Fernando J. Corbató was a Professor Emeritus at MIT, renowned for his pioneering work in the development of time-sharing and resource-sharing computer systems. He was instrumental in creating the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) and Multics, both influential systems that laid the groundwork for modern operating systems. Corbató's contributions have been widely recognized through numerous awards and fellowships, including the Turing Award (1990) and the Computer Pioneer Award (1982). He was a long-time member of the MIT Computation Center and the Laboratory for Computer Science, and held leadership positions within the department. His work significantly impacted the field of computer science and the evolution of computing technology.
The original 1965 chatbot restored on the world's first time-sharing system, ELIZA, created by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT in 1964-6, is running again on a reconstructed version of MIT's CTSS, running on an emulated IBM 7094.
This article details the implementation of electronic mail and text messaging on the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) from 1965 to 1973, providing historical context and development insights.