tomlinson incorporated source code from another program called CPYNET. CPYNET was a file transfer program designed for the ARPANET. By combining these tools, he enabled messages to travel across the network to different computers.
A vital part of this process was the creation of the email address format. Tomlinson needed a symbol to separate the username from the name of the machine. He chose the @ symbol for this task. He selected it because it was not used in usernames or in TENEX programming. The symbol also intuitively conveyed the intended meaning of the recipient's location. This created the user@host format. This specific scheme has remained the standard for email addresses for over fifty years. The @ sign is now considered a defining symbol of the computer age.
Tomlinson's journey into computing began during his time as a student. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1963. He later attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for graduate studies. At MIT, he focused on speech synthesis, which is the process of making computers produce human-like speech. He became fascinated by computers after seeing students play a video game called Spacewar!. This interest led him to develop an analog–digital hybrid speech synthesizer for his master's thesis. He received his master's degree in 1965.
In 1967, Tomlinson joined the technology company Bolt, Beranek and Newman, also known as BBN. He worked there for the rest of his career as a principal scientist. While at BBN, he helped develop the TENEX operating system. He also worked on the ARPANET Network Control Program and several other important programs. One of his notable technical contributions was the invention of the TCP three-way handshake. This is a process used by the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). TCP underlies HTTP and many other essential Internet protocols used today.
Tomlinson's first successful email was actually a simple test. He sent the message between two computers that were placed right next to each other. He did not preserve the content of the message. He later described the text as insignificant and forgettable. It was likely just a random string of characters, such as "QWERTYUIOP." Although the message itself was not important, the successful transmission proved the system worked. This small test led to a revolution in how humans share information.
Many honors have been given to Tomlinson for his scientific achievements. He was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2012. In 1992, an asteroid named 10108 Tomlinson was discovered in his honor. Every year on April 23, people celebrate Email Day. This date was chosen because it is Tomlinson's birthday. He received many other awards, including the IEEE Internet Award and the Prince of Asturias Award. Even though he was a pioneer of digital life, he was a self-professed Luddite. He lived a quiet life in Lincoln, Massachusetts, until he died of a heart attack in 2016 at age 74.
Where will your curiosity go next?
More to explore
✨ What else?
Related topics you might enjoy
🔬 Go deeper
More advanced topics to explore
🪜 Step back
Simpler topics to build understanding
What is Nepedia?
A free, ad-free encyclopedia for children. Every article is written at five reading levels, so the same page works for a five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old — use the level switcher above to see this one change. No account needed to read.