So You Think You Know Everything About The Development Of
The Telegraph?
Check
out this trivia trove...
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Looking back from today, we know that conceptually the
inventors looking to find a way to use electricity to
create the equivalent of a semaphore telegraph line were
on the right track… but their fixation with visual
signaling made their progress slow. One reason was that
“electrical fluid,” as it was called at that time, was
poorly understood, with the result that converting the
changes that took place in electrical fluid into visual
signals proved difficult.
The problem they faced was the same one early developers
of the first computer had: how do you build an
“input–output” device that let the user tell the
computer what to do, and then allow him to read the
result of the computer’s processing of the task he just
gave it. In the case of the semaphore telegraph line the
question became how do you convert the electrical
fluid’s energy into “input–output” signals of a kind
that a person receiving the signals at a remote location
can understand? Today computer input–output devices come
in the form of key boards, printers, touch pads and the
like. Back in the 1800s these things didn’t exist, and
so finding a way to convert the incoming signal from a
far away electrically based semaphore station into a
signal that the receiving party could “read” proved
quite the problem.
To solve the problem designers and inventors turned to
gauges. More simple than today’s voltage, ampere or
resistance measuring gauges, but based on the same
principle, the gauges invented back then allowed someone
to “read” the status or condition of the wires
connecting two semaphore sites. In essence, each pair of
wires was attached to a needle that moved with the level
of electrical fluid sent to it (through it, in the case
of current, and to it, in the case of voltage). Thus, via this “gauge” a
signal man could tell when a pair of wires had an
electrical voltage applied to it, and when it did not.
By calibrating the needle of the gauge to point in a
specific direction when it sensed voltage, this basic,
unexciting voltage gauge became the world’s first
input–output device… and in the process allowed
Signaleers to send signals by electrical current along
wires, in a nearly instantaneous manner, over great
distances, in all kinds of weather.
Note again however, this form of signaling was based on
visual signals… the movement of the needle of the
voltmeter signaled the existence of a current on the
wire. In this regard, the very first electrically driven
communication transmission system was in all manner of
speaking truly a “semaphore telegraph line.” A bunch of
guys standing around with flags it was not, but it
wasn’t far from that either.
Now how’s that for trivia?
As to who invented this first bit
of electrical wonderment, credit goes to Charles
Wheatstone (1802-1875) and William Fothergill Cooke
(1806-1879), who in 1837 perfected a design using this
technique and patented what they called the “five-needle
telegraph.” Make a note of this point, for this was the
first successful electric telecommunication device.[1]
Operationally, the system used a diamond
shaped grid of 20
letters out of the 26 that comprise our alphabet. The
idea was that the deflection of any two needles at a
time could cause any one of the 20 letters to be
“pointed to.” Using this technique, nearly any message
could be spelled out… provided that the Signaleers made
allowance for the six missing letters. Structurally, the
five needles were arranged across the middle of the
device. As the graphic at right shows, the deflection of
any two needles to the left or right would point to a
specific letter (the letter "V" in the case at right). As a unit, the device was relatively
simple to use, although over time it proved a problem to
keep the 5 wires needed to make the device work in good
repair. To be fair to the inventors, this was more a
matter of the poor quality of the manufactured wire that
was available in those days than the design of the
device.
With the basic concept, science and technology out of
the way it was now time for someone to find a way to
commercialize what had been invented. Cooke and
Wheatstone took this task on too, selling the rights to
the use of the device to the Great Western Railway,
which sent messages, between London and West Drayton
(about 13 miles). So well did it work that within short
order the railway was selling message services to the
public, and thus was born the idea that railways could
not only operate rail services to carry live passengers
to and fro, but also message services involving
everything from mail to telegraph messaging. With a keen
eye towards profits, Cooke and Wheatstone were the first
to initiate a commercially viable electric telegraph
service.[2]
As for the United States, while there was keen interest
in the concept of long distance messaging, it was felt
that there was little prospect for commercial success of
such a venture, and so U.S. inventors and business
people opted instead to sit back and watch the British
try to “wire their country” with commercial
electrical communication semaphore based telegraph
service.
Commercial – because they charged money for the
service. Electrical – because the system depended on
electric “fluid” to drive the voltage meters at the end
of each circuit. Communication – because the idea was to
send messages from one signal station to the other.
Semaphore – because it was the wig-wag of the needle on
the voltage meter that told the receiving end that a
signal was being sent as well as what the signal’s
content was. And telegraph because that was in fact what
was happening… interpretable signals were being
telegraphed from one place to another… just like in the
days when men with flags stood on hills and waved those
flags at each other.
It is again important to note that just like in the case
of the earlier mechanical or manual telegraphs that
depended on people waving flags, this incredible new
pioneering “electrical” telegraph still depended on
visual signaling.
As Cooke and Wheatstone sat back and watched the money
roll in from the commercialization of their device,
other inventors set about testing electric telegraph
deigns based on more exotic design criteria. Most famous
among them was our own Samuel Finley Breese Morse, who,
as we all know, developed a two wire system.
Operationally different than Cooke and Wheatstone’s five
wire system, Morse’s approach centered on a single
circuit to carry the electrical fluid between semaphore
sites. However, more important than the number of wires Morse
designed his system to use was the fact that
even he could not get past the idea that to understand
the message being transmitted the signal being received
had to be seen with the receiving party’s eyes… in the
same manner that signal flags were. In Morse’s view,
unless the receiving operator could see the message as
it arrived, how was he ever going to understand its
content?
Morse, having only recently figured out how
electromagnets worked, spent three years trying to
develop a telegraph based on electromagnetism, and
needing only two wires to operate. In 1835 he finally
built a workable device. In form and function it
approximated an electromagnetic pendulum that held at
its bottom a pencil that was kept in constant contact
with a moving strip of paper.
In September, 1837, he displayed the device to the
public, demonstrating how it was able to operate via a
circuit of 1,700 feet of wire that ran back and forth
across a room he rented at a local university. So proud
was Morse of his accomplishment that he said that by
linking multiple devices in “repeater” stations he could
transmit a signal around the world in mere seconds.
Notice the term repeater, trivia buffs. That's
where our modern day communication use of it came from:
Samuel F.B. Morse's bragging of his telegraph's
capabilities to the people who saw it.
Those that saw the actual device said that it consisted
of a train of “clock-like-wheels” (gears) that regulated
the motion of a strip of paper so that a pencil could
record on it the message being received by moving in
such a manner as to “output” what looked like what we
would today call saw tooth and square waves.
The paper
measured about 1.5 inches wide and passed over three
cylinders that were made of wood. You can see these
cylinders in the device in the picture at right, at
points A, B, and C. The movement of the paper was
controlled by a clock-like element, D, which pulled
the paper across the central cylinder, B. The clock
element itself was no more than a weighted item
that unwound (like a clock) as the weight, E, fell.
The operational value of the device was derived from the
movement of the wooden pendulum, shown as F at right.
It was suspended over the center of the cylinder B,
over which the paper strip moved. As the pendulum swung
in tune with voltage changes that caused the
electromagnet armature to move, the pencil that was
fixed in the lower part of the pendulum left a written
trail of the electromagnet’s movement, as the paper
advanced across its cylinders (a small weight at G
kept the pencil bearing down on the paper strip).
In this way Morse found it possible to convert what was
no more than the movement of the electromagnet’s
armature into a series of written saw tooth and square
wave pulses on the paper strip. The pulses, thus
written, could then be decoded.
As to how the signal recorded on the paper tape could be
decoded, if the reader looks carefully at the sample
wave shown in the upper right corner of the figure at
lower
right, he will see what is without doubt the genesis of
the later form of code we would one day call Morse Code.
Any Signaleer can clearly tell that the pencil track
labeled “5” at right shows, beginning on the upswing at
point “1” what we today would call two “dashes,”
followed by a single “dot,” then another "dash" and five
more dots… creating the following result: −− • − • • •
• •
The generation of these saw tooth and square wave pulses
was accomplished by the ruler device shown at the bottom
of the first figure above, and also in the second figure
as item "2". “Type” was set in this ruler device, over
which the armature passed, causing a fork of copper wire
to be plunged (when the lever was depressed) into two cups of mercury, which in turn completed the circuit
that caused the electromagnet to move.
Ingenious. Truly ingenious… yet still based on visible
signaling no different than what a couple of Civil War
era Army Signal
Corps guys could do with a set of wig wag flags.[3]
And so the first reliable, effective, simple electric
telegraph machine was born, finding greater and
greater acceptance as years went on, as a very basic
yet vastly more reliable device than Cooke and Wheatstone’s five wire system. So well was it received
that as it began to be used its operators became so
familiar with the sounds it made that they stopped
looking at the paper tape to see what the messages being
sent and received said. Instead, sitting there hour
after hour, day after day, they found that they
developed a quite natural ability to tell what the
signal was that was being received simply by listening
to the diminutive almost
inaudible sounds made by the pencil as it bounced back
and forth, as it moved across the paper tape. And thus
was born Morse Code.
How many of the world’s great technological innovations
were derived from kismet? Whatever the number, count the
concept of audible Morse Code among them.
Unfortunately, while Morse had developed a truly better
version of Cooke and Wheatstone’s telegraph device, that
did not mean it would result in financial success for
Morse (or his partner Vail). In fact, from 1839 to 1844
Morse's financial life crumbled before his eyes. With
the cost of development, along with a failed attempt to
achieve commercial success in France for his telegraph,
he became almost destitute. Hoping beyond hope that the
U.S. government would see value in his invention, he
petitioned everyone he could find in an effort to seek
funding.
To support his claims of the value of telegraphic
signaling, in 1842 he laid an insulated wire in New York
Harbor, between Castle Garden and Governor's Island.
Over this he sent telegraphic signals, impressing New
York businessmen and local politicians, but raising
little money.
A few months later he followed this up with another wire
that he laid across a canal in Washington D.C. This
finally got the attention of Congress, and within a few
weeks of his demonstrating the success of his
“underwater cable” telegraph service Congress passed a
bill recommending the allocation of $30,000 to aid him
in further development of the “telegraphic form of
signaling.”
With this $30,000 Morse constructed a telegraph line
between Washington and Baltimore, and on May 24, 1844,
he sent the coded message that the world has come to
recognize as the defining point when communication
entered a new age: “What hath God wrought!”
If "What hath God wrought!" was the proper phrase for
the moment when Morse sent the world's first easily
understood electronic message over a telegraph line,
what should have been the phrase first broadcast over
Twitter? One can only wonder.
Regardless, finally, Samuel F.B. Morse was on the road to success.
In short order financial success followed his personal
triumph as a recognized inventor. In April 1845, the
communication line he installed between Washington and
Baltimore was turned over to the U.S. Post Office to
manage. They in turn made it available to the public as
a means of transmitting personal messages, and from that
point forward man never looked back. With a charge of
one cent for every four characters, both the Post Office
and Morse started making money. In the first
week alone the duo saw revenue rise to the astonishing
level of one dollar!
The line between Washington and Baltimore being the
first commercial line in the U.S., and being a financial
success at that, it drove others to lay telegraph lines
throughout the United States.
As for the telegraph device itself, Morse soon keyed in
(no pun intended) on the idea that the audible tracking
of messages that the operators had come to rely on was
quicker and more reliable than the pencil and tape idea
that his device was based on. This led him to modify his
device so that the teletype keys we are familiar with
today replaced the bulky wooden pendulum idea.
To bring
the signaling code more in line with the capabilities of
the telegraph key, Morse redid his code, yet stuck to
the dot-and-dash approach that the original device
spurred. Within short order the new code he developed
quickly became acknowledged worldwide as the way to go
when it came to transmitting messages. In a manner of
speaking, his concept of code became the worldwide
standard. One can see this by looking at the number of
telegraph lines the U.S. Signal Corps had in existence
by 1885.
Yet while the concept of
his form of code became the worldwide standard… his
code did not. In point of fact, while Morse got
all of the credit for development of both the device and
the code, the format of the code he developed fell out
of favor outside of the U.S., due in part to some of the
oddities he put into it.
So, while the form of code he developed… i.e. code based
on a standardized sequence of dots and dashes that could
be interpreted audibly… became the norm, outside of the
U.S. a different structure of this same code began to be
used. With this bifurcation Morse’s original code
quickly became known as American Morse Code. The version
used in Europe in turn became known as Continental Morse
Code.
To be fair to the Europeans, their version proved more
useful and consistent than Morse’s and it soon spread
back into America, replacing Morse’s original code. Even
after all of this however, one more entrant came into
the picture: the U.S. Navy. For reasons only the Navy
could tell of, they created their own short lived
version.
In the final analysis it was the business world that
dictated the end of the story. While better telegraph
devices came and went, and technology progressed, the
commercial world, in the form of U.S.
radio stations, standardized on Continental Morse Code
simply so that communication the world over would be
understood. Today what was then called Continental Morse
Code is known as International Morse Code, and it still
rules the world.
Thank You
Footnotes:
[1] The Charles Wheatstone of this story is the same
Charles Wheatstone who invented the famous resistance based
electrical device known as the Wheatstone Bridge. - To return to your place in the text click here:
[2] SPC Communications copied this simple business
model years later, when in the 1970s -1980s it began
offering long distance telephone service to the U.S. public.
Termed an "interconnect" company, SPC routed the long
distance calls it provided to the public over the telegraph
lines it was empowered by Congress to install along the
right of way that ran beside the Southern Pacific Railway's
railroad tracks that crisscrossed America. The "SP" in SPC actually stood for Southern
Pacific., with the "C" standing for Communication. SPC went on to become one of the largest
"interconnected" U.S.
telephone long distance carriers of the time, despite the fact that to use
their service a person had to dial up to a 12 digit access
code (to gain entry via SPC's circuits to Ma Bell's), and
then the regular long distance phone number. To most
consumers, the extra digits that needed to be dialed were a
small price to pay for the nearly 80% savings in the cost of
the long distance telephone call itself.-
To return to your place in the text click here:
[3] To be fair and give proper credit where it is
due, Morse’s partner, Alfred
Vail, the son of a wealthy industrialist, was the one
who devised the transmitting end of the “ruler” device,
which caused the operation of the armature at the other end
of the circuit.
- To return to your place in the text click here:
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