I used the first version of the internet. We used to send crude “emails” but they went to a printer. Later on they went to a screen. You had to have the printer ID or screen ID to send and everyone could read the messages.
We had an intranet kind of thing at my university in 1977, and by 1980 emails were going out of the science research facility where I worked. By 1985 my husband was trying to make me connect my circa 1982 home computer to his work computer so he could nag me during the day (NO).