Comsys: You’ve Got Electronic Mail

A woman working on the Comsys system used to communicate with HP facilities all over the globe in 1974.

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Date: 1974

In 1974, Hewlett-Packard launched Comsys, a predecessor to the modern intranet and email. After years in development, Comsys created a network in which computers at Hewlett-Packard facilities all over the globe communicated with each other via phone lines. The system was primitive compared to what would come later — messages were bundled and sent only a few times a day from large HP 2100 computers, and an internal office mail system was still necessary to get a hard-copy message from the local Comsys station to its final recipient. But the technology was groundbreaking for its time and indicated a world of possibility. Based on its capability, Hewlett-Packard asserted, “the day may yet dawn when systems such as Comsys will be able to employ … true electronic mail.”