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First ever email use in Ireland?

  • 09-03-2008 10:40am
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,026 ✭✭✭


    Just curious, what company or ogranisation would have sent or received the first emails in Ireland?

    Amazing to see the first use of 'email' going back to the mid 60's.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail


Comments

  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,583 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu19ie/uu19ie03.htm
    The first electronic computer to be used in Ireland was from International Computers and Tabulators (ICT 1201), a company formed by the merger of Hollerith and Power Samas. This punch card machine, with a printer speed of 100 lines a minute, was installed by the Sugar Company in Thurles, Co. Tipperary. According to Donovan, the early introduction of electronic processing in Ireland, only two years after the first commercial installation in the United States, was facilitated by the already established punch card bureau services.
    ...
    In 1969, Aer Lingus set up a separate computer department. The objective of this was to generate revenue by utilizing excess capacity on its in-house computers, following the installation of a second mainframe to provide backup to the reservations system. The new department was staffed from the parent company and was subsequently established as Cara Data Processing Ltd. In 1972, Aer Lingus took over another successful computer bureau, Irish Computer Bureau Services Ltd (ICBS), which was merged with Cara. The subsequent company, CARA/ICBS, holds in excess of 60 per cent of the Irish market for computer bureau services.10

    Apart from the Revenue Commissioners, the first use of computers in the Irish public service was by the Central Data Processing Services, with an IBM 370, in January 1973. A feature of the installation was the high volume of batch work that was processed over telecommunication lines. Four high-speed terminals were installed within months in the Department of Education, the Central Statistics Office, and the Health Boards. This remote operation was rapidly expanded to provide services to almost 20 sites, including a link to the Department of Social Welfare, which had installed two Honeywell minicomputers.9

    At university level, the first computer was installed in Trinity College, Dublin (TCD), in 1962, an IBM 1620, within the Engineering School. It was replaced in 1966/67 by an IBM 1130, and in 1968 by a System 360 model 44. University College, Cork (UCC), installed an IBM 1620 in 1964 to be replaced in 1969 by an IBM 1130. An IBM 1620 was also installed in University College, Dublin (UCD), in 1965, and replaced by an IBM 3650 in 1970. In University College, Galway (UCG), an IBM 1800 series machine was installed in 1967. It was replaced in 1977 by a DEC 2060.
    email was probably from the uni's ?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    I remember my dad logging onto his work mainframe in the early '80s and leaving messages for people. Messages sent on that kinda system were the original emails- predating the internet by quite some time. If the systems described by Capt'n Midnight allowed time-sharing access from dumb terminals, they may well have had "email" in Ireland as early as 1966-67 or so. If you mean internet email specifically, that could have been much later- perhaps as late as 1990.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,541 ✭✭✭irlrobins


    I'd also guess the universities as the internet grew from an academic genesis. I imagine email was part of this networking.


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