Happy Birthday (maybe)
By BarBaraPrz
@BarBaraPrz (45487)
St. Catharines, Ontario
September 18, 2007 7:31am CST
Apparently, the computer smiley face is 25 years old now. (See article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070918/ap_on_hi_te/emoticon_anniversary_3;_ylt=ApZ5ynM4v.GKk7xlhzbbS_f0kPUI)
But, I don't know. I mean, before computer message boards and chat rooms, there were 'apa's -- amateur press associations where people produced little 'zines for limited distribution, using typewriters. That's where expressions such as lol, lmao, tnstaafl, etc. originated.
Apas started in the '40s... I'm sure SOMEONE must have used a smiley face at least once before Professor Fahlman. Unfortunately, I no longer have any of my apas from the early '70s to corroborate my theory, but I do know that we used smiley faces in handwritten notes in the '60s and '70s.
Right now, I'm looking at two stickers I had put on my wardrobe when I was in highschool (1966-70). One, smiley, has a word balloon that says "Smile!" The other, frowny, answers back, "...but it hurts!" They're a little faded, but they're still there... I guess they used better materials then. (In fact, the stickers are made of material, not paper.)
:o) :o) :o)
1 person likes this
2 responses
@patgalca (18181)
• Orangeville, Ontario
18 Sep 07
Okay, Barb, you have me stumped. What is tnstaafl. In all the puter lingo I have heard and used over the years, I have never seen that one. What the heck does that mean?
I cut out a headline from a newspaper several years ago that I have on my fridge (along with hundreds of magnets and pictures of my kids and family) that reads "Choose to be happy".
Anyway, I think myLot should make the real smilies available for use on here. It has been mentioned before. I wonder why they haven't picked up on it. Do they think people would abuse them and think they would get paid for just putting a bunch of smilies on their posts?
1 person likes this
@BarBaraPrz (45487)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
18 Sep 07
TNSTAAFL?
There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
As for "real" smilies... is this not real? :o) :-O :D ;o} :o(
To answer your question about abusing them, I have been on other boards where people often answer just with a smiley or three, some quite large... hmmm, come to think of it, wasn't The Dollhouse bad for that?
@nancyrowina (3850)
•
18 Sep 07
I agree how can he back it up he was the first person to use a smiley face? It must have been done before it's not rocket science to work out how to make a smiley face with keyboard symbols, and type writers existed before computers.
@BarBaraPrz (45487)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
18 Sep 07
They even taught us, in typing class, how to make pictures using various keystrokes. I remember Snoopy was popular at the time. You can still do them with a computer but you have to make sure you're using monospace characters.
