Yep. When it's the best option, it's surprising how good and quick you could be with it. Plus it was super nice to just stealthily send a text message while holding your phone under a desk and looking somewhere else.
We have the benefit of decades of parsing this sort of message. 25 years ago, this was like another language.
Especially when individuals or friend groups would make up their own abbreviations for their own slang, and you might have no goddamn idea what something meant
SMS is 160 characters. In the early days Twitter really only functioned over SMS. The Twitter 140 character limit was to fit the message inside an SMS with room for other info like usernames.
Interesting. I always believed the SMS is 144 characters. Incredible we had a social where ideas where sent 4~8 lines at a time (depending on the font size)
Honestly that was a blessing in disguise actually.
Person had to slow down and actually think through what they we're writing, in comparison to modern voice messages where it's primarily just verbal diarrhea and the reciver has to do all the processing and filtering.
And we skipped all the Polish letters like "Ł" and "Ń" because there was a 150 character limit, these used up 16 characters and messages cost money back then.
Japan still kind of has that situation as I understand it. They have more kanji than can fit on a keypad, so there’s a bit of grouping to form a particular one on larger keyboard buttons.
I feel like I skipped T9 somehow and just typed whatever key the letter was once, then some kind of list popped up with possible word choices. I vaguely remember being a bit irritated at how T9 worked, but that was ages ago.
Edit: turns out that is T9 and apparently the method in the meme is multi-tap. Oops.
65 Comments
protist@retrofed.com · 74 pts · 41d
I used to be able to type messages on these without even looking
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de · 16 pts · 41d
Yep. When it's the best option, it's surprising how good and quick you could be with it. Plus it was super nice to just stealthily send a text message while holding your phone under a desk and looking somewhere else.
village604@adultswim.fan · 9 pts · 41d
Used to get around the "no phones at work" rule with that.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 41d
Can't stop what you can't see :-D
Redjard@reddthat.com · 6 pts · 41d
Then you put it in your prison pocket and set it to morse code.
lokalhorst@feddit.org · 16 pts · 41d
I just checked and I can still type them into the air
homes@piefed.world · 43 pts · 41d
And you’d get these messages like
yo wr gttg tgthr @ 3 w/billy- whn u b hr?And you’d have to try to decode what the hell it meant
from_D4rkness@lemmy.world · 52 pts · 41d
"Yo, we're getting together at 3:00 PM with Billy, when will you be here?" seems easy enough from ur example :)
homes@piefed.world · 27 pts · 41d
We have the benefit of decades of parsing this sort of message. 25 years ago, this was like another language.
Especially when individuals or friend groups would make up their own abbreviations for their own slang, and you might have no goddamn idea what something meant
ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one · 9 pts · 41d
So old people have their own secret language that young people can't decipher?
psx_crab@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 41d
For once, we have the upper hand.
homes@piefed.world · 5 pts · 41d
Hey, who are you calling old?
from_D4rkness@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 41d
Good point!
ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 41d
PM is assumed by you, but by no means mentioned or implied by the message content or context.
from_D4rkness@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 41d
oh true, I didn't catch that assumption of mine!
turtlesareneat@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 41d
Unless called out, context usually determined AM/PM as well as what drugs to bring.
Orioniae@piefed.social · 18 pts · 41d
The 144 characters limit. IIRC Twitter had the same limit because at the beginning you could post on your profile using SMS.
jqubed@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 41d
SMS is 160 characters. In the early days Twitter really only functioned over SMS. The Twitter 140 character limit was to fit the message inside an SMS with room for other info like usernames.
Orioniae@piefed.social · 2 pts · 41d
Interesting. I always believed the SMS is 144 characters. Incredible we had a social where ideas where sent 4~8 lines at a time (depending on the font size)
squirrel@cake.kobel.fyi · 27 pts · 41d
Pre T9 texting was s l o w
Orioniae@piefed.social · 9 pts · 41d
I remember when phones where an arm and a leg in price purely because of T9. Having a predictive dictionary in your pocket needed a lot of bread.
IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 41d
it kind of created its own language though. that was cute
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 41d
I got pretty quick on it after practice
Shellofbiomatter@lemmus.org · 19 pts · 41d
Honestly that was a blessing in disguise actually. Person had to slow down and actually think through what they we're writing, in comparison to modern voice messages where it's primarily just verbal diarrhea and the reciver has to do all the processing and filtering.
blueduck@piefed.social · 19 pts · 41d
R u srs?
Shellofbiomatter@lemmus.org · 11 pts · 41d
Fair, but voice messages are still worse, at least that example is short.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net · 1 pts · 41d
Grok is this real?
Kushan@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 41d
T9 master race checking in!
hOrni@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 41d
And we skipped all the Polish letters like "Ł" and "Ń" because there was a 150 character limit, these used up 16 characters and messages cost money back then.
Sabata11792@ani.social · 6 pts · 41d
That 1 time I got in trbl 4 snd 2 mny msg n bill was hi
taj@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 41d
Yeah, when each txt was like 10-20 cents... Which isn't much. But can add up QUICK!!!
Sabata11792@ani.social · 2 pts · 40d
We didn't have them on our plan at the time so it was like $0.50. Dad was pissed lol.
cholesterol@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 41d
I guess if you disabled T9.
protist@retrofed.com · 3 pts · 41d
Get off my lawn, child!
cholesterol@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 41d
Well the 3310 had T9 enabled by default
ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one · 9 pts · 41d
8008135
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 41d
Me was tryin to save time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWi4duoDV58
nullspace@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 41d
The noses on emojis didn't make the cut. :-)
kSPvhmTOlwvMd7Y7E@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 41d
Fuck T9
All my homies hate T9
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 41d
eh, you get used to it.
Psythik@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 41d
Real Gs used T9. Hell, I still use it to this very day on my smartwatch.
Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org · 1 pts · 41d
Bangle.js?
Damage@feddit.it · 7 pts · 41d
nokia 3310 had T9, so no
rants_unnecessarily@piefed.social · 4 pts · 41d
I was faster without T9 so I turned it off
pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 41d
you can still buy phones with a T9
JackbyDev@programming.dev · 4 pts · 41d
At least one of my smart phones had a way to do it. If it's still there now, it's buried much deeper.
Katana314@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 41d
Japan still kind of has that situation as I understand it. They have more kanji than can fit on a keypad, so there’s a bit of grouping to form a particular one on larger keyboard buttons.
nitroemdash@lemmy.wtf · 2 pts · 41d
Usually it's slide to type
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 41d
I want that phone back. I want the internet from back then too 😭
Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org · 3 pts · 41d
Internet from back then + accessability from today would be peak
zebidiah@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 41d
and you spelled the word high using only one key.....
plutopos@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 41d
Anyone who actually used those phones knows that you press every button once and let the T9 figure out which word you are typing
varjen@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 41d
PalmPilot Graffiti ftw.
EndOfLine@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 41d
8 777 88 33 0 7777 8 666 777 999
Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 41d
0118 999 881 999 119 725 3
AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space · 3 pts · 41d
you had seeks?
pewpew@feddit.it · 3 pts · 40d
2G still works here, so nothing is stopping me to use one of those as a daily driver
nymnympseudonym@piefed.social · 2 pts · 41d
Ahhh how I miss cellmania.com
And WAP sucking before there was a lurid song
qevlarr@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 41d
I could still type with T9 on auto pilot
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 2 pts · 41d
skl ovr pk me up
I hated T9. My first phone was the Sidekick, and it sucked when I had moved on to a Razr because I had to switch carriers.
X@piefed.world · 1 pts · 41d
I feel like I skipped T9 somehow and just typed whatever key the letter was once, then some kind of list popped up with possible word choices. I vaguely remember being a bit irritated at how T9 worked, but that was ages ago.
Edit: turns out that is T9 and apparently the method in the meme is multi-tap. Oops.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 41d
Typing each letter once and having a list of possible words pop up is T9.
X@piefed.world · 2 pts · 41d
Huh! And all this time I thought T9 was multi-tap. TIL
rants_unnecessarily@piefed.social · 1 pts · 41d
I was so much faster with T9 turned off!
mattyroses@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 41d
Great, the millennial version of pretending not writing cursive makes people stupid