The Casio Secret Sender JD-6000 was the *original* messaging gadget

[NelsonG]

Poor '90s tweens! They never used Facebook Messenger. They couldn't text people from their iPhones, they couldn't add GIFs to their WhatsApp messages, and they were far too young for any Twitter DMs. 

Somehow, they survived. And a lucky few of them even had access to one of the most sophisticated pieces of messaging technology to come out of the mid-'90s: The Casio Secret Sender JD-6000.

This tiny purple toy, marketed to tween girls, is the messaging app's true digital ancestor.

SEE ALSO: Mom's poster asking to 'borrow an orange cat' isn't as weird as it sounds

If you're an Xennial like me, you might remember  Casio My Magic Diary, an "electronic organizer" that premiered in 1993. At the time of its release, the Magic Diary was the height of technology. It had software that could store phone numbers and addresses, report local times from across the world, function as a calculator, record friends' birthdays, log diary entries, give users their horoscopes, and even allow them to "design" digital faces — ideally of their crushes <3 <3 <3. Read more...

More about Watercooler, Nostalgia, Toys, Messaging Service, and Culture

View the full article