Who Really Invented The Telegraph?

Fat Boy unslim writes "It's been 250 years since the publication of a paper describing the theory behind sending messages down a wire using electricity. Unfortunately, no one knows who wrote it." If you thought the answer was as simple as "Morse," this article may come as a surprise.

Comments

Al Gore Comes From A Long Line Of Technocrats

[Anonymous Coward]

His great great Grandfather invented the telegraph!

The Victorian Internet

[Hanashi]

If you really want the reference for the technical and social history of the telegraph, check out Tom Standage's The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers.

I read this book shortly after it came out in paperback, and I have to say that it's fascinating. It discusses various early telegraph systems in detail, including those not using electricity at al. More importantly, it draws startling parallels between the telegraph's influence on 19th century society and the Internet's influence today, especially during the dotcom boom. This is a must-read for the true geek.

Re:The Victorian Internet

[blamanj]

Yes. Great book,it also points out that the telegraph originally did not even require electricity and wires. It was done with signaling mirrors. Of course, Greeks and American Indians used signal fires, but not as a continuous information architecture the way the telegraph was.

Morse invented the serial port :)

[hpa]

Morse certainly didn't invent the first electrical telegraph; he just invented the most practical one. Most of the previous electrical telegraphs had been either analog and highly unreliable or required multiple wires; some were even both.

The Morse telegraph required only one wire (the return went through the Earth), which was a huge cost savings in the time before cheap insulation, and yet was a binary on/off transmission with the associated reliability advantages. The original Morse code (sometimes called "railway Morse") used four symbol lengths; once the Morse telegraph spread and eventually went wireless the "international Morse code" simplified this to only two symbol lengths; this is the code which is invariably used even today.

Re:Morse invented the serial port :)

[hpa]

ARGH... Slashdot butchered the <> in this message, even though I had it set to "Plain Old Text".

It was supposed to say:

Actually the symbol ...-.- (written @ or <SK>) is the recognized International Morse Code symbol for End of Text, equivalent to ASCII 04h .

It might have a history from old American Morse, but it's nothing "incorrect" about it being used in International Morse Code.

It is not ... -.- (SK), just as the I.M.C. distress call is the single symbol ...---... (<SOS>) and not the three letters ... --- ... (SOS).

Other information on CM's identity

[Anonymous Coward]

Pasted From: http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Telegraph/00000011.h tm

The identity of 'C. M.,' who dated his letter from Renfrew, has not been established beyond a doubt. There is a tradition of a clever man living in Renfrew at that time, and afterwards in Paisley, who could 'licht a room wi' coal reek (smoke), and mak' lichtnin' speak and write upon the wa'.' By some he was thought to be a certain Charles Marshall, from Aberdeen; but it seems likelier that he was a Charles Morrison, of Greenock, who was trained as a surgeon, and became connected with the tobacco trade of Glasgow. In Renfrew he was regarded as a kind of wizard, and he is said to have emigrated to Virginia, where he died.

Re:Other information on CM's identity

[Cy Guy]

This link to an online book on the history of the Telegraph has a similar (identical?) account.

More interesting (to me anyway), is the text of the actual letter to the Scots' Magazine which can be found here.

Both describe the system as using individual wires to which would be electrified using the spark from a Leyden jar, and depending on which wire you electrified, you would know which letter was being represented. Much of the decription could be used to credit CM with the invetnion of the telephone pole as well, since he/she describes how the wires would need to be suspended and insulated at the suspension points.

Curious though, is that it was originally identified as means for transmitting intelligence, yet the plan for constructing it was published in a magazine - an early proponent of Open Source I guess.

The second link also indicates that work on electric was performed as early as 1746 coinciding with the invention of the Leyden Jar itself, so I think the current Scotsman article may be a bit biased when it claims this CM is the real inventor of electric telegraphy. And that in the 1780's a system was proposed that would have used either a 5-bit or 6-bit 'binary' system for sending the signals over fewer wires - by having different combinations of wires signal each character (ie 00001 = A, 00010 = B, 00011 = C, etc.)

Re:Fluff

[Doppleganger]

Renfew is the name of the town, not the person. All they have is a paper signed with the initials "C.M." and a location of Renfew, which is a far cry from knowing who the paper was written by.

My recollection was

[nani popoki]

If I remember right -- and no, I wasn't around back then! -- Henry invented the idea of an electromagnetic "sounder" and an interrupted circuit as a method of signalling. Morse (who was an artist by trade) invented the code that bears his name (though what we call "Morse code" today is not much like his original encoding, just as EBCDIC isn't ASCII insn't UNICODE). Originally, Morse code was a VISUAL medium -- the telegraph was supposed to output as short and long marks on a moving paper tape (which method -- Kleinschmidt?? -- was used by the military in WWII, though I forget what the details were). But the telegraph operators soon learned to decode the clicks and gaps without bothering to refill the messy, balky inking devices.

Morse Code

[Radio Shack Robot]

In case you didn't know, Radio Shack no longer sells morse code training tapes. You'll have to buy them from the ARRL.

Re:Give societies their due

[JAZ]

Reminds me of a great show a few years back called Connections (I think.) I should know the name of the host and find some links, but I don't have any and my first google attempt didn't help.

Basically it followed the flow of technology backwards. Like "The space shuttle would not have been possible with out an ancient egyptian plow." and then documents key technologies that make up a modern civilization.

Anyway it was a great show.

Columbus wasn't a Spaniard!

[ArsSineArtificio]

Columbus was a Spaniard

Columbus was Genovese! He was only working for the Spanish.

Re:Give societies their due

[pubjames]

James Burke's connections:

http://home.earthlink.net/~billotto/Connections. ht ml

I remember it being very compelling to watch.