I didn't know it ever worked that way, that's incredible. Reminds me of ChaCha, the texting service where you texted questions and a human would quickly look up the answer and text it back. It's a very cool idea that was quickly outmoded by smart phones and is kind of lost to history now.
Funny enough, even Google used to do that... before smartphones and the Google Assistant, you could text GOOGL (46645, I think) a query and get back a quick answer: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2004/10/get-411-with-46645.h...
They eventually shut it down :( https://slate.com/technology/2013/05/google-sms-search-shutd...
And while it took a few iterations (for me, from palm pilot to blackberry as a teenager, then eventually moving to iPhone after a few too many painful Blackberry upgrades - still missing that unified inbox though, as is everyone else I know who had a BB of that era... and frankly missing a great physical keyboard on a phone, too) I still am impressed on a daily basis that I do indeed have the device in my pocket that 12 year old me dreamed of.