Could electronic mail undermine conventional post? – archive, 1 December 1983

1 December 1983: Electronic mail tends to be informal in style encouraging people to send brazen messages but even if you are abroad, work can follow you wherever you are

A colleague and I were in different parts of the United States recently and were due to meet at an international airport. I arrived to meet his 6 o'clock flight and to pass the time, went to a call box, put in 10 cents, dialled a local number and linked my handheld computer, via a local computer, to another computer in Britain. I then interrogated my electronic mailbox in London.

There was one new message. It read I got an earlier flight and have been sitting in the United Airways arrivals lounge since. Why the hell don't you read your mail more often?" I found him, sitting indignantly, only 100 yards away.