Covered in The New York Times WBUR MIT Alumni Association kottke.org High Tech History Multicians The Real Paul Jones Ruffle
In 1965 Tom Van Vleck and Noel Morris wrote a program called MAIL so they could leave each other notes on a shared mainframe. Errol Morris, Noel’s brother, wrote a five-part series about it for the New York Times. Accompanying it is a reconstructed 1965 terminal that a reader can sit down at, write a program on, and send mail from.
The typewriter on screen is a real IBM. The piece ran as a New York Times interactive feature under a byline shared with Morris.