Ray Tomlinson

Raymond Samuel Tomlinson was an American computer programmer who implemented the first email program on the ARPANET system, the precursor to the Internet, in 1971; It was the first system able to send mail between users on different hosts connected to ARPANET. Previously, mail could be sent only to others who used the same computer. To achieve this, he used the @ sign to separate the user name from the name of their machine, a scheme which has been used in email addresses ever since. The Internet Hall of Fame in its account of his work commented "Tomlinson's email program brought about a complete revolution, fundamentally changing the way people communicate." He is credited with the invention of the TCP three-way handshake which underlies HTTP and many other key Internet protocols.

23 April 1941

Born on the same birth date (23 April 1941): Arie den Hartog • Ed Stewart • Jacqueline Boyer • Michael Lynne • Paavo Lipponen

Born on the same birth day (23 April): Albert Coates (musician) • Claude Julien (ice hockey) • Cleto Bellucci • E. B. Ford • Frans Koppelaar • Gezahegne Abera • James Buchanan • Jesse Lee Soffer • John Cena • Karl Rosenkranz • Lee Majors • Lenka Wienerová • Oleg Penkovsky • Ray Peterson • Rui Fonte • Stephen A. Douglas • William Penn (Royal Navy officer) • Willie Mitchell (ice hockey) • Yelena Shushunova

Born in the same month (April 1941): Ann-Margret • Arie den Hartog • Gideon Gadot • Greville Howard, Baron Howard of Rising • Iryna Zhylenko • Jacqueline Boyer • James Di Pasquale • Jean-Marc Reiser • John Madejski • John Williams (guitarist) • Kay Adams (singer) • Max Merritt • Michael Lynne • Michel Roux • Paavo Lipponen • Peter Fluck • Philippé Wynne • Richard Holbrooke • Sonny Throckmorton • Zia Uddin