It’s been found. A cyber-archaeological undertaking that rivals any of the pick-and-shovel variety has struck paydirt: the first, honest-to-goodness appearance of the ASCII “smiley.”
And you better get out those cards and cameras: his (or her?) twentieth birthday is September 19.
Awesome. It took some research, an ancient 9-track tape drive, and the elbow grease of one Jeff Baird, a facilities worker at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science. Great work, all.
1 response so far ↓
1 Brian Dear // Sep 13, 2002 at 9:54 am
Actually, PLATO had smileys and emoticons YEARS before 1982. Check out my site for proof:
http://www.platopeople.com/emoticons.html
Leave a Comment