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Texting Is 25 Years Old (cnet.com)
Readers share a report: The first text message was sent on Dec. 3, 1992, by British engineer Neil Papworth to Richard Jarvis, an executive at British telecom Vodafone. Typed out on a PC, it was sent to Jarvis's Orbitel 901, a mobile phone that would take up most of your laptop backpack. Although Papworth is credited with sending the first text message, he's not the so-called father of SMS. That honor falls on Matti Makkonen, who initially suggested the idea back in 1984 at a telecommunications conference. But texting didn't take off over night. First it had to be incorporated into the then-budding GSM standard. Today, about 97 percent of smartphone owners use text messaging, according to Pew Research, and along the way, a new set of sub-languages based on abbreviations and keyboard-based imagery has evolved.
I am willing to bet half of them wern't actually talking to people, but wanted to show off that they were successful enough to have a mobile phone. However they probably wern't actually talking to people, because the rates were ridiculously expensive and prohibitive.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Curiously, the OP fails to mention that the original intended use for what we now know as Texts or SMS Messages was in fact as a means to aid troubleshooting around the cellular network.
The mobile operators were in the process of switching over from the older, poorer quality but better-understood analogue mobile phone network, shifting to an all-digital future. The "SMS Message" came about - along with defining characteristics such as the limited message size - because that was the available "space" in the protocols which support the infrastructure.
In essence, Text Messages were a tool for engineers to help them diagnose problems with the new network.
The decision to actually sell them as a product was quite separate - and, as history has shown, a stroke of genius.
The crazy thing is that text messages are still a more universal platform, allowing any person with a mobile phone to message anyone else using a different service provider. The alternatives, such as Facebook Messenger, Viber, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Slack and Skype are all islands keeping communications with their borders. Even e-mail is still more universal.
I am looking forward to the day that I can text message anyone on any platform, from any other platform. Jabber tried doing that, but from what I understand suffered from technical limitations. Maybe we need a proper 'SX' (short message exchange) field in the DNS records and IETF define an RFC for some universal platform? Then again, without a government mandate, I doubt we will see this happen.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
You're either too young or too dense to remember a time when loudmouths with mobile phones roamed the earth.
I'll take 10,000 silent smartphone zombies over one loud motherfucker any day of the week...
True and somewhat insightful. However after having been rear ended by one a few years back and watching the horror show on the road with cell phones these days it would be far better if there was a driving block on cell towers signal that can only be overridden by signaling a disclaimer that you are a passenger not a fucking driver and that includes bicycle couriers and the like. Of course I can hear the howls of derision of this suggestion but if you kill someone while using a cell phone while driving you should be charged with the exact same charge as impaired driving.
It is sad when you see young parents in their cars with children using a cell phone behind the wheel and socially this kind of murderously stupid suicidal behavior must stop.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
In the rest of the world the sender pays the bill
Yes, "receiver pays" is an American thing. The reason is that at the very beginning mobile phones were overlaid on top of the existing phone system, with the same area codes, and it was impossible for a caller to know if they were calling a landline or a mobile. In America, this is mostly still true.
In most of the rest of the world, mobile phones have a different prefix, and often even a different number of digits. You can look at a phone number, and in a glance you can tell that it is a mobile number. So "caller pays" is reasonable. This is one reason that other countries have a lot less phone spam, and a lot less robo-calling.
T9 worked pretty well
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I could type English on a 9 character phone keypad about as fast as I type on SwiftKey on a touchscreen on an Android device. I think the problem is that on a touchscreen the touch errors are quite large so it's easy to hit the wrong key and have to correct it later. With T9 and a physical keyboard you're much less likely to hit the wrong key. SwiftKey is pretty good and fixing errors with one extra tap on the right word though.
But in terms of speed I'd say it's a wash - both are about as fast.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
...nor could I accept that poor spelling, syntax and grammar that it required.
Now wee get hour pure s pet Ling, sin tax and bad Grandma from Otto correct.
Can confirm. I was a teen during the mentioned period, and I was an absolute tank at numpad typing. T9 autopredection was terrible, though. That was the one where you could, for example, type 44 to get "hi" instead of 44[pause]444. The only way you can come close to that level of pocket-texting these days is by learning morse code and installing a morse code keyboard... It works, but it's still not as efficient as the good ol' days.
You don't need to pause. You can press "Right" and go right back to hitting the 4 button but on a new character. Some older phones you had to press "Left", then "Right", but always quicker than the pause delay.
If the traffic light is about to turn green, and I still have two more messages to send, then I don't have time to spell everything out.
I hope you're being sarcastic. If you are reading and sending text messages while you are driving a car you deserve to lose your license. I have absolutely zero tolerance for anyone who believes that they can safely operate a 2 ton vehicle when they aren't looking at the road; such menaces should lose their license on the first offense and face a severe penalty.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I have absolutely zero tolerance for anyone who believes that they can safely operate a 2 ton vehicle when they aren't looking at the road
I appreciate your concern, but my vehicle weighs over 4 tons, which is more than enough inertia to protect me in an accident while texting. Don't worry, I will be safe.