What the heck is electronic mail?

[Undertoad]

I looked it up SD; the idea of an email *address* was a little foreign, until RFC 720 (Aug 1976) formalized things like the @ symbol. (Instead of actually writing "at"!)

But that only applied to the ARPANet, which eventually matured to be the general-purpose Intarweb we all know and love. Honeywell would have been pushing its own proprietary email system on its own proprietary network.

ARPANet eventually defined methods for exchanging email with non-ARPANet networks with RFC 754... In April 1979.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I looked it up SD; the idea of an email *address* was a little foreign, until RFC 720 (Aug 1976) formalized things like the @ symbol. (Instead of actually writing "at"!)

I've always been really interested to see what other cultures call the "@". Little monkeys, elephant trunks, snails, mice, cats, ducks, worms, curls and much more.

In Finnish it's "miukumauku" meaning "the meow sign".

[limey]

little doggie in Russian ...

[lumberjim]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

I've always been really interested to see what other cultures call the "@". Little monkeys, elephant trunks, snails, mice, cats, ducks, worms, curls and much more.

In Finnish it's "miukumauku" meaning "the meow sign".

meow, what in the world does that have to do with cats? is it drinking milk from a saucer? is it leaping all mimbly pimbly from tree to tree? meow, is it eating mice?!

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

I've always been really interested to see what other cultures call the "@". Little monkeys, elephant trunks, snails, mice, cats, ducks, worms, curls and much more.

In Finnish it's "miukumauku" meaning "the meow sign".

Mr Limbaugh once argued like a crazy person that @ is an ampersand.