:-) The history of the ASCII emoticon.

Super Nerd!

No such thing.

Noids is noids.

They cannot transcend.

He's already transcended...just look at him!

they can
tran·scend (trān-sěnd') Pronunciation Key
v. tran·scend·ed, tran·scend·ing, tran·scends
1. To pass beyond the limits of: emoti(c)ons that transcend understanding.

Personally, I think Fahlman did the culture of the net a terrific service. Often, when one writes quickly on the internet, the meaning of the message is vague to the viewer. This, I believe, is because when you see somthing on the net, you are not either hearing the person's voice, or observing his body language. An emoticon can quickly illustrate to the viewer of the message, the emotional tone that the writer of the piece is expressing.

Over the years, until I got to know a certain few members, I would have difficulty understanding the meaning of what they were writing. I think that this is also why some newbies get put off, when they don't understand the quirks and foibles of some of our members, and take umbrage at something that was not meant to be negative, only wry. An emoticon can handle that communication problem nicely

The legend in the deaf community is that we started it, with teletypewriters. Way before 1982. I don't know if that's true or not -- I didn't start using a tty until 1984 or so. I do know that I picked up emoticons from tty usage, and was using them in email before many other people I knew were.

(A friend of mine just asked me what those "D"s in my emails to her meant!! I was like eh? Then she said yeah, like a colon and then a D -- what's that mean? )

I'm fairly confident that many text abbreviations (brb et al) originated with tty's. I have a list of abbreviations somewhere that I taught in an ASL class in the early 90's -- I remember that the (hearing) people who took the class were mystified by them. (They're all standard now.)

I think he can only lay claim to the first ASCII emoticon, and the article says that there were precedents:

Nonsense.


A smile doth not a transcendence betoken.




Emoticons do not transcend understanding...though they may beggar it.

This takes it pretty far back...

Dang it. I can't even remember the name of the keyboard artist we had on Abuzz. He did some fantastic work, though.

I think you were speaking of Andrew T or something, I always thought he was just copying and pasting them from the same places I was.

That's the one. I never suspected either one of you of copying.

: (

Type all that out? Nah, of all the people I've seen use them I don't know anyone who actually spends their time making them themselves, they are copied and pasted around the web most of the time. The only times I ever made an original one it was very simple and quick or I used a generator like this:

http://www.degraeve.com/img2txt.php