Smileys
Created | Updated Nov 4, 2002
The Smiley :-), a face made up of a circle, two eyes and a smiling mouth with no nose, was a symbol invented in the 60s. In the film Forrest Gump, it was claimed tongue in cheek, that Forrest had invented the Smiley but in fact it was invented by a Mr. Harvey R. Ball. It was usually drawn in black and yellow and as much as the Peace / Ban the Bomb sign, it was a symbol of the hippy generation. Sadly :-( Mr. Ball passed away in Massachesetts on April 4, 2001. His obituary is at: <http://www.s-t.com/daily/04-01/04-14-01/a04wn028.htm>
So much a part of American culture was the smiley symbol that when IBM produced the first "Personal Computer" they included a smiley in the character set, although by accounts it was hard to get it to display easily.
H2G2 Researchers have provided a great general description and original source for the smiley at <http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/Smiley>
In addition to that source a fascinating thread from an Eighties educational Bulletin Board exists: <http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Smiley/Joke_Thread.html> It claims it was the original creation of the emoticon or the ASCII symbol that represents the smiley. It seems to be posted as part of a Microsoft BBoard but at the same time is more like a university 'intranet'. It turns out to be part of a long Carnegie-Mellon University bulletin board thread in Pennsylvania circa 1982. After several attempts in the thread at comedy including a physics puzzle that leads to the evacuation of an elevator system, the need for a *humour* symbol was established.
That last part needs explaination. The original problem was this: if a candle burns on a ledge in an elevator and a blob of mercury is on the floor, what happens to them if the cable is cut? The original answer involved the candle going out due to a lack of convection and the blob of mercury creating a ball which pushes against the floor so that it bounces back and forth between floor and ceiling. These turned out to be gross simplifications of what might really happen but the thread eventually turned into a (mock?) mercury contamination issue.
As a result of that and other *humourous* posts the need for some kind of header that alerted people to the joke was obvious. Not only that but it was suggested that a symbol for serious communication was needed too! At first for humour '%' was put forward and '*' for something serious. Apparently were not funny enough or perhaps too hard to remember. '&' was considered since it 'looks like a laughing fat man' and '#' since it resembles the teeth of a grin. This was also supposedly what someone would look like if they 'laughed their heads off'. Finally on the 19th of September, 1982 at 11:44 a gentleman named Scott E. Fahlman suggested the famous : - ) and : - ( (in their symbol form). Also (-: and )-: which seem to be interchangeable with their reverse cousins in this thread (only fair for all the left handed typists out there). It would appear that someone else called it a 'smiley' or 'emoticon'. What's the other one called anyway, a frowny?
Confirmation in the form of a free encyclopedia entry is at: (<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon>) which in part states;
"(An) Emoticon is a synthetic portmanteau word based on "emotion" and "icon." An emoticon, also called a smiley, is a sequence of ASCII characters used to represent a human face and express an emotion. Emoticons that express happy or positive emotions are typically classified as smileys.....The creator of the original ASCII emoticons ": - )" and ": - (" was Scott Fahlman(?); the original proposal made by Fahlman on CMU CS general bboard on September 19 1982 (at 11:44) was retrieved from old backup tapes on September 10 2002 by Jeff Baird(?)."
It is interesting to note that part of the ML of this system automatically converted the : - ) symbol (without spacing) into the smiley :-). This was further complicated by the fact that when ":" was used followed by "(" to denote the start of an HTML address, it was converted to :( <!> It seems we are travelling a well marked road, carefully planned. Incidentally if you want to find out something about an ASCII emoticon you can look it up at a .com site named simply emoticon. Another great site with lots of information is at: <http://blacksun.box.sk/acro.html#emoticons>
It's nice to know that all the smileys of the world in all their weird and wonderful variation came from a few practical jokes based on a physics puzzle. Incidentally, have you seen this one? k:-0
That's the emoticon for "Oh, my God! There's an axe in my head!", an important phrase that has been translated into 102 different languages at <http://www.yamara.com/junk/xl970512.html>. (Thanks again, GTB<!>) All this humour from a simple QWERTY keyboard sort of gives you hope for all the dry dusty scientists out there not to mention their students (or the rest of us!).
Don't forget to say Happy Birthday!<cake> to the ASCII smiley :-) (or perhaps more properly the emoticon) on it's (next) birthday! Not to mention a hearty Cheers!<cheers> to Mr. Ball and Mr. Fahlman.
So much a part of American culture was the smiley symbol that when IBM produced the first "Personal Computer" they included a smiley in the character set, although by accounts it was hard to get it to display easily.
H2G2 Researchers have provided a great general description and original source for the smiley at <http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/Smiley>
In addition to that source a fascinating thread from an Eighties educational Bulletin Board exists: <http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Smiley/Joke_Thread.html> It claims it was the original creation of the emoticon or the ASCII symbol that represents the smiley. It seems to be posted as part of a Microsoft BBoard but at the same time is more like a university 'intranet'. It turns out to be part of a long Carnegie-Mellon University bulletin board thread in Pennsylvania circa 1982. After several attempts in the thread at comedy including a physics puzzle that leads to the evacuation of an elevator system, the need for a *humour* symbol was established.
That last part needs explaination. The original problem was this: if a candle burns on a ledge in an elevator and a blob of mercury is on the floor, what happens to them if the cable is cut? The original answer involved the candle going out due to a lack of convection and the blob of mercury creating a ball which pushes against the floor so that it bounces back and forth between floor and ceiling. These turned out to be gross simplifications of what might really happen but the thread eventually turned into a (mock?) mercury contamination issue.
As a result of that and other *humourous* posts the need for some kind of header that alerted people to the joke was obvious. Not only that but it was suggested that a symbol for serious communication was needed too! At first for humour '%' was put forward and '*' for something serious. Apparently were not funny enough or perhaps too hard to remember. '&' was considered since it 'looks like a laughing fat man' and '#' since it resembles the teeth of a grin. This was also supposedly what someone would look like if they 'laughed their heads off'. Finally on the 19th of September, 1982 at 11:44 a gentleman named Scott E. Fahlman suggested the famous : - ) and : - ( (in their symbol form). Also (-: and )-: which seem to be interchangeable with their reverse cousins in this thread (only fair for all the left handed typists out there). It would appear that someone else called it a 'smiley' or 'emoticon'. What's the other one called anyway, a frowny?
Confirmation in the form of a free encyclopedia entry is at: (<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon>) which in part states;
"(An) Emoticon is a synthetic portmanteau word based on "emotion" and "icon." An emoticon, also called a smiley, is a sequence of ASCII characters used to represent a human face and express an emotion. Emoticons that express happy or positive emotions are typically classified as smileys.....The creator of the original ASCII emoticons ": - )" and ": - (" was Scott Fahlman(?); the original proposal made by Fahlman on CMU CS general bboard on September 19 1982 (at 11:44) was retrieved from old backup tapes on September 10 2002 by Jeff Baird(?)."
It is interesting to note that part of the ML of this system automatically converted the : - ) symbol (without spacing) into the smiley :-). This was further complicated by the fact that when ":" was used followed by "(" to denote the start of an HTML address, it was converted to :( <!> It seems we are travelling a well marked road, carefully planned. Incidentally if you want to find out something about an ASCII emoticon you can look it up at a .com site named simply emoticon. Another great site with lots of information is at: <http://blacksun.box.sk/acro.html#emoticons>
It's nice to know that all the smileys of the world in all their weird and wonderful variation came from a few practical jokes based on a physics puzzle. Incidentally, have you seen this one? k:-0
That's the emoticon for "Oh, my God! There's an axe in my head!", an important phrase that has been translated into 102 different languages at <http://www.yamara.com/junk/xl970512.html>. (Thanks again, GTB<!>) All this humour from a simple QWERTY keyboard sort of gives you hope for all the dry dusty scientists out there not to mention their students (or the rest of us!).
Don't forget to say Happy Birthday!<cake> to the ASCII smiley :-) (or perhaps more properly the emoticon) on it's (next) birthday! Not to mention a hearty Cheers!<cheers> to Mr. Ball and Mr. Fahlman.
