Long before students could check their BlitzMail accounts virtually anywhere on-campus, many students trekked to their Hinman Boxes to retrieve printouts of their e-mail messages.
Today, most students check their BlitzMail accounts several times a day, and the e-mail system has become a staple of Dartmouth life. BlitzMail, which was created over 20 years ago and has not undergone many changes since then, now seems outdated to many. Despite this, the Council on Computing has chosen to leave Blitz in its current form for now, though it may alter or replace it in the future.
In 2004, the Council on Computing commissioned an e-mail subcommittee to evaluate alternative systems to BlitzMail, identify important features in a new or revised e-mail program, and submit their recommendations to the Council. The committee examined other e-mail clients and sought to find a program which offered the advantages of Blitz without its current disadvantages.
After exploring other options, the committee recommended that "Dartmouth and [Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center] maintain BlitzMail in its current form as the primary e-mail client." It also advised the Council that Blitz should be updated "if significant problems arise with the current client," and that the Council should "review the status of e-mail applications annually." Yet, since the mid-'90s, Blitz has gone without any substantial updates.
Brian Chaboyer, physics professor and chair of the Council, explained that developing Blitz was not a current priority.
"The Council and I think the real issue is resources," he said. "How much does Dartmouth want to spend on Blitz, paying programmers? At this point the resources aren't there to provide significant upgrades to Blitz -- that's a priority issue. The general consensus was that it would be very expensive if we started to update Blitz. It wasn't clear whether it was the best time to do it, and when that time will be."
The subcommittee came up with additional suggestions for a revised system, such as a feature that would allow users to perform a keyword search in their messages. Also, Dartmouth now supports Thunderbird as an up-to-date e-mail client.
Although Chaboyer acknowledged that nothing could easily replace Blitz, he said the program still lacks certain features that other clients offer. The current system cannot support html, display photos or graphics, or send encrypted messages. Also, some users of other e-mail providers have difficulty sending files to users of BlitzMail.
Yet, the utility of the Dartmouth Name Directory and the ability to send vacation messages from the server are useful features that encourage Blitz's continued use among many students.
Because of the disadvantages of using BlitzMail, however, some account holders elect not to use the system, choosing to automatically forward their BlitzMail messages to a different account instead.
"I've been told that many faculty members hired within the last four years do not use blitz," Chaboyer said.
Some students also express frustration with BlitzMail's lack of features.
"As much as I use blitz, it is actually the most primitive e-mail client I have ever used," Chris Takeuchi '09 said. "Having a rapid-fire blitz conversation is trying to write on paper airplanes and throw them back and forth. ... Yet as much as I dislike blitz, I am forced to love and use it everyday."
The Council chair believes that the BlitzMail has not been updated mainly because of cost-efficiency concerns.
"The issue really is a long-term one," Chaboyer said. "Does the college want to invest a substantial amount of money updating blitz or should people use programs already out there? A final decision hasn't been made either way."
Upon recommendation, the Council will continue to meet annually to assess the current state of BlitzMail at Dartmouth.
While changes to Dartmouth's e-mail system have not been typical in recent years, the system has seen a gradual, yet dramatic evolution from its initial form.
According to Stephen Campbell's "Campus E-mail for Everyone: Making It Work in Real Life," the first form of e-mail at Dartmouth was a line-oriented mail program on the Dartmouth College Timesharing System in the early '80s. Used primarily by students, faculty and staff of the Computer Science department and Computing Services, the program could only be used on campus, as it depended on a central computer connection.
Dartmouth recommended the Macintosh computer, new at the time, for personal computer use by students and staff after evaluating it in 1984. Efforts began to convert the campus network to AppleTalk and wire all dormitory rooms. The $750,000 project took about half a year to install 2,600 LocalTalk ports.
In the fall of 1984, students could use DarTerminal, a terminal emulator, to connect to the central computers. The original e-mail program still remained, however, and seemed antiquated by then.
Dartmouth began to research commercial e-mail systems that were Macintosh-compatible, but failed to find one that could serve the thousands of students, faculty and staff at Dartmouth.
In 1987, several college software developers began to create a client/server Macintosh mail program and came up with a prototype system within two months. They called this package "blitz mail," after the blitz of effort that had given rise to the new e-mail system. Later on, BlitzMail was adapted to be Windows PC-compatible.
The DND, which listed all student, faculty and staff at the College and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, was fundamental to this new system. BlitzMail messages can be sent by merely addressing the message to the person's name, and the web address (i.e. @dartmouth.edu) can be omitted.
Even users who are unsure of a person's last name or how to spell the recipient's name can simply type in any part of a person's name in the lookup window, and a list of matches is displayed. Students and staff can create nicknames and add their Hinman Box and phone number to their DND entry.
In the late '80s, the College expanded its ethernet network across campus and extended campus wiring to include administrative buildings, fraternities and sororities, thereby increasing the area accessible to BlitzMail.
Before purchasing personal computers became compulsory for students, a paper e-mail system allowed for messages to be sent to students without computers. Sent e-mails were printed and delivered to the recipient's Hinman Box. It generally took under a day for a message to get from a computer to a mailbox.
In the early '90s, users sought a mechanism to provide them with time-critical messages about specific topics. Dartmouth Bulletins, which contained announcements from student, academic and administrative organizations, were created. Developers enabled users to click on these topics and read them when they desired. Students could also choose to "monitor" the topic if they wished to continually receive updates.
BlitzMail became available outside of Dartmouth in 1994, when the first non-Dartmouth sites were established.
