Remember when email was the killer app?

May 18, 2006 10:30 AM

Email used to be the ultimate application of the Internet, and there are still some interesting artifacts of that left behind today: As a source of randomness Email Roulette (which we've seen before) is my favorite application of email. TPC Remote Printing Service, a free mail-to-fax gateway, is pretty useful in a pinch and is something of an Old Internet institution with a history predating the web. Nearly as venerable is the more frivolous Internet Pizza Server from the days when the very idea of making a purchase over the Internet was funny, and the idea of browsing the web via email didn't seem so peculiar as it does today.
posted by majick (12 comments total)

Not mentioned in my post is spamgourmet, which was posted about years ago but continues to be my defensive weapon of choice when it comes to mail privacy.
posted by majick at 10:30 AM on May 18, 2006

good ol' pizza server. *sigh* those were the days.
posted by keswick at 10:42 AM on May 18, 2006

Archie was a FTP search engine that could be accessed through email as well.
posted by uncle harold at 11:08 AM on May 18, 2006

Wait, wait, wait. You can buy stuff on the internet now?
posted by dmd at 11:29 AM on May 18, 2006

Oh my goodness! Don't forget the Usenet Oracle, providing valuable answers via email since 1989. Just don't ask about w**dchucks.
posted by tew at 11:37 AM on May 18, 2006

Interesting post. Email still is a killer-app though. The email to fax gateway was one of the first ways Congress and the Whitehouse experienced the power of the Internet (before they were online and did everything via fax). Fax attacks.
posted by stbalbach at 1:51 PM on May 18, 2006

This was a funny joke in 1997
posted by jlub at 2:44 PM on May 18, 2006

Don't forget the CMU coke machine.
posted by simra at 4:48 PM on May 18, 2006

Ok.. strictly speaking... finger isn't email. But it's still cool. :-)
posted by simra at 4:49 PM on May 18, 2006

I was so looking for an email-web gateway a few months back... my google-fu is indeed weak. Ta for the link. *lopes off in shame*
posted by pompomtom at 5:31 AM on May 19, 2006

I wonder if anyone has archived the entire Usenet Oracle Q&A history?
posted by Meridian at 5:32 AM on May 19, 2006

pompomtom: Check out G. E. Boyd's page.

Or google "accmail".
posted by sonofsamiam at 6:28 AM on May 19, 2006