John Vittal

Developer of MSG, the first modern email program, Vittal is recognized as the person responsible for transforming the old email system into the highly user-friendly tool of today. A computer programmer who worked at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute, Vittal improved on the older version of email, called BANANARD, and created the new program MSG. MSG featured powerful capabilities like message forwarding, a configurable interface, and an Answer command that automatically created properly addressed replies.

To countless users, the Answer command was revolutionary. It resulted in an outburst of email use over a 6-month period. Another highlight of his work was that email changed from just sending independent messages into having a real conversation.