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I got my first email address in 1984, my boss and I got one on a local newspaper bulletin board. Only people we could email was each other. The only other email

I got my first email address in 1984, my boss and I got one on a local newspaper bulletin board. Only people we could email was each other. The only other emailing people were the execs who had some terminal based system - but their "secretaries" printed the emails and the execs dictated the responses.

vidarh 10y ago
'93 here, via a BBS that exchanged e-mail via UUCP via an upstream BBS 4 times a day. It was how I got my first web access: Cern had an email<->web gateway that you could e-mail a URL and get a plaintext "rendered" web page back. It was extremely frustrating when the page I got back linked elsewhere for the information I wanted, and I had to wait for the next UUCP exchange to get the next batch of pages back. Otherwise it felt a lot more "civilized" than Prestel - still only a 2400bps modem at first, but a variety of "offline readers" with fairly decent UIs, like Thor (Amiga) and terminal programs like Ncomm (also Amiga) that allowed heavily scripted exchanges with the BBSs to automate message exchanges and file up/downloads. But once I got a direct internet connection at university it only took months before I pretty much stopped calling BBSs - it's amazing (and a bit sad) how quick the decline was, even though some survived for quite a while via telnet.
- ghaff 10y ago
  >allowed heavily scripted exchanges with the BBSs to automate message exchanges and file up/downloads. As I recall, Qmail was the one I used--mostly with a commercial PC-Board system in a nearby city. People forget that even intrastate telephone calls could be pretty pricey on a per minute basis through at least the first part of the 1990s so it made a lot of sense to login, download/upload, logoff, and read/respond locally. A number of the bigger BBSs survived for a time as dial-up ISPs before broadband became common. I don't really remember when I stopped using them. Probably sometime in the mid-nineties.
  - barrkel 10y ago
    Mid nineties to early 2000s was when modems were mainstream. People usually got their email using POP3, dialing up either manually or automatically on a schedule. Email clients were designed around offline use, as were newsreaders. Outbox was a thing; it was where your emails went until you went online next.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      I was misremembering a bit because I got cable to my house in about 1996 but I don't think I got broadband for a few years after that. I'm pretty sure I had it by 2000 or so but probably not much before that. I had a modem starting in about 1984 or so but they were certainly still a geek thing for consumers at that point.
dexterdog 10y ago
I worked for a VP at Merrill in 1996 who was still printing and filing every email he received and sent. He was in charge of a fairly large tech team in the company.
- sebtoast 10y ago
  I had two sales rep still doing that in 2010, both are now retired.
- NikolaeVarius 10y ago
  After having worked for a large corporation, I can confirm even in the modern era, having hard copies of emails can ensure "shenanigans" happens much less.

vidarh 10y ago

'93 here, via a BBS that exchanged e-mail via UUCP via an upstream BBS 4 times a day. It was how I got my first web access: Cern had an email<->web gateway that you could e-mail a URL and get a plaintext "rendered" web page back. It was extremely frustrating when the page I got back linked elsewhere for the information I wanted, and I had to wait for the next UUCP exchange to get the next batch of pages back. Otherwise it felt a lot more "civilized" than Prestel - still only a 2400bps modem at first, but a variety of "offline readers" with fairly decent UIs, like Thor (Amiga) and terminal programs like Ncomm (also Amiga) that allowed heavily scripted exchanges with the BBSs to automate message exchanges and file up/downloads. But once I got a direct internet connection at university it only took months before I pretty much stopped calling BBSs - it's amazing (and a bit sad) how quick the decline was, even though some survived for quite a while via telnet.

ghaff 10y ago
>allowed heavily scripted exchanges with the BBSs to automate message exchanges and file up/downloads. As I recall, Qmail was the one I used--mostly with a commercial PC-Board system in a nearby city. People forget that even intrastate telephone calls could be pretty pricey on a per minute basis through at least the first part of the 1990s so it made a lot of sense to login, download/upload, logoff, and read/respond locally. A number of the bigger BBSs survived for a time as dial-up ISPs before broadband became common. I don't really remember when I stopped using them. Probably sometime in the mid-nineties.
- barrkel 10y ago
  Mid nineties to early 2000s was when modems were mainstream. People usually got their email using POP3, dialing up either manually or automatically on a schedule. Email clients were designed around offline use, as were newsreaders. Outbox was a thing; it was where your emails went until you went online next.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    I was misremembering a bit because I got cable to my house in about 1996 but I don't think I got broadband for a few years after that. I'm pretty sure I had it by 2000 or so but probably not much before that. I had a modem starting in about 1984 or so but they were certainly still a geek thing for consumers at that point.

dexterdog 10y ago

I worked for a VP at Merrill in 1996 who was still printing and filing every email he received and sent. He was in charge of a fairly large tech team in the company.

sebtoast 10y ago
I had two sales rep still doing that in 2010, both are now retired.
NikolaeVarius 10y ago
After having worked for a large corporation, I can confirm even in the modern era, having hard copies of emails can ensure "shenanigans" happens much less.