Like practically everyone on campus, David Gelhar '84 experiences a "kind of withdrawal" when he doesn't check blitz for a few hours. As one of the original designers of BlitzMail, though, Gelhar's appreciation for Blitz goes beyond that of most Dartmouth students. If that's even possible.
What was communication like at Dartmouth before BlitzMail?
Back in the '80s we had a Dartmouth timesharing system, which was basically one big computer for the whole campus. Everybody could login on that computer and send each other e-mail, but it was much more primitive than what we have now. It was popular, but obviously not to the extent that it is today.
When did Blitz come about?
It was the fall of 1987. The Mac first came out in 1984, which was also the year the campus was completely networked. It was pretty revolutionary at the time to have a "port per pillow," as we say. It was a much slower network than we have now, of course, and Kiewit quickly decided it would be good to come up with a better campus-wide e-mail system building on what we already had. The Dartmouth Name Directory actually existed before BlitzMail, so that became one of the major building blocks of the new system.
What did the original Blitz look like?
You would recognize that first version if somebody launched it up. It had the window on the side with the inbox and the separate message windows. A lot has changed though. It was in black and white, for example. Folders are new, and attachments. Early BlitzMail also didn't interoperate with other e-mail programs.
Was it successful initially?
Yes, actually. One of the early features of BlitzMail that was incredibly important in its acceptance was that until you first changed your settings, your e-mail was forwarded to your Hinman Box. So if somebody sent you an e-mail, it would get printed out and delivered to you. It would take a while, but you knew that if you sent something to someone at Dartmouth, it was going to get there. That was huge at the time. That probably ended about five years ago when it got down to the last few people and we said, "Alright, this is ridiculous."
Did it really take that long for Blitz as we know it to become popular?
Oh no, it mostly caught on very quickly, and the extent to which it permeated everybody's life was really surprising. I don't think anyone quite foresaw that. And that has to do with how quickly it delivers messages now -- you can count on somebody getting something within seconds. You can say, "Do you want to go have lunch?", whereas a lot of mail systems of the time, or even today for that matter, could take half an hour. I think it's a nice bonus that this really has gotten into the social fabric of the College and wasn't just a business function.
When did it become the phenomenon it is today?
The students were immediately all over it, and I think the introduction of Blitz stations made Blitz bigger, but I don't think it would have happened if there hadn't already been this demand, the, "I've got to be able to check my Blitz between classes" feeling. As far as adults went, the science departments and groups like that were, for the most part, very happy to have Blitz. But people in some of the other departments -- like an English professor or someone like that -- took a few years before they decided to put down their quill pens. I don't remember how long it was into the process but I do remember there was a little party at Kiewit when it delivered its millionth message. That took about three or four months.
How often are blitzes sent now?
It takes a few days to go through a million now -- there are about 150,000 blitzes sent a day. The world has changed.
How about nicknames? When did that happen?
That's part of something that was there from the very beginning. It's always been a completely open thing where you could put in whatever you want. Sometimes users end up fighting about it, people say, "Hey, you took my nickname!" That's something we try to stay out of and just say, "Can't you all be grown-ups?"
How will Blitz change in the future?
That's a very good question. It's sort of up in the air at this point. They're looking into shifting to something like Gmail, but there are security questions about moving it off-campus. There are some places where it's definitely behind compared to other mail programs, like not being able to compose a message in HTML. If you want to compose something with 17 fonts in bright blue with a picture in the background, well, it doesn't have those kinds of features.
Do you have any good blitz-related stories?
I'm sure I could think of something with some more time, but I can't right now. If I think of something, I'll blitz you.
