The History of Notes and Domino

The History of Notes and Domino

Notes and Domino began in the work of Ray Ozzie, Tim Halvorsen, and Len Kawell, first on PLATO Notes at the University of Illinois and later on DECNotes. Lotus founder Mitch Kapor saw the potential in Ozzie's collaboration project and the rest is history.

As you might expect of such complex and successful software, IBM Lotus Notes and Domino share a long and rich history. In some respects, this history mirrors the evolution of the computing industry itself -- the development and widespread adoption of PCs, networks, graphical user interfaces, communication and collaboration software, and the Web. Lotus Notes and Domino have been there nearly every step of the way, influencing (and being influenced by) all these critical developments.

This article briefly retraces the history of Lotus Notes and Domino, starting with the earliest conceptual and development stages and continuing through major feature releases. Along the way, it examines:
Where the idea of Notes originated
Notes pre-release development

Release 1.0
Release 2.0
Release 3.0
Release 4.0 and 4.5
Release 5.0
Release 6 and 6.5
Release 7
Release 8

The early days: The birth of an idea

You may find this a little surprising, but the original concept that eventually led to the Notes client and Domino server actually pre-dates the commercial development of the personal computer by nearly a decade. Lotus Notes and Domino find their roots in some of the first computer programs written at the Computer-based Education Research Laboratory (CERL) at the University of Illinois. In 1973, CERL released a product called PLATO Notes. At that time, the sole function of PLATO Notes was to tag a bug report with the user's ID and the date and to make the file secure so that other users couldn't delete it. The system staff could then respond to the problem report at the bottom of the screen. This kind of secure communication between users was the basis of PLATO Notes. In 1976, PLATO Group Notes was released. Group Notes took the original concept of PLATO Notes and expanded on it by allowing users to:

• Create private notes files organized by subject
• Create access lists
• Read all notes and responses written since a certain date
• Create anonymous notes
• Create director message flags
• Mark comments in a document
• Link notes files with other PLATO systems
• Use multiplayer games

PLATO Group Notes became popular and remained so into the 1980s. However, after the introduction of the IBM PC and MS-DOS by Microsoft in 1982, the mainframe-based architecture of PLATO became less cost-effective. Group Notes began to metamorphose into many other "notes type" software products.
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Ray Ozzie, Tim Halvorsen, and Len Kawell worked on the PLATO system at CERL in the late 1970s. All were impressed with its real-time communication. Halvorsen and Kawell later took what they learned at CERL and created a PLATO Notes-like product at Digital Equipment Corporation.

At the same time, Ray Ozzie worked independently on a proposal for developing a PC-based Notes product. At first, he was unable to obtain funding for his idea. However, Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation, saw potential in Ozzie'