On the occasion of the anniversary of SMS, its creator gave an interview - via SMS

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    The first SMS was sent on December 3, 1992, but the Finnish engineer Matti Makkonen came up with the concept eight years before. He rarely gives interviews, but agreed to answer BBC questions via SMS.

    Although McKonen is called the father of SMS, he still reluctantly agrees, saying that it is "the result of a collaborative effort to collect ideas and write specifications." In addition, he did not believe that the idea was worth patenting, so he did not receive a penny for his invention, despite its huge prevalence.

    “20 years ago SMS did not seem to me something special - it was just one of the possibilities of a revolutionary mobile communication system. Very useful for urgent business needs, ”says McKonen.

    McKonen refrains from using SMS-slang (txtspk), saying: "I like to write in the correct language (in Finnish), using all 160 characters." He does this on a modern touchscreen phone, although he could not resist a dubious compliment, noting that they were "slow enough to think and sometimes even correct what I write."

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