Silicon Insider: Burning Questions

Oct. 23, 2001 -- Editor's Note: With Forbes ASAP editor-at-large Michael Malone on a brief hiatus, his colleagues offer up answers to intriguing questions about business, technology and whatever else strikes their fancy.

QUESTION: Who sent the first e-mail?

Ray Tomlinson, in 1971, in Cambridge, Mass., to another computer in the same room. The message? QWERTYUIOP — the keys across the top line of the keyboard. Unintelligible? Sure, but better than "Joke of the Day."

QUESTION: What is the oldest e-mail chain letter still in circulation?

The Craig Shergold letter, which asks for cards to be sent to a 7-year-old boy who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 1989. It started out as a mailed and faxed letter, but shortly thereafter found its way to e-mail and Usenet and is still being circulated. Craig is now healthy and in his early 20s. Although he has requested that the cards stop, they continue to come.

QUESTION: Who is the oldest really good computer game player in the United States?

Check out former game show host Geoff Edwards, also known as Poacher, who at the age of 70 still frags players one-fifth his age from his cyberheadquarters in Los Angeles. So concerned is Edwards to protect the feelings of his virtual victims that when he stops playing Quake, he signs off, "Gotta go. Mom's calling me for dinner."

Michael S. Malone, once called “the Boswell of Silicon Valley,” is editor-at-large of Forbes ASAP magazine. His work as the nation’s first daily high-tech reporter at the San Jose Mercury-News sparked the writing of his critically acclaimed The Big Score: The Billion Dollar Story of Silicon Valley, which went on to become a public TV series. He has written several other highly praised business books and a novel about Silicon Valley, where he was raised. For more, go to Forbes.com. And you can talk back to Silicon Insider via e-mail.