/dev/nikc/blog

bq.. Mail-from: Arpanet host CMU-10A rcvd at 10-NOV-82 0826-PST
Date: 10 November 1982 1126-EST (Wednesday)
From: James.Morris at CMU-10A
To: csl^ at PARC-MAXC, isl^ at PARC-MAXC, junk^ at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Communications Breakthrough
Message-Id: <10Nov82 112614 JM90@CMU-10A>

Because you can’t see the person who is sending you electronic
mail you are sometimes uncertain whether they are serious or
joking. Recently, Scott Fahlman at CMU devised a scheme for
annotating one’s messages to overcome this problem. If you turn
your head sideways to look at the three characters :-) they look
sort of like a smiling face. Thus, if someone sends you a
message that says “Have you stopped beating your wife?:-)” you
know they are joking. If they say “I need to talk to you :-(”,
be prepared for trouble.

Since Scott’s original proposal, many further symbols have bee
proposed here:

(:) for messages dealing with bicycle helmets,
@= for messages dealing with nuclear war,
<:) for dumb questions,
oo for somebody’s head-lights are on messages,
o>-<|= for messages of interest to women,
~= a candle, to annotate flaming messages

So you see, bit-map displays are really quite unnecessary :-)

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