Nineteen years ago today, the first text message was sent (it said "Merry Christmas"). And now, there are too many collective IMHOs, LOLs and BRBs to count …
From The Borneo Post:
NINETEEN years ago, when the first text was sent that was a ‘cya l8er’ to communication as we knew it.
Neil Papworth was a 22-year-old test engineer in December 1992 when he first texted a friend ‘Merry Christmas’.
Writing from his work computer at the Sema Group, he sent the SMS (or ShortMessage Service) to an Orbitel 901 handset on the Vodafone network.
Since then, the 160-character messages have revolutionised the way wecommunicate, date, work and network, along with fostering a completelyalternate vernacular.
What would life be without OMG, LOL, TTYL and ‘cya l8er’? And – heaven forbid – without emoticons?
For many teens, who have never known life without a mobile phone, the world pre-texting seems inconceivable.
Landlines and snail mail are long gone, pagers and the fax machine were overbefore they began, and the world has been left texting, tweeting,chatting and IM’ing into oblivion.
Still, the take up of texting was slow.
