Grade: 7 Full name
Tasks for the Summative Assessment for the term 1
Reading
Today we talk to Ray Tomlinson, the man who invented @ and email.
(a
Q: When and why did you invent email?
It was in 1971 and I'm not sure there was a real reason for inventing it. It was
a fun thing to try out and probably took four to six hours to do. I can't
remember exactly how long it took Less than a day; spread over a week or
two
Q: How do you feel about spam and viruses?
I get annoyed when I get spam. It's a tough problem but we re going to solve
it. So far the solutions aren't working – they either filter too much or not enough. We must find a better way
to stop spam Viruses are another problem and you usually get them from an email attachment or a
downloaded app or file. For example, an ISP could throw away all emails with attachments, but then email
wouldn't be any use. We'll have to find a solution.
Q: Does it bother you that you're not a household name that most people don't know what
vou ve done?
No, it doesn't bother me. Computer nerds know that I've done it I get emails from people who say "What
you did is great. Why don't you do something about spam? It's a kind of nice that some people are interested
in what I did – but it's not the center of my life.
