Who Put the 'At' in E-mail?

June 17 -- This week's Cybershake talks with Ray Tomlinson, the inventor of Internet e-mail and a recipient of a 2002 Innovation Awards from Discover magazine. And, we also examine a new watch that keeps owners on top of important data.

He Thought of ‘At’

It's hard to imagine online life without e-mail. But have you ever wondered how it all started?

According to Ray Tomlinson, the "father of Internet e-mail," the creation of computerized mail was a no-brainer.

Way back in 1971, Tomlinson, the principal engineer at BBN Technologies in Cambridge, Mass., looked at his computer and realized a few things.

First, there were programs that allowed him to leave messages for other users of that same computer. And second, there were programs that allowed him to transfer files between computers.

"The combination of those two programs is what the first e-mail program was," says Tomlinson.

Tomlinson wrote the program that tied those two separate programs together. "It was about a two-week, part-time effort," he says.

But he also had to figure out how to differentiate locations — or addresses — of different computers. "So I looked at the keyboard and chose the 'at' sign," he says.

Choosing the @ symbol made sense, says Tomlinson, as the way to distinguish the user was "at" a certain computer. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Tomlinson was recently honored with an Innovation Award, an annual prize given by Discover magazine in recognition of revolutionary scientific work. Tomlinson and Innovation Award winners will be featured in the July issue of Discover, due out on June 18.

— Jim Hickey, ABCNEWS