Yesterday was the 30th birthday of smiley emoticon :). Although textual expression of emotions (emoticons) have been around for hundreds of years, the first digital use is widely acknowledged as being in an email sent by Scott Fahlman on the 19th December 1982. Windows Phone includes support emoticons in the Messaging app, and the birthday celebration is a good excuse to revisit a couple of older posts from the official Windows Phone blog.

Last November, Michael Stroh, a technology writer working alongside the Windows Phone team at Microsoft, shared a list of emoticons supported by Windows Phone 7.5. These can be used in text messaging (SMS) or instant messaging (Windows Live Messenger). The text codes will be automatically translated to an emoticon graphic when you send or receive a message in the Messaging app.

It's worth noting that some of these will only work if the person you're sending a message to is using a Windows Phone 7.5 device. Other devices may have their own emoticon set, or will just show the original text characters.

A week later Michael Stroh followed up his first post with a second, featuring some of less commonly known (and used) emoticons supported by Windows Phone 7.5. Almost all of the emoticons in this set are unqiue to Windows Phone, and thus will only be see by other Windows Phone 7.5 users. 

And what about the first non-digtal emoticon? Well some trace its first appearance to a New York Times transcript of an Abraham Lincoln speech in 1862, but there's some scepiticism, since the emoticon in question maybe a typo.