Go back to when you were in elementary school (people my age or older will understand this more.  When you used to sit in those chairs that were bolted to the desks and the comfort level was almost as bad as sitting on broken glass.  The teacher would yell at anyone that would even talk.  So, what did you do?  that’s right, you would right a note.

Pulling out a piece of lined paper from your spiral binder (the edges all frayed) you would start at the top and write something and fold it up and have it passed off to someone.  Within a few minutes the note would come back to you folded up the same way.  When you opened it up there would be a response underneath yours, sometimes in a different color, but definitely in a different writing style.  Enter the instant messenger of yesteryear.

Of course, you wouldn’t get all the ‘bells and whistles’ as you would with the IM programs of today, but it did serve it’s purpose.