Wow the good days, I still remember getting the most high tech gear during that time, getting a pager was a luxury for reach people back in the early 1990s. I was in high school as a freshmen when I heard of a high tech gear called a pager which sends text messages for you to read (one way only, if you want to respond then you would have to call and respond through a person sending it at the so call command center). It was useful at the time, but today it’s a waste of time and privacy issue, imagine texting someone saying I want to buy 10gram of drugs.
As time go by, when I was junior high school I was to get that pager with a monthly service of $15 or $30 a month I can’t remember and limited on sending text. And again, it’s only one way, you can receive but cannot respond directly, if you want to respond you would need to call and say whatever you want to be text to the pager. The monthly service is not unlimited, you get limited sending. For me I think I got a cheap pager where it can only deliver a number, no alpha characters.
So my pager was only able to get a number (numeric) deliver or send. It’s useful when I am out and about, and my family need to get a hold of me, they can page me by calling and entering a number to call back. We got creative back then and created our own code, for example if it’s emergency we can send a number to the pager with the 911 in the end. Or for those lovebirds they came up with code like 143 mean I love you, because in the 143, the 1 = I and 4 = love (4 characters) and 3 = you (3 characters) people got created and adopted those codes.
Well time ended many years in american USA, but I am surprise that Japan is still using pager, however their pager I believe is a little bit more advance, you can send text messages not just #. For a very advance country like Japan, just surprise they still uses pager, maybe it’s more secure and reliable.