E-mail was invented at the MIT in the mid 1960s as a communications tool for the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), several years before ARPANET (which later became the Internet) was started. It was used on several operating systems during the 1960s, including MIT’s CTSS and SDC’s Q32, and it was also a basic feature in the MULTICS system (the predecessor of UNIX) which was being developed around the same time.

About 30 years earlier, the Hormel Foods Corporation was facing the problem that one of their major products, the Hormel Spiced Ham, was losing market share. They decided to re-brand the product, and on July 5, 1937, it was relaunched as "Spam", a name chosen from multiple entries in a naming contest ("Spam" could in fact be considered to by an abbreviation for "SPiced hAM" or "Shoulder of Pork and hAM", depending on which source you rely). Many jocular backronyms have been devised, such as "Something Posing As Meat" and "Spare Parts Animal Meat" for example. A Short History Of Spam - Popular Science and Technology Blog by Jos Kirps

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