The origins of the emoticon (need help from sf fanzine collectors)

Factual Questions
1

I’ve been interested in the origins of the emoticon for a while now. It seems like everyone knows which guy originated the sideways smiley, but no one agrees upon which guy it was. I’ve asked Cecil for help, but have gotten no response, alas.

While doing some of my own searching, I ran across this quote here:

Others in the thread have disagreed with Benford, saying that while some multiline upright smiley-faces had appeared from time-to-time. Does anyone have any evidence on the correctness of Benford’s statement? Does anyone have any evidence of any pre-1970 emoticons?

2

Bah. could a moderator move this to GQ, please?

3

I don’t know, but you might try contacting the MIT Science Fiction Society (homepage ) and see if there are any examples in their collection of fanzines. It wasn’t all that large when I was there.

I don’t remember emoticons on PLATO around 1974, but that was a limited population. Somewhere I have a big fat listing of the sf notesfile (kind of the equivalent of a board or newsgroup) and can check if anyone used one.