How drinking led to texting

Today, it seems like text messaging has been around forever. Truth be told, though, texting is a fairly recent phenomena. The first SMS (short message service) began in 1993, but texting really didn’t become popular until 2001, when text capable cell phones were introduced. Text messaging is most popular in Asia, especially in China. In 2007, 700 million text messages were sent between Chinese cell phone users, which is actually far LESS than the number of texts sent in the United States. In May of 2010, it was reported that 72% of adult Americans sent and received test messages. At the end of 2009, 286 million cell phone users (out of a total population of a little more than 300,000,000 people) were sending an average of 152.7 billion text messages PER MONTH.

Makes you want to LOL, doesn't it?

Cell phones were first introduced in 1973. As of today’s date, it seems like everyone on the planet has their own cell phone, or access to one. China alone has over 300,000,000.

It may surprise you to know that “text messaging” has been around much longer than the either the cell phone or the “land line” that was patented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. To be totally accurate, Mr. Bell wasn’t the first person to invent the telephone as we know it, since an Italian man named Antonio Meucci constructed the first working acoustic telephone way back in 1834.

In 1836, American artist Samuel F.B. Morse, American physicist Joseph Henry, and a man named Alfred Vail invented the electric telegraph system., but it wasn’t used commercially until 1844. In spite of the proliferation of the internet and the telephone, the telegraph is still being used today. Over the years, the basic system has been refined. In recent years, operators have started to add the common text message abbreviations (such as LOL) to speed up the process. The official speed record for traditional Morse code typing was set in Australia in 1939, a blistering 75.2 words per minute.

What brought this topic to mind is a bottle of Australian Shiraz that I recently purchased from a local wine store. On the cover was a label that looked like this

…
….
..
.-.
.-
- -..

The wine was produced by Henry’s Drive Vignerons to honor the Morse Codian fraternity in Australia. Since I’ve never studied Morse Code, I used the website below to help me translate the label.

how do you read Morse Code?

The confusing combination of dots and dashes shown about spells out “Shiraz”. Just as Google Translate has allowed me to publish articles in Gaelic, French, Mandarin, and Arabic, the website immediately above can be used to translate entire paragraphs into Morse Code. The paragraph about the wine is translated like this:

- .... . .-- .. -. . .-- .- ... .--. .-. --- -.. ..- -.-. . -.. -... -.-- .... . -. .-. -.-- ... -.. .-. .. ...- . ...- .. --. -. . .-. --- -. ... - --- .... --- -. --- .-. - .... . -- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. .. .- -. ..-. .-. .- - . .-. -. .. - -.-- .. -. .- ..- ... - .-. .- .-.. .. .- .-.-.- ... .. -. -.-. . .. ...- . -. . ...- . .-. ... - ..- -.. .. . -.. -- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. . --..-- .. ..- ... . -.. - .... . .-- . -... ... .. - . -... . .-.. --- .-- - --- .... . .-.. .--. -- . - .-. .- -. ... .-.. .- - . - .... . .-.. .- -... . .-..


Prior to the invention of the telegraph, the earliest form of texting goes back to around 150 B.C. With some modern refinements, it would look like this today:



By the way, the wine was very good