Email History

When V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai created the first email system in 1978 for UMDNJ at Newark, NJ, he literally created the electronic version of paper postal mail. Mail meant interoffice / inter-organization communications. A typical mail piece was the MEMORANDUM, with “To:”, “From:”, “Date:”, “Subject:”, “Cc:”, “Bcc:”, “Attachment”, elements. As a high school student, Ayyadurai was challenged by the Director of the Computer Laboratory at UMDNJ, Les Michelson, to create an “Electronic Mail” system for UMDNJ, the electronic version of the interoffice paper mail system.