Carolyn Koo, a dear friend from college, just brightened my morning with a blast from the past. It’s one of my very first emails, which I sent to her on 18 April 1994 (!). I would have been in graduate school at the LSE at that time, and my email address was kluth@vax.lse.ac.uk. (Don’t you love it? One step away from Morse Code.)

Here is an excerpt from my email:

how uplifting to know that this works. I find it absolutely mindboggling to
think that we’re conversing around the world via binary light impulses
(or is it still analogue copper waves?) Would you be so kind as to smoke-
(or is it still analogue copper waves?) Would you be so kind as to smoke-
signal me some other addresses…?
Why that line just reproduced itself above I don’t know. I had pressed the
up cursor thing and this happened. It seems it will be a while before I can
work this thing.

As Carolyn said in today’s email, “as we become comfortable with a specific technology/application, it’s often hard to remember when we first started using it and how unwieldy it was at the beginning…. I thought it intriguing to come across this “record” of when it happened for you — especially since you’re such the iPhone-using, blogging technology maven now!”