GREENWOOD — If you read the number sequence "07734" and don’t think "Hello," there’s a good chance you never had to decode pager messages.
Pagers or beepers were the must-have item for Hoosier teens 25 years ago.
The communication device began as a business tool, but soon became a fashion statement for area teens allowing them to communicate via numeric messages.
Pagers allowed a recipient to be paged or alerted to call a specific number. A user would then return the page via a phone call.
The device gave parents a faster way to get in touch with their children.
“I had to beg to get it,” Sarah Fischer told former WRTV reporter Ben Morriston in March 1997.
However since early beepers weren’t capable of handling text, teens often resorted to pager-speak, communicating with numbers only. Teens wanted to keep some messages "007" or a secret.
Jim Anderson with Quality Cellular said teens were drawn to certain pager features.
“They like the colors, predominantly the colors are the big thing. They like the ones with 3 to 4 bell tones,” he said.
-
I have a frozen Thanksgiving turkey. When should I thaw it?
Do you have a large Thanksgiving turkey in your freezer taking up space? Learn when you should move it to the fridge.
Local Boy Scout thanks first responders with large popcorn donation
Thanking first responders who put their lives on the line for the community is what a local Boy Scout did through a donation to IMPD's Mobile Crisis Assistance Team.
New details emerge about the Department of Government Efficiency's proposed cuts
How much will the Department of Government Efficiency change the country's federal government? Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are revealing new details about how it will work and how long it will take.
3 shot, 1 killed on Indy’s northwest side
Three people were shot, leaving one of them dead, on the northwest side of Indianapolis on Thursday night.
