Holiday Greetings On December 3, 1992, 22-year-old software programmer Neil Papworth sent the world’s first text message. It said, “Merry Christmas.” –vodafone.com
You read it first in this week’s The Factory in Guide magazine.
“Neil had been working as a developer and test engineer to create a Short Message Service (SMS) for his client, Vodafone. That very first text, sent on the 3rd December 1992, simply said, ‘Merry Christmas.’” And just like that – texting to cell phones was born! Today, it seems like life as usual for us. But back in 1992 it was a breakthrough similar to the likes of Alexander Graham Bell who was one of the first to send voice waves through a telephonic device in the 1800s!
Communicating and the need to send messages to others is a necessity of our world, but how messages were sent (and by what means) has all evolved over the years has been astonishing. To go from simple letter writing to the telegraph, from the telephone to computers, and from cell phones to social media are all great leaps.
Imagine what things were like for your grandparents or great grandparents. In the 1800s to early 1900s, letter writing was primarily the only way to communicate. Letters could take weeks depending where you were mailing from and where you were mailing to. If you were mailing overseas, it could take an especially long time because those would go by ship. And ships were at the mercy of the weather and pirates.
The Pony Express was established in April of 1860 which helped to make the mailing of letters go a little faster, but you had to be lucky enough to live along their routes. This was an express mail service that connected the east to the west using relays of horse-mounted riders who would race between Missouri and California. However, it only lasted about a year and a half. This is primarily because of technology and machine advancement.
One advancement was the completion of the transcontinental telegraph line in October 1861. Sending messages over the wire using morse code pioneered by inventor Samuel F. B. Morse. Another was trains. Eventually trains and rails were a great way to send mail because obviously they were much faster than horses. Soon there were rails going clear across the country.
Well, eventually the telephone was invented. Alexander Graham Bell won the first U.S. patent for the device in 1876. They started coming into homes for general use in the early 1900s. From there to our time we have come a long way. The cell phone alone used to be a huge device and now we can each carry one in our pocket. Alexander Graham Bell would be astonished!
Yes, technology has certainly come a long way! And because of that progress, so have our methods of communicating. Who knows what new progress will come along in the years ahead! Well, progress or not, we hope you all take the time to slow down and remember the Reason for the season; that God sent the best message of all in His Son Jesus! Happy Holidays!
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