V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai has nothing against the tech pioneers who started sending one another messages over the Arpanet — the Internet's predecessor — in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He just asserts that he was the first person to build an e-mail system that would evolve into the type of e-mail we use today, with fields for the sender and recipient, subject lines, and that devious BCC field. Last year, Time referred to Shiva as "the man who invented e-mail."
And today, Shiva, an MIT professor, is in Washington to donate the original code for his e-mail system to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Shiva started building the e-mail system at Newark's University of Medicine and Dentistry when he was just 14, in 1978. He copyrighted the term "EMAIL" in 1982, shortly after he'd started attending MIT as an undergrad.
To read the full, original article click on this link: MIT prof who invented early e-mail system donating records to Smithsonian Museum - Innovation Economy - Boston.com
