[sheepscreek]

Most *nix tools have their origins in the ‘70s-80s.

Email as a technology is ancient by today’s standards. SMTP protocol got established in 1982. Even sendmail dates as far back as the ‘70s.

[Alex3917]

This is a pretty good talk on the history of email: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrGfahzt-4Q

[doctorpangloss]

https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20...

Another great article

[deathslocus]

And the earlier technology of homing pigeons goes back even further