The inventor of email and the @ symbol dies

Imagine a world where email didn’t exist and the @ symbol simply just looked like the letter a with a circle around it. On Saturday we celebrated the life of Ray Tomlinson, the inventor of the contemporary email system who died of an apparent heart attack at age 74.

The year was 1971 when Tomlinson developed a system for sending electronic messages between computers while working for tech firm, BBN (now Raytheon). It was this system that introduced the @ symbol which he once told CNET he created as a way “of separating the user and the computer name.”

Raytheon spokesman Mike Doble confirmed his death and said, “A true technology pioneer, Ray was the man who brought us email in the early days of networked computers.” “His work changed the way the world communicated and yet, for all his accomplishments, he remained humble, kind and generous with his time and talents.”

He forever changed our ability to contact friends, family and colleagues. Thank you Ray for striving to achieve what once would have seemed impossible.

Thank you, Ray Tomlinson, for inventing email and putting the @ sign on the map. #RIP

— Gmail (@gmail) March 6, 2016