IP: History of the word "spam" revealed

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 19:42:54 -0800
> From: Brad Templeton <brad () templetons com>
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
>
>
>
> After the google archive came up, I went on some etymological hunts,
> to see if I could find the origin of some terms.  I had always predicted
> that the net, moving some of our oral traditions into writing, would
> become a goldmine for historians who could see, in documentary form,
> exactly what was said and when.
>
> I hunted for a few things, found some, could not find others.
>
> In this new essay at:
>         http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamterm.html
>
> I explore the history of the term "spam" and the first famous net
> spams, and at the end, I include a brief reference to the origin
> of the term "net surfing."
>
> Send me your comments and corrections, and I will revise.  I've found
> all sorts of great history in the archive, some of it mine, some
> that of others.  Famous hoaxes.  The birth of internet domain systems.
> The birth of the web and dot-coms and so much of our modern history.
>
>
> Short summary:  Spam probably began around 1989 or 1990 in MUDs
> (multi-user interactive environments) to refer to flooding the MUD, its
> chat or its database with stuff.  In 1993 a bug in a program by Richard
> Depew that spewed 200 articles to a newsgroup got called a spam by
> Joel Furr, a Mudder.  The first deliberate spam said that Christ was Coming
> soon, and 4 months later the green card lawyers made their history, and
> the term took off in a major way.

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