I actually have a vague memory of the first time I realized that the couple of characters that were appearing before me on the screen were meant to represent a

I actually have a vague memory of the first time I realized that the couple of characters that were appearing before me on the screen were meant to represent a smiley face turned sideways. It was some time in the mid 90s in Boulder, CO. Boulder Valley School District had a program for students to request an account on a System V server that was being hosted up at the University of Colorado campus in the engineering center. A bunch of us had gotten accounts and were exchanging emails with the pine email client. A friend sent me an email that included ":)". Since I was using a terminal program to view emails, I had grown accustomed to seeing various control or syntax characters being printed out for different reasons. I assumed what I was seeing was something like that. Perhaps a control character that was meant to control bold font being accidentally printed out. Eventually, I realized it was a smiley face.