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Tuesday, November 28, 2006

The Lost Art of Pager Texting

Picture it. Mid/late 90's, and teenagers have yet to enter the age of the cellphone. (gasp) So what did we have? How did we survive? Well, we had something called a "Pager." It was quite in interesting gadget for those of us that remembered it. A caller would call your pager number, and leave his number. Your pager would then go off with that person's number. Cool huh? Ya, it got cooler. You see, now-a-days, cellphones or even other electronical gizmos allow text messeging with no issue, for a small price ofcourse. Our pagers did not have a text option... or did it?

It was either some genius, or some really bored teen, developed a way for each number to be read as a letter. So instead of putting in your phone number when calling, you would quickly dial a series of numbers (and IIRC the # sign for spaces) into short sentences. Here is the conversion:
A=2
B=8
C=6
D=0
E=3
F=3
G=6
H=4
I=1
J=6
K=15
L=7
M=177
N=17
0=0
P=9
Q=2
R=12
S=5
T=7
U=11
V=11
W=111
X=?
Y=4
Z=2


Some of these might seem weird, but you need to remember, that digital numbers on the pager looked like a calculater, and the number 4, looked like an H missing the left leg. The A is 2 because a 2 looks like a Times New Roman lower case a. You will also notice that many of the numbers obviously repeat itself. Well, there was no real way to avoid this and the reader would have to try different ways of reading the messege till they got it. Eventually, you would get used to a certain number sequences, and have no problems reading it. Here is an example:

111133 is WIFE.

The reader would probably need a bit to see wheather thats a W, a U, V, I's or L's. Most of the time, it isn't a problem since you read the word in the context of a sentence, and you can pretty much figure it out. I remember, my wife, then my girlfriend, and I would page one another during the day with silly little messeges:

1 177155 11= I MISS U
434 611713 = HEY CUTIE
143= The Universal "I love you"
6211 1773 1114317 11 637 401773 = CALL ME WHEN YOU GET HOME

or sometimes, when we had a fight and I would not apologize, I would get a:

1 4273 11= I HATE U

Those were fun days. I miss paging my wife. There was something special getting a pager messege, much more then receiving a call today. I guess it has something to do with the person actually taking some time to figure out something cute, creative and short to say. Also, with the cellphones, you sometimes don't have the patience to talk to anyone. With the pager, that wasn't an issue. This system is also handy if you want to write something to someone without anyone reading it later. You can pretend to be some secret agent. I know Ezzie likes to pretend he's one.

So there you have it. Thats what we used to do back in my high school days. I'm really not sure how many people actually did this. I know my group of thugs did it, and they got it from somewhere else, but I also know there were quite alot of others that had no idea about it. Anyways, it was fun. And that's all that is important.

30 Bonus Ezzie points to whoever can decipher this:

41112124 119 2170 1190273 401112 8706 62177337

24 comments:

  1. Shouldn't they be backwards, and then you read it upside down?

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  2. Ezzie: I still carry a pager (or beeper as we say in Hebrew). Its the easiest way to get IDF and MDA urgent messages...

    (And more reliable when there's a terror attack, since the cellphone systems shut down)

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  3. that worked with some words on the calculator, and I am assuming that is how this whole thing developed.

    And anyways, I am assuming it would be harder dialing the words backwards knowing you only have a short period of time the pager allows.

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  4. Hurry up and update your blog Jameel! But you forgot a 12 in the first word. And Y in the list. Which made it MUCH harder, you misspelling furry animal... :P

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  5. All of my friends had them when we were in high school - but we didn't do the number messages - we all had personal codes, kind of a numerical screen name. So when you paged someone, you'd just type your code in so they knew who to call.

    (We did add the 911 if it was really important, like a good bit of high school gossip.)

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  6. Its like code-breaking. How very KGBpp!

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  7. We did add the 911 if it was really important, like a good bit of high school gossip.)

    we did the 911 too, but not for gossip.

    Hurry up and update your blog Jameel! But you forgot a 12 in the first word. And Y in the list. Which made it MUCH harder, you misspelling furry animal... :P

    Alright you bastard, I fixed it. You always gotta embarass me huh? :) Anyways, I guess you get the bonus points, which is useless to you since whoever reaches 100 points gets invited to your house for Erev Shabbat.

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  8. Yes, I do. :P

    Erev Shabbos? Who wants to come then?! Shabbos, at least, is fun. Friday? Ugh. Comedic, but horrible.

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  9. And I was stuck on the 911 or 411

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  10. Yingel: Totty, how do you thay beeper in goyish?


















    Totty: Pager.

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  11. ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!

    Mordy, you have no idea. I was waiting and waiting for you to show up and write that.

    For everyone else, I wish I could explain. But that is an immediate top comment in this blog's history.

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  12. For everyone else, I wish I could explain. But that is an immediate top comment in this blog's history.

    No, no, no. Now you gotta explain

    Mordy, that Was funny though

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  13. Basically, you gotta hear him say it. And you have to have spent some time in Monsey, and actually *heard* these lines.

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  14. Wow, this is like L337-speak to the 3><7r3m3!

    I just remember being able to spell a limited number of words buy turning the pager/beeper to read the numbers upside down.

    For instance, there was the old joke:

    6922251 x 8 = «turn it upside down to read»

    There's a narration that goes along with the numbers, but i'm not going to put it here in a family forum such as Ezzie's blog ;-) . Ah, preteens.

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  15. OK Steg, you totally lost me. Happy now?

    The point of turning them upside down was that they actually spelled out the letters in legible english. For example: 07734

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  16. Steg, explain, please. Or HH. Someone. Please.

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  17. Oh, do I feel old. This brings back middle school memories...

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  18. Steg, explain, please. Or HH. Someone. Please.

    6922251 x 8 = 55378008

    Now, turn that number upside down and see what it spells :)

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  19. *chuckle*

    i'm not even going to attempt to decipher the code in my overtired state but rather enjoy the hilarity of the comments :)

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  20. Now I feel old. We were doing this crap in the late '80s-early '90s.

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  21. I remember using a different code in 9th grade... it was a few grids: 3x3 (like Tic-Tac-Toe), 3x3 with dots, an X, and an X with dots in all 4 sections.

    Each space was assigned a letter in order. To write a sentence, you'd draw the lines of the corresponding letter (with a dot in the middle if they were on the dotted grids). Ezzie was a square, a > with a dot, a > with a dot, an upside down L, and another square. It was quite effective, until everyone knew it.

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  22. Ya effective and complicated. Stick to my codes. Much easier.

    Now I feel old. We were doing this crap in the late '80s-early '90s.

    Hey Jack,

    Did you go to school in LA? (Valley?)

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