THEMA: So entstanden die Smilies

"Joke" Conversation Thread in which the Was Invented

The contents of the "joke" thread on the CMU CS general bboard that led to Scott Fahlman's invention of the smiley are below. This was retrieved from the spice vax oct-82 backup tape by Jeff Baird on September 10, 2002.

(Portions of the thread before September 16, 1982 were not on this tape.)

For even more context you can view the full contents of the bboard from the October 1982 spice vax backup tape. A short description of the computing archaeology work behind this can be found in a summary note with the original post and thanks to those who helped retrieve it. Also, see Scott's page about the smiley.

For more bboard history, see the full contents of the bboard from the 1982 year-end g vax (cmu-780g) backup tape, which spanned the dates 25-Nov-82 to 31-Dec-82, including a thread about changing the Arpanet protocol over from NCP to TCP/IP.

16-Sep-82 11:51 James Wright at CMU-780D Related question
Of equal interest is how the birds cheeping will
sound after they have inhaled the Helium.
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16-Sep-82 12:09 Neil Swartz at CMU-750R Pigeon type question
This question does not involve pigeons, but is similar:
There is a lit candle in an elevator mounted on a bracket attached to
the middle of one wall (say, 2" from the wall). A drop of mercury
is on the floor. The cable snaps and the elevator falls.
What happens to the candle and the mercury?
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16-Sep-82 17:21 Howard Gayle at CMU-780G WARNING!
Because of a recent physics experiment, the leftmost elevator has been
contaminated with mercury. There is also some slight fire damage.
Decontamination should be complete by 08:00 Friday.
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16-Sep-82 21:34 Rudy Nedved at CMU-10A Re: WARNING!!
The previous bboard message about mercury is related to the comment
by Neil Swartz about Physics experiments. It is not an actual
problem.

Last year parts of Doherty Hall were closed off because of spilled
mercury. My high school closed down a lab because of a dropped bottle
of mercury.

My apology for spoiling the joke but people were upset and yelling
fire in a crowded theatre is bad news....so are jokes on day old
comments.

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17-Sep-82 10:35 Neil Swartz at CMU-750R Answer to elevator question
The answer is that the candle goes out due to lack of oxygen. (There are no
longer any convection currents to keep feeding it) The mercury forms into
an ellipsoid due to surface tension. In balling up it exerts a force on the
floor which sends it towards the ceiling. It will bounce back and forth
between ceiling and floor until the elevator hits the ground. All of this
neglects the friction on the guide rails, vibrations, etc.

Any resemblance of this problem to any real situation is
purely coincidence, or in the mind of an operations staff person.
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17-Sep-82 10:58 Neil Swartz at CMU-750R Elevator posts
Apparently there has been some confusion about elevators and such. After
talking to Rudy, I have discovered that there is no mercury spill in any of
the Wean hall elevators. Many people seem to have taken the notice about
the physics department seriously.

Maybe we should adopt a convention of putting a star (*) in the subject
field of any notice which is to be taken as a joke.

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17-Sep-82 13:04 Scott Fahlman at CMU-10A Elevators (*)
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the elevator...

Unfortunately, the center elevator now contains what seems to be the
remains of 40,000 two-pound pigeons in an advanced state of
decomposition and the right elevator contains a bear of indeterminate
color. The left elevator appears to be safe, but when you stand in it
for too long, your voice gets squeaky and you start running into the
walls, causing the elevator to rise.

Despite the * in the header of this message, this is not a joke and
should be taken quite literallly. Do not panic -- taking the stairs is
good for you.

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17-Sep-82 14:43 Thomas Rodeheffer at CMU-10A Candles in Zero-G
I seem to recall hearing about an experiment with burning candles in
zero-G (skylab?) in which the result was that the candle did NOT go
out, even though, as has been noted, you don't get convection
currents without gravity. According to what I recall, a candle
burning in zero-G doesn't have a real flame, just a globular glowing
area around the wick. Supposedly the explanation was that oxygen
diffuses towards the wick (and carbon dioxide and water vapor diffuse
away) fast enough to keep combustion going. Does anybody remember
anything more about this?

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17-Sep-82 14:59 Joseph Ginder at CMU-10A (*%)

I believe that the joke character should be % rather than *.

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17-Sep-82 15:15 Anthony Stentz at CMU-780G (*%)
How about using * for good jokes and % for bad jokes?
We could even use *% for jokes that are so bad,
they're funny.

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17-Sep-82 17:40 Keith Wright at CMU-10A *%&#$ Jokes!
No, no, no! Surely everyone will agree that "&" is the funniest
character on the keyboard. It looks funny (like a jolly fat man
in convulsions of laughter). It sounds funny (say it loud and
fast three times). I just know if I could get my nose into the
vacuum of the CRT it would even smell funny!

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17-Sep-82 17:42 Leonard Hamey at CMU-10A {#} (previously *)
A detailed (i.e. > 1 minute) study of the aesthetic and pictographic
effects of the characters available in the ASCII set has led to
the following suggestion:

I think that the joke character should be the sequence {#}
because it looks like two lips with teeth showing between them.
This is the expected result if someone actually laughs their head off.
An obvious abbreviation of this sequence would be the hash character
itself (which can also be read as the sharp character and suggests
a quality which may be lacking in those too obtuse to appreciate
the joke.)

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17-Sep-82 18:52 Jim Crowley at CMU-10A BB Jokes
BB jokes are fine and should not require a marker.
But jokes should not be malicious, obscene, or such that they
appear to resemble real warnings to all but a few.
Last nights elevator hoax was a borderline case of this last
type.

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18-Sep-82 20:40 Guy Steele at CMU-10A ! Joke markers again
I hope everyone realized that my previous remark about non-use
of joke markers was a joke, and was flagged as such by the
absence of a marker. This message is not a joke, as indicated
by the exclamation point.

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19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman
From: Scott E Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c>

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:



Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use


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19-Sep-82 18:56 Jeff Shrager at CMU-10A 38521,03,9(6),9(9),1(5),0
Just signifying that a message is a joke is certainly not sufficient.
One can develop a taxonomy of bboard message types along several different
dimensions. Also, where a continuum is preferable to a taxonomy (such as
where humor value is at issue) one can similarly use a scale to indicate
where along that scale this message lies. Suppose that all dimensions are
refered to by a ten point scale (we'll use all integers here although one
can certainly imagine reals in the case of fine grain continuous scales).
Some dimensions will be bitwise encoded as well.
Here is a sample of a coding scheme:

COMMUNITY: (this is a binary scale with a bit position for
each department totalling about 32 bits)
TOPIC: (two digits 00-99)
(00) Political, (01) Scientific, (02) Computer, (03) Meta, etc
FLAME VALUE: (continuous 0.0-10.0)
HUMOR VALUE: (0.0-10.0)
BORDOM VALUE: (0.0-10.0)
INFORMATIONAL CONTENT: (-10.0 (for queries) to 10.0 (for their answers))

Note that some of these scales are purely according to the opinion
of the author. Thus, we provide, also, a confidence scale: to go along
with each continuous scale (to be enclosed in parens after the value).

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20-Sep-82 08:34 Jaime Carbonell at CMU-10A & # % ...
To resolve ambiguity, how about a JOKE BB? We can hook up some of that
highly-touted write-only memory just for this purpose. While I'm at it,
how about a flame BB using the latest cryogenic junction memory (to cool
down the contents of the memory, of course).

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20-Sep-82 16:23 Dave Touretzky at CMU-10A (-: bboard software change
As of October 1st, the General bboard will be renamed the Jokes bboard.
Please update your SWITCH.INI file. In the event of a serious notice,
we will post it under the name "Sharon Burks". When the bboard contains
messages whose total bogosity score exceeds 5000 microLenats, the file
will be zeroed so novice bboard players can have a chance to score.

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20-Sep-82 17:56 15-1xx Labs at CMU-750Y jokes \__/
We on the gandalf vax have our own code word for a joke. The above symbol
is universally known as a smile.

Also, perhaps Jeff could include in his scale a "length to humor ratio",
as we seem to notice that the relation between some post's lengths are
inversely proportional to their length.

Not Sharon Burks,
'ob and 'im
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20-Sep-82 22:33 James Driscoll at CMU-10A IC After Dark
The first meeting of the (unofficial) IC mini-course ``Pittsburgh After
Dark'' will be this Thursday at 9:00 PM in the CS lounge. The first
lecture will be ``Shadyside Bars: Taxonomy, Characteristics, and
Examples.'' Lab follows lecture. Participants should bring proof of
age. New students are encouraged to attend.

|-: (This is not a joke)

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21-Sep-82 14:27 Wilson Harvey at CMU-IUS (-: Dramatic bb posts
could be flagged with the above notation. Things like ...

"I was a Teen-age Hacker"

or

"I won't write that subroutine for you. I won't because every part of
me wants to."


:-|
Seriously, I have found someone's pen in the CS Supply Room. Send me
mail to get it back.
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22-Sep-82 12:43 Robert Thibadeau at CMU-10A Pittsburgh Zoo Options
The zoo is a worthwhile place to visit, but in my three years
in Pittsburgh I have watched it deteriorate for lack of funds.
Fortunately they have this wonderful 'adopt an animal' program.
The adoption can be a day or month. Orangutanns eat light at
$.75 a day or $22.50 a month, and for $15 a day or $450 a month
you get yourself an entire elephant. Double that and you can
probably have his name changed to Clyde. Triple it and I bet
they will let you dye him pink. Visitation rights come with any
adoption. The flyer is on my office door -- 5321.

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22-Sep-82 14:14 John Schlag at CMU-750R AI Elephant (-:
I think all the members of the CMU AI community should pitch together
to adopt an elephant at the Zoo. Of course, Thibadeau's suggestion of
tripling the price should be taken.
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22-Sep-82 21:26 Masaru Tomita at CMU-10A (:-O) missing picture
The picture of me on the picture board in the CS lounge is missing.
One of the members of Tommy's fan club must have taken it.
Please note that I have a wife.

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22-Sep-82 21:31 James Muller at CMU-750Y ?
I propose that the above character be placed in the subject field of all
posts which ask questions.
'''

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22-Sep-82 23:29 Ravinder Chandhok (-:
From: Ravinder Chandhok at CMU-750Y
Perhaps what we really need is a 'bb notation' bboard for such posts
that relate to notation and signals.
Ro'
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23-Sep-82 10:40 Stephen Hancock Jokes
From: Stephen Hancock <SFH at CMU-20C>
With all of this talk about jokes on the BBoard, perhaps we should create a
jokes BBoard. This would remove any doubt about whether or not the message
is a joke or not. Additionally this would spare us from being forced to
page through many jokes when we don't have the time to spare. It would
also be nice to be able to decide to read through a number of hopefully
good or alteast original jokes on demand.

P.S. My reference to us/we, was how I feel about the topic. However, I
believe many other people feel the same way.

---

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03-Oct-82 19:36 Scott Fahlman at CMU-10A Rumor of the Week
The person singing the theme at the start of each Star Trek episode is
in fact Slim Whitman.

Special bonus rumor: Slim Whitman has just been hired by Tartan Labs.

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03-Oct-82 21:47 Wilson Harvey at CMU-IUS For anyone interested ...
I have a picture of ET holding a chainsaw in .press file format. The file
exists in /usr/wah/public/etchainsaw.press on the IUS.
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03-Oct-82 23:43 Guy Jacobson at CMU-780G Holding a chainsaw??
Does anyone have a picture of R2D2 holding a seed auger in TeX format?
Or how about a rendering of Yoda with a lathe for use with nroff?
Any pointers to digitized images of short, cute aliens holding power
tools would be greatly appreciated.
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Die älteste belegbare Verwendung des Smileys geht auf den amerikanischen Werbegrafiker Harvey Ball zurück. Er zeichnete im Dezember 1963 zwei Punkte und einen gebogenen Strich in einen gelben Kreis. Balls Auftraggeber war die Versicherungsgesellschaft State Mutual Life Assurance Cos. of America, die mit den Anstecknadeln das Betriebsklima heben wollte. Ball erhielt für den Entwurf 45 Dollar. Das Zeichen wurde rechtlich nicht gesichert.

1971 meldete der französische Journalist Franklin Loufrani zunächst in Frankreich ein Geschmacksmuster auf das stilisierte Lächeln an, das mit den ovalen Augen und den im Vergleich zu Balls Entwurf veränderten Proportionen den heute gängigen Varianten am nächsten kommt. Die Grafik habe er nach seiner Darstellung als Auflockerung eines Zeitungsartikels erfunden. Inzwischen ist Loufrani Einkommensmillionär und hält Nutzungsrechte für das Smiley in über 80 Ländern. Harvey Ball kämpfte danach um seine Anerkennung als wahrer Vater des Smileys. Ball gründete die World Smile Foundation, die den ursprünglichen Geist des Smileys propagieren soll. Er verstarb am 12. April 2001.

Ende der 1980er Jahre machte sich die Musikbewegung Acid House den Smiley zum Erkennungszeichen. Mit dieser Ära wurde auch das Rauschmittel Ecstasy populär und sorgte vor allem in den europäischen Medien für eine Hysterie, worauf viele Warenhäuser aus Angst vor Image-Schäden sämtliche Smiley-Artikel aus dem Sortiment nahmen.

Ab Januar 2011 sollen Smileys als Hygiene-Siegel für Gaststätten dienen.