DigitalBurn.com

It appears that tomorrow, May 3rd, is the 30th birthday of your friend and mine: email spam. And since we don’t exactly have baby pictures from the hospital to embarrass our friend Spam with, we offer you the next best thing: the first spam email message. It was sent across the ARPANET by Gary Thuerk, a marketing guy for computer maker Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).

We’ve stripped out the bogus headers (heck, even Spam had them then), but you can read the ‘meat’ of the message, so to speak, below:

DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T.  THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY OF COMPUTERS HAS EVOLVED FROM THE TENEX OPERATING SYSTEM
AND THE DECSYSTEM-10 <PDP-10> COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE.  BOTH THE DECSYSTEM-2060T
AND 2020T OFFER FULL ARPANET SUPPORT UNDER THE TOPS-20 OPERATING SYSTEM.
THE DECSYSTEM-2060 IS AN UPWARD EXTENSION OF THE CURRENT DECSYSTEM 2040
AND 2050 FAMILY. THE DECSYSTEM-2020 IS A NEW LOW END MEMBER OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AND FULLY SOFTWARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 MODELS.

WE INVITE YOU TO COME SEE THE 2020 AND HEAR ABOUT THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY
AT THE TWO PRODUCT PRESENTATIONS WE WILL BE GIVING IN CALIFORNIA THIS
MONTH.  THE LOCATIONS WILL BE:

               TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1978 - 2 PM
                   HYATT HOUSE (NEAR THE L.A. AIRPORT)
                   LOS ANGELES, CA

               THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1978 - 2 PM
                   DUNFEY'S ROYAL COACH
                   SAN MATEO, CA
                   (4 MILES SOUTH OF S.F. AIRPORT AT BAYSHORE, RT 101 AND RT 92)

A 2020 WILL BE THERE FOR YOU TO VIEW. ALSO TERMINALS ON-LINE TO OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 SYSTEMS THROUGH THE ARPANET. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND,
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT THE NEAREST DEC OFFICE
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXCITING DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY.

You can learn more about the original spam message, and even the history of the term, at Brad Templeton’s home page.

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