Draft:Link7500
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Last edited by Jimfbleak (talk | contribs) 30 days ago. (Update) |
Link7500 (née EasyLink) was, along with British Telecom Gold (a.k.a. BT Gold), a pioneering electronic mail system.
It was started in the UK as "Easylink" by a joint venture between the US company Western Union - whose system Easylink was - and Cable & Wireless Ltd (hereinafter "C&W"). Shortly after the launch in the UK of Mercury Communications (hereinafter "Mercury"), a joint venture between C&W, British Petroleum, Barclays Bank and the UK government, Easylink operations were moved from C&W to Mercury. It was rebranded to the less than snappy "Link 7500" as, at that time, Mercury's services were branded with numbers (e.g. X25 connectivity was named "Mercury 5000").
Its USP was its ability to send telexes to and receive telexes from any telex machine worldwide.
It was accessed using a simple modem - at the start using an acoustic coupler - and any terminal that could receive and transmit ASCII.
Its user interface was somewhat arcane. Users were assigned an 11-character number, prefixed with "19" for UK users and "42" for US users. These were addressed as "+[user_number]" for emails. Telex messages were address using the prefix "/TLX " followed by the full telex number, including country code. Messages were finalised by adding the line "/PTS", a hangover from telex days where users would press a button labelled "PTS" (Proceed To Select) on their machine's keyboard.