We don’t want to make you feel old but it has been 25 years since the first text message was sent.

Yep, people started exchanging texts a quarter of a century ago.

Today is the anniversary of the first SMS (short message service), which simply said ‘Merry Christmas’.

It was typed by test engineer Neil Papworth in 1992, who was 22 years old at the time.

He sent it to his colleague using his PC as a way of celebrating the milestone.

‘I don’t know if they really thought it was going to be a big thing,’ Mr Papworth said.

He could not have been more wrong though, with Elizabeth Bruton, who works for the Science Museum, letting everyone know how important the SMS was.

Ms Bruton, the institute’s curator of technology and engineering, told Sky News: ‘For the very first time we have mobile telephones that were more than just literal mobile telephones, moving beyond voice communications to a new application of the mobile spectrum – to sending, literally, text messages.

She added: ‘And we can see that continuation through to today when we have hundreds of thousands of applications on our smartphone.

‘So SMS can be considered the first step towards the modern smartphone.’

Source:
courtesy of METRO

by Jimmy Nsubuga

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