The First Phone Call Was 133 Years Ago

magacious writes "March 10 is the 133rd anniversary of the first telephone call. It occurred between Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson back on this day in 1876. But there is some debate about whether Bell is actually the rightful owner of the crown for such invention. Having worked on the idea of transmitting speech using electricity for some time, Bell filed his patent on 14 February 1876, either just before or just after his main rival for the title of inventor of the telephone, Elisha Gray, filed his own. Bell won the patent and Gray died in obscurity."

Comments

the message:

[Anonymous Coward]

first!!

Re:the message:

[Goffee71]

The reply: I, for one, welcome my now slightly distant overlord

Re:the message:

[conureman]

Watson, come here. I need you.

Re:the message:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay for Doctor Who!

Re:the message:

[Anonymous Coward]

That's Mr. Watson to you, ya little whippersnapper!

Re:the message:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait. Are you trying to tell us that Alexander Graham Bell was also secretly Sherlock Holmes?!?

Re:the message:

[JustOK]

But I WAS FIRST POST!

Sincerely,

Elisha Gray

Re:the message:

[FatLittleMonkey]

Watson, come here. I need you.

"Oh Mr. Bell, you have no idea how long I've been waiting to hear you say that!"

Re:the message:

[Anonymous Coward]

If Elisha Gray invented it first, then who was phone?

Re:the message:

[cbiltcliffe]

No, I'm sure it was:

"This is the second notice that the factory warranty may be expiring on your car!....."

Re:the message:

[binarylarry]

I love phone.

I had to part with that promiscuous whore, lamp.

Re:the message:

[Nai7]

So...what are you wearing?

Re:the message:

[negRo_slim]

Alexander Graham Bell:
Well, we did it Watson. What an afternoon. We finally perfected the first telephone.

Thomas Watson:
Yeah, uh, hey listen, somebody called me today. Uh, whoever it was, said some very sexual things, very angry, sexual things.

Alexander Graham Bell:
Oh, really? Probably just some teenagers somewhere... damn them.

Thomas Watson:
Well, well that's, that's the thing. I mean, there's, there's only two phones, in the, well, in the world and one of them is in my office and the other one is in your office and those two didn't even exist until a few hours ago.

Alexander Graham Bell:
Yikes, I could use a distraction right now.

Antonio Meucci

[Shin-LaC]

was using his electromagnetic telephone to talk to his wife from his basement lab to their second-floor bedroom in 1856.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[Kirys]

Meucci was the real owner of the idea of the phone. But he was almost forgotten, only recently it received some credits.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[gabrielex]

Exactly! Antonio Meucci was the real owner of the idea and the controversy was solved giving him his own rights, but lot of people don't know about this.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[Anonymous Coward]

"In 2002 the U. S. House of Representatives passed a bill recognizing Meucci's accomplishment and stating that "if Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell."

From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meucci

Re:Antonio Meucci

[Anonymous Coward]

H. Res. 269
In the House of Representatives, U.S.,
June 11, 2002.
Whereas Antonio Meucci, the great Italian inventor, had a career that was both extraordinary and tragic;
Whereas, upon immigrating to New York, Meucci continued to work with ceaseless vigor on a project he had begun in Havana, Cuba, an invention he later called the `teletrofono', involving electronic communications;
Whereas Meucci set up a rudimentary communications link in his Staten Island home that connected the basement with the first floor, and later, when his wife began to suffer from crippling arthritis, he created a permanent link between his lab and his wife's second floor bedroom;
Whereas, having exhausted most of his life's savings in pursuing his work, Meucci was unable to commercialize his invention, though he demonstrated his invention in 1860 and had a description of it published in New York's Italian language newspaper;
Whereas Meucci never learned English well enough to navigate the complex American business community;
Whereas Meucci was unable to raise sufficient funds to pay his way through the patent application process, and thus had to settle for a caveat, a one year renewable notice of an impending patent, which was first filed on December 28, 1871;
Whereas Meucci later learned that the Western Union affiliate laboratory reportedly lost his working models, and Meucci, who at this point was living on public assistance, was unable to renew the caveat after 1874;
Whereas in March 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, who conducted experiments in the same laboratory where Meucci's materials had been stored, was granted a patent and was thereafter credited with inventing the telephone;
Whereas on January 13, 1887, the Government of the United States moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation, a case that the Supreme Court found viable and remanded for trial;
Whereas Meucci died in October 1889, the Bell patent expired in January 1893, and the case was discontinued as moot without ever reaching the underlying issue of the true inventor of the telephone entitled to the patent; and
Whereas if Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognized, and his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged.
Attest:
Clerk.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... american technology history rewriting, according to the president of the USA america even invented the automobile. I am glad Daimler and Benz are dead already and have been for a long time :-)
I am not even sure if Edison really was the inventor of the lightbulb afair a russian was first but did not patent it!

Re:Antonio Meucci

[ubrgeek]

Meucci should have called ahead to let them know he was on his way. ;)

Re:Antonio Meucci

[Anonymous Coward]

Graham bell was my grandfather!!!!

Re:Antonio Meucci

[Linker3000]

...or 'top ups' as we call them in the UK

Re:Antonio Meucci

[VShael]

Not that it matters much, but Congress passed a resolution on June 11th, 2002, recognising him as the inventor of the telephone.

Also, people should know that Meucci sent his patent designs to the lab where Bell worked. And they went "missing".

There's a whole shady side to that story which is not really acknowledged in the official history.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[rbrausse]

just dropping some more names:

what about Manzetti* with his published idea in 1844 and his "speaking telegraph" in 1864?

or Reis** with a working prototype in 1860?

Sure, Bell was the only/first one who started a business out of a lab prototype but "first call" is at least a white lie

*) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocenzo_Manzetti
**) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Philipp_Reis

Re:Antonio Meucci

[hey!]

I think the audio telephone was one of those ideas whose time had come. It's not as if it sprung from the head of some individual genius, a lot of people were working in that direction; take any one of them out of the picture and the result wouldn't be much different.

Ironically, the telephone was more or less an inevitable outgrowth of work on improving the capacity of long distance cables to carry telegraphs -- a digital medium. In a sense, we've come full circle.

One of the ideas that people were working on is what we'd call frequency division multiplexing: sending multiple simultaneous telegraph signals on the same wire but encoded on carriers of different frequencies. Once you started to work in that direction an audio telephone would be simple, relatively speaking. So somebody would have "invented" it, because plenty of people were working along those lines.

The lone genius inventor is a mythical idea, one that distorts our thinking about stuff like intellectual property. There are genius inventors, to be sure, but surely there were men like Thomas Edison or Nicola Tesla that lived in the dark ages. The reason we've never heard of them is that even a genius needs other people's ideas to build upon.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[Anonymous Coward]

testerio

Re:Antonio Meucci

[Nick Number]

So that makes you the Grahamson?

Re:Antonio Meucci

[jabuzz]

Never heard of the Russian angle but Swan in the U.K. invented one at the same time as Edison. Big patent battle, ended up joining forces and cornering the market.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[mog007]

Could be similar to the radio fiasco between Tesla and Marconi. Even though Tesla was eventually awarded the patent, Marconi is usually mentioned when you ask people who invented radio.

Similar to the lightbulb, which wasn't invented by Edison, or the transistor which wasn't invented at Bell Labs.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[Chris Mattern]

I am not even sure if Edison really was the inventor of the lightbulb afair a russian was first but did not patent it!

It is universally acknowledged that Edison did not invent the light bulb. What he did was make it practical by devising a filament that lasted more than a few hours before burning out.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[Anonymous Coward]

or the transistor which wasn't invented at Bell Labs.

Didn't that come from the Roswell wreckage?

Re:Antonio Meucci

[M-RES]

Apparently, he didn't submit his plans for patent for a long time, and then the day after he finally submitted them he died... what a bummer!

Re:Antonio Meucci

[Anonymous Coward]

an old italian joke says that when Bell made his first call, Meucci answered.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[harry666t]

> I am not even sure if Edison really was the inventor
> of the lightbulb afair a russian was first

Yes, this is true. A russian has invented the first lightbulb.

However, as far as I know, Edison invented the first *working* lightbulb.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[iocat]

Bingo! I wish I had mod points. When you look at a lot of major inventions -- the telephone, the car, the lightbulb, TV, digital general purpose computers, etc. -- you'll find that regardless of whoever eventually was credited with the invention, there were any number of people working on the same problem, at about the same rate, and making very close breakthroughs, at the same time. Sometimes ideas are just "in the air." Typically one guy gets credit, which is sort of sad, but that's kind of the way it is -- at least with lay people. Anyone who is a historian or reads a little more deeply will evetually learn all the other peopel and their possibly claims / contributions. Because there are so many people who were clearly on the right track, you will also get a lot of arguments.

for instance, if you look here , you'll see three groups, each of which has a strong case for being said to be the inevntor of the modern computer (Konrad Zuse, who built a programmable electro-mechanical computer in 1936, Anastoff and Berry who build a digital computer -- that was not general purpose or programmable in 1942, and Eckert and Mauchley, who built a vacuum tube base, programmable, general purpose computer in 1946). I won't get into the details, but it becomes a religious thing at some point -- I once fell out with a friend because I refused to accept Anastoff as the sole inventor of the computer. (My friend was from Iowa).

Re:Antonio Meucci

[fishbowl]

The Philo T. Farnsworth of voice commo, Antonio Meucci?

Re:Antonio Meucci

[jahudabudy]

I once fell out with a friend because I refused to accept Anastoff as the sole inventor of the computer.

I'm sorry, you fell out with a friend over a disagreement about who should truly be credited with inventing the computer? What's that word again, the one where your incredulous awe battles with your dismayed pity?

Re:Antonio Meucci

[djh101010]

Well... american technology history rewriting, according to the president of the USA america even invented the automobile. I am glad Daimler and Benz are dead already and have been for a long time :-)

I've _never_ heard it claimed that the USA invented the automobile. But you say it came from a President - curious what you mean. It _is_ accurate to say that Ford's assembly line was the invention of the mass-production concept.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[shutdown -p now]

Never heard of the Russian angle but Swan in the U.K. invented one at the same time as Edison. Big patent battle, ended up joining forces and cornering the market.

Alexandr Lodygin was the Russian guy. He came up with a carbon-filament incandescent bulb in 1872, and got a patent (Russian) on it in 1874. So he's got a true working model, he just never properly commercialized that. He's also the one who patented (whether he was the first to invent or not is debatable) tungsten filament, so the modern lightbulb design probably owes more to him than to Edison.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[glittalogik]

Well that sucks, I was always kind of proud that my birthday is on the same day as Bell.

I guess historical fame through massive fraud still counts as quite an achievement...

Re:Antonio Meucci

[Anonymous Coward]

Jorgen Feldhusen did it in 1735 from his house to his next door neighbour. Unfortunately he is even less well known than Antonio Meucci. My local village states that all of the others are obvious frauds and I happen to agree. Why oh why can't they get the history books correct? 1735 is a lot earlier than all of those others. I'm disgusted with how these people try to rewrite obvious history by plugging someone else.

Re:Antonio Meucci

[eyendall]

If you think this about inventions (with which I agree) you will really have fun with the popularly believed myths of American history i.e. the American revolution, the Constitution, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Gray died in obscurity

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Of course, the light bulb was only invented in 1879.

Re:Gray died in obscurity

[Yvanhoe]

And not by Edison, who just got the patent...

Re:Gray died in obscurity

[tsjaikdus]

Edison created something that could actually be used. That is including the electrical grid, switches, powermeters, bulb fitting and so on that was all needed to make the bulb glow. All this stuff didn't really exist back then. And a lot of new inventions that came out of that were indeed patented.

I think the patent system is put to good use in this case. If it were for Swan or some other introvert nerd, we would still be reading by candlelight.

Re:Gray died in obscurity

[Shakrai]

And not by Edison, who just got the patent...

Edison was one of the original patent/FUD trolls. A lot of people seem to think those tactics are new but in reality businesses have been engaging in them for a long time. Edison even went so far as to electrocute animals (including an elephant) during the "war of the currents" to try and scare people away from a competing product. He also tried to change the term from "electrocuted" to "Westinghoused".

Re:Gray died in obscurity

[Anonymous Coward]

not that the phone patent wasn't obvious. it's like a telegraph, but with microphones and speakers. somebody invented the microphone, somebody invented the speakers. they patented the use of them... in realtime??

Re:Gray died in obscurity

[mog007]

That's because he was a stubborn prick, and dead set in his ways. Even though Edison was against the idea of capital punishment, he invented the electric chair just to show people how dangerous AC was.

Re:Gray died in obscurity

[jabuzz]

Perhaps you might like to take a trip to Cragside, the home of Lord Armstrong in Northumberland. To quote from the Wikipedia article

In 1870, water from one of the estate's lakes was used to drive a Siemens dynamo in what was the world's first hydroelectric power station. The resultant electricity was used to power an arc lamp installed in the Gallery in 1878. The arc lamp was replaced in 1880 by Joseph Swan's incandescent lamps in what Swan considered 'the first proper installation' of electric lighting.

Re:Gray died in obscurity

[Anonymous Coward]

Who just got A patent. Swan got the first patent a year before Edison. This being the 19th C and no WIPO they went into business together and both got rich.

Re:Gray died in obscurity

[shutdown -p now]

not that the phone patent wasn't obvious. it's like a telegraph, but with microphones and speakers.

Do you even understand the engineering problems involved?

It's like saying that a cellphone is obvious, as it's just a phone and a radio. It's true on the surface, but there are a lot of design issues to solve to make the concept work.

Patent sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

So one more reason to get rid of patent?

Re:Patent sucks

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Er.. no. Patents are good. It's only *some* patents that aren't, like software patents, and generally all obvious patents granted by shitty examiners.

The fact that Bell was able to patent his invention means that (1) he was able to profit from it, and (2) his invention was fully disclosed and available to the rest of humanity.

In short, patents are a good thing. Don't mindlessly follow the Slashdot groupthink please...

Re:Patent sucks

[MichaelSmith]

The fact that Bell was able to patent his invention means that (1) he was able to profit from it, and (2) his invention was fully disclosed and available to the rest of humanity.

But as the summary implies and history records the patent application in this case was a race to the patent office. Several people had developed working telephones at that point.

So while it is good that Bell benefited from this invention it is bad that other inventors did not.

Re:Patent sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

> So while it is good that Bell benefited from this invention it is bad that other inventors did not.

There was no need for him to profit, given the large amount of people inventing the concept, the idea was not non-obvious, and as such would have become public knowledge in the short term anyway.
Thus the patent, particularly since it was wrong anyway, only served to add cost and hinder innovation. It was of advantage only for Mr. Bell and of a disadvantage to all of society, or in other words the exact opposite of what patents were supposed to be.

Re:Patent sucks

[wolf12886]

I don't think that's really the the point. The patent system isn't about making inventors money, its about providing them a monetary incentive for invention. As long as the potential for profit is there to be chased it doesn't really matter who gets it (within reason of course).

Re:Patent sucks

[TheLink]

How about just give them money then? You don't have to give them a monopoly.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1156061&cid=27145551

Re:Patent sucks

[MichaelSmith]

In many cases the reality is that new things were invented by many people working in parallel and sharing the use of public knowledge. It might be better if patents recognise this by being granted to multiple people.

Re:Patent sucks

[SuperAndy]

And where does this money come from? Certainly not from a sense of entrepreneurship.

Re:Patent sucks

[laejoh]

But as the summary implies and history records the patent application in this case was a race to the patent office. Several people had developed working telephones at that point.

Why a race to the patent office? If working telephones already were developed he could have called!

Re:Patent sucks

[kauttapiste]

What you're implying is that there is no way that two scientist could invent the same invention simultaneously, without one copying the other. (When in fact this has happened numerous times) Why is it in your opinion that the other scientist should be unable to profit from his invention?

Re:Patent sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

If the reason for granting patents is to generate innovation for the betterment of society, the money will come from the betterment of society.

We will be more wealthy as a society because of the innovation. Our businesses will have to compete to stay ahead, but every worthwhile invention will receive funding.

Of course, there's no reason for the patent office to grant patents so quickly anymore. And the focus on innovation will move to supplying the item to market, rather than simply controlling a monopoly.

Re:Patent sucks

[AvitarX]

Steven Landsburg had an idea I liked to solve that.

It works on the theory that the entire value of a patent comes from the extra money you will be able to charge so it essentially comes from all of society.

What you do is instead have government buy the patent at a fair market price and make the results public domain.

Since society saves the money on the purchasing part, the tax dollars are a wash, and as an added benefit to society at large the idea is truly open to be built upon. Also, it avoids the potential for getting burned with a submarine patent.

As for determining a fair market price, this is done with a public auction where all interested parties can blind bid for the rights, with the government purchasing at the second highest bidders bid only 3/4's or 9/10's of the time. The rest of the time, the highest bidder gets to buy the invention.

This allows for there to be private interests to help determine what a fair price is for the invention, and still keeps the majority of patents open for all.

Re:Patent sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exactly.
I know a friend who is an inventor.
His thinking is very different and his inventions are also quite different - and which I feel are very good for the society.

Now, he is pursuing his inventions just because of the concept of patent. He is not at all a businessman - he is extremely shy and does not speak to anyone. So if concept of patents are not there, he would not even pursue his inventions because he is sure to lose out in the game.

Even now, somebody might make a fool of him, but atleast he has the hope to make money using his inventions. Such people would lose out - and thereby the society - if patents are removed.

Re:Patent sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the potential for profit is there to be chased it doesn't really matter who gets it (within reason of course).

It matters a lot. Different inventors have different abilities to turn the idea monopolised by a patent into reality.

Re:Patent sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

You completely missed the points _of this case_:
1) Bell was not the only one, so even among the _inventors_ the majority lost _due to patents_
2) Since there were others doing the same thing there would have been others doing the invention anyway.

So if your friend is doing something unique, the original idea of patents still applies and my post says nothing against them.
If however your friend does the same kind of stuff another thousand to hundred-thousand people are doing at the same time, then honestly it would probably be better for all including him if he stopped, or at least he would know for sure he could actually make use of his invention in the end and wouldn't have to pay royalties just because someone else was a minute faster.
That was the point of my post, and I think you missed it completely.

Re:Patent sucks

[drewvr6]

I think because it keeps wealthy people from dominating the arena. If someone creates a product or process and it is free to be duplicated by anyone, people with more capital will always be able to run those people out of business. By providing rights to production you allow those people who developed the idea to get some head start on building on their idea.

Re:Patent sucks

[TheLink]

So far it looks like the companies with thousands of patents get to prevent the one person with a few good ideas from actually making stuff. Because that one person is likely to have to infringe on something in order to make stuff.

And those companies that have thousands of patents, if those companies actually make stuff themselves, they are also vulnerable to extortion from companies that just own patents and don't make any stuff.

Because companies that don't make any stuff, won't infringe on any patents, so they don't need to cross license.

That's what actually is happening.

Whereas with my prize based idea, the inventor doesn't really have to care if China copies his invention, in fact if a bunch of factories in China copy his invention and millions more people benefit from it, that just makes him more likely to win a Prize for Innovation (public award) - since it increases the odds of people voting for his invention.

Re:Patent sucks

[drewvr6]

It sounds more like a problem with the use of law in dealing with patents than that actual patents themselves. Similar to filing frivilous lawsuits to stop activties someone is against. It is not the legal process but the use of it that causes problems. Also, where does this prize money come from and would it be of sufficient size to provide the drive for innovation? I admit I have little understanding of patent law so that lack may be keeping me from understanding fully these ideas.

Re:Patent sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

...in this case was a race to the patent office...

Just a note that, in theory, there should never be such a thing as "a race to the patent office" in the United States, since the U.S. uses a "first to invent" patent system, not a "first to file" like most other countries. In other words, it doesn't matter if you file your patent before I do, if I can demonstrate that I started working on it before you did, the USPTO will (in theory) determine that the patent rightfully belongs to me.

That's what all the talk of "prior art" is about.

Re:Patent sucks

[TheLink]

As I said, you still have to register your invention to be eligible for the prize.

See: http://www.uspto.gov/go/fees/

Lotteries and bookies are familiar with the concept. They manage somehow, some even make money in the process.

And some companies might even sponsor an endowment or even the prizes every year.

Sure inventors or the companies they work for won't get billions of dollars in prize money. But should they need or get that in the first place?

The marketing budget for US drug companies tends to be bigger than their R&D budget. So I'm sure they and other companies will manage somehow. I also doubt Intel will stop investing in R&D if AMD et all can copy what they do (it's not so trivial to copy Intel even if you can read their inventions and patents - you can't reproduce their entire fab).

Whatever it is, we will need something else assuming an increasing rate of invention - the current patent system won't scale well. As the number of specialized fields increases it'll be harder and harder for an examiner to work out whether a patent should be granted or not.

Of course if we are assuming the rate of invention stagnates or even declines, then that's different. I hope that's not what we're planning for.

Re:Patent sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it in your opinion that the other scientist should be unable to profit from his invention?

And furthermore, have you stopped beating your wife yet?

Re:Patent sucks

[blueg3]

More than one person inventing or discovering something at (roughly) the same time does not immediately make it obvious. If you look at the amount of time spent developing the first telephones, how to construct a working telephone was not an obvious matter, even among practitioners of the art.

Re:Patent sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

"obvious" in terms of patents does not mean "you do not need to work hard". It means there is no or no substantial "creative" part involved so that basically every skilled person could have come up with it if they had invested a similar amount of effort.
There is no need for special incentives if there are many thousands of people who can create it, because it _will_ happen.
Giving out 15 years of exclusive use to get something maybe two years earlier is rarely a good deal. Particularly since you might actually get that thing a few years later, because people do not want to cooperate because with patents there can be only one winner.
If your goal is to reward people for doing hard work, using patents to do that is idiocy, as this example could not show more clearly, probably the person who did the least work got _all_ the reward. I can't imagine someone would claim this to be fair, I claim it to be even more unfair, particularly since without patents Bell could have more easily acknowledged the work others have done and how he profited from it.
Or to put it a mean way: don't come with the "think of the inventors!" argument, that might work out just as badly as the "think of the children!" actionism :-P

Re:Patent sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps if there was no race to the patent office, telephones would have taken another 10 years. Perhaps those people only spent all that time on it because they wanted the patent.

Re:Patent sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps it only took them so long because there was a race to the patent office (assuming there actually was one, I am not sure on that) and thus could not share information?
Also I think your argument assumes that getting a patent was basically the only really relevant reason to work on a telephone.
Otherwise people would not spend that little time on it so that it would take 10 years more.
In addition it's also not like they would have done nothing useful if they had not worked on the telephone, and if they had not seen any value in working on the telephone without the chance for a patent it seems unlikely that other thing would have been completely worthless.

Re:Patent sucks

[mkcmkc]

The fact that Bell was able to patent his invention means that (1) he was able to profit from it, and (2) his invention was fully disclosed and available to the rest of humanity.

In this situation (and perhaps most), it appears that Bell and many others were working on this and the discovery was inevitable. Thus, Bell won the lottery, but this fact probably provided no gain for society at all. Even the disclosure parts sounds pretty useless--since it was a discovery whose time had come, it would have popped into common knowledge quite rapidly.

Re:Patent sucks

[kanguru007]

Er.. no. Patents are good. The fact that Bell was able to patent his invention means that (1) he was able to profit from it, and (2) his invention was fully disclosed and available to the rest of humanity.

Yes, patents are good for 'inventors' like Bell but bad for real inventors like Meuci who couldn't afford them.

k007

Such advances!

[Anonymous Coward]

How amazing, dont you think? Can you believe how far we'v...[NO CARRIER]

Re:Such advances!

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

More like "can you hear me? CAN YOU HEAR ME? HELLO?? *beep*beep*beep* Ah f**ing Verizon!"

Calling...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, hello.... anyone there?

NO CARRIER :)

Research

[EEPROMS]

Some of the latest research into Bells own lab notes is showing that he saw Grays pre patent applications for a liquid based microphone before hand. In fact what gave it away was his (Bells) notes are an exact copy of Grays patent that and the fact Bell never even looked at this type of configuration until he went to Washington then changed his research completely.

Re:Research

[Lumpy]

Yup. Bell's "invention" was completely based on other people's ideas.

Just like how edison stole most of his "ideas" from Tesla.

Patents dont encourage innovation. The only make the first person to file it rich. Which discourages the sharing of ideas and information for fear that some rich jerk like edison or Bell will come along and patent your idea first. There are documented cases all throughout american and european history that Patents hampered scientific innovation and industrial progress.

Re:Research

[Reality Master 101]

Patents dont encourage innovation. The only make the first person to file it rich. Which discourages the sharing of ideas and information for fear that some rich jerk like edison or Bell will come along and patent your idea first.

You're completely contradicting yourself. Ones of the major *points* of patents is to encourage sharing of ideas. Without patents, everyone would hoard their ideas, because there would be no legal protection -- the second any rich person heard your idea, they would start mass-producing it, leaving you out in the cold.

The example here shows what happens when you share without a patent -- someone beats you to the patent office! But note that once the small investor gets there, he can share all he wants with legal protection.

Now this is the cue for anti-patent people to start listing a litany of cases where patents didn't protect some little guy. But that doesn't change the millions of cases where it does, that doesn't get the publicity.

Re:Research

[Anonymous Coward]

ok but your stupid

you completely missed the point that if I don't have 50K in cash to file 40 patents a year, then its pointless for me to become an inventor, as companies will just steal my ideas.

So then I work for a large company and they fucking steal my ideas anyhow... so why should I bother trying hard to invent jack or shit?

Re:Research

[Reality Master 101]

you completely missed the point that if I don't have 50K in cash to file 40 patents a year, then its pointless for me to become an inventor, as companies will just steal my ideas.

Well, first of all, it doesn't cost that much to file a patent, and you certainly don't need to file 40 patents a year (?).

Second, think about what you're saying. You're saying that it's pointless to become an inventory, because you can't afford to file patents. And since you can't file patents, then companies will steal your ideas. Therefore, the world is better without patents, because then somehow companies *won't* steal your inventions?? What the hell is your point again?

In other words, yes, you are correct. Without patents, big companies WILL STEAL YOUR INVENTIONS. Congratulations, you've got the idea. Now just learn how to file a patent.

Re:Research

[Chris Mattern]

Patents dont encourage innovation. The only make the first person to file it rich.

The US doesn't award patents based on who is first to file. In cases of disputed patents, the patent is awarded to the first person to have invented it.

Re:Research

[sjames]

Patents allow free sharing of ideas once they are patented and deeply discourages any sharing before that. Given 2 inventors, each with the same problem about 90% solved (and with a DIFFERENT 10% unsolved), they will tend not to communicate at all, each fearing that the other will beat a path to the patent office and render years of their own work moot.

Just because patents are supposed to encourage sharing of ideas doesn't mean they actually accomplish that goal.

The essential problem is that the patent system is based on an unrealistic model of how invention happens in the first place.

Once you bring in the incredible cost of patent litigation and a patent office that doesn't even try to fulfill it's obligation to enforce the requirements of patents you get the broken system we have today where one of the least productive segments of our economy monopolizes the profits of one of the most productive.

If the USPTO will actually enforce non-obviousness and prior art requirements, and patent law will be changed to acknowledge the possibility of parallel invention AND the excessive cost of litigation can be brought under control, THEN patents may become useful.

Re:Research

[Lumpy]

and this is different from me having to come up with $40,000 a year to patent my ideas how?

If I make $35,000 a year $40,000 in fees to patent things might as well be $100,000,000 to me.

Make filing patents FREE or low cost, and I'll accept your point completely.

Re:Research

[Spazmania]

Bell got the basic idea for the liquid microphone from Gray's caveat, which he gained access to when the examiner summoned Bell to defend an earlier version of Bell's application in light of Gray's caveat. The liquid microphone led Bell in a new direction that significantly improved the invention.

But here's the hitch: Gray didn't have a working telephone. He only had a better microphone... and at the end of the day it was only an intermediate step: a liquid microphone wasn't practical in production; Bell had to invent something else. At the time, Gray even publicly acknowledged Bell as the inventor of the telephone.

The situation was a lot like the Wright brothers. A bunch of folks were competing to invent the multiple telegraph, all were closing in on what became the telephone, and Bell finally got all the pieces to come together.

No disrespect is intended to Gray or Meucci, each geniuses in their own right. But Bell was finally the inventor of the telephone.

Re:Research

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to see a list of the ideas Edison "stole" from Tesla.

Re:Research

[kanguru007]

Now this is the cue for anti-patent people to start listing a litany of cases where patents didn't protect some little guy. But that doesn't change the millions of cases where it does, that doesn't get the publicity.

Then please just tell us about one of those cases where patents did protect some little guy.

k007

Progressing By Leaps And Bounds

[Velska1]

To hearing "the call to the number you have requested can not be completed at this time" or "the number you have dialed is out of network or turned off".

133

[microbee]

is such an important number that it's worth a news story by its own

Re:133

[lilo_booter]

Indeed - apparently no one died that year - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/133

Re:133

[MoldySpore]

So is 911, 411, and 1-900!

Re:133

[MosesJones]

Errr not ver 1337 are you? Now clearly the 1337 anniversary will be more significant but after all this is the telephone therefore 133 Telephone anniversary or 133t to give it its correct name is a highly significant geek anniversary.

Can't believe this wasn't obvious.

Re:133

[AliasMarlowe]

is such an important number that it's worth a news story by its own

But of course! It's a happy octagonal Harshad integer, and a Blum semiprime. We should read news stories about it every day!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/133_(number)

Re:133

[AliasMarlowe]

Indeed - apparently no one died that year - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/133

A very good year indeed. Also, 133BC was not too bad: apparently only two people died that year - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/133_BC

Re:133

[put_the_cat_out]

Just wait until next year and 134

Re:133

[Godwin O'Hitler]

It is indeed, and it got me thinking are there any other important 133rd anniversaries coming up we should know about?

Re:133

[Anonymous Coward]

1337 was when the Hundred Years War started. Now that's important!

Re:133

[AaxelB]

Huh, happy numbers must be one of the most useless things ever. Their "origin" is that a British mathematician's (ostensibly young) daughter learned about them in school then told her father. First off, I can really tell he wasn't grasping at straws for things to publish. Also, that's a damn impressive school, learning about a bit of number theory before the mathematicians even conceive of it.

Re:133

[koutbo6]

aparently this marks the birth of the 133rd h4x0r2

Re:133

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my god, I hadn't realised it was so important. Its 133 months since my first act of self fulfilment. I'm off to get me some scented candles and furry gloves

and the second call

[petes_PoV]

started "can I speak to Mr Alexander Bell" .... Hello Mr. Bell, how are you today. I wonder if you would take a few minutes to answer some questions ... hangs up in disgust

Re:and the second call

[KrimZon]

*Undoing a wrong number in the moderation process*

Re:and the second call

[Anonymous Coward]

I vaant to ask you a bunch of questions, and I vaant to have them answered immediately.

Bell!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bell was a fucking faggot for not making encryption part of his specification.

D-oh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoulda read TFA first, what a ... Anyhow, does anyone know about Roentgen and Bucky? I heard that something similar went down on the priority, but it's a little too obscure.

Re:D-oh!

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be Bucky and Potter, you wretched nit!

Gray was a professional inventor

[Skurge357]

If I remember correctly, Elisha Gray's patent application for this was one of several that he submitted that day, only a few hours after Bell's went in.

Re:Gray was a professional inventor

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it was a few hours before, but the patent examiner owed money to Bell's lawyer.

Re:Gray was a professional inventor

[AndroidCat]

It's just as well. How are you supposed to answer the phone when the gray rings?

Re:Gray was a professional inventor

[thedonger]

Not to mention he was far from obscure. Take a look at his Wikipedia entry; the man was a prolific and important inventor.

Re:Gray was a professional inventor

[Skurge357]

Knew he was major inventor, didn't know how prolific he was. Thanks for the insight, donger. I'll read little more tonight.

co34

[Anonymous Coward]

to the crowd in he4d spinning Right now. I tried, aapeared...saying

Significant aniversaries

[psb777]

Please remind us next year again, as 134 is a highly significant number for me.

Re:Significant aniversaries

[retech]

And we'll all have to wait a year, in breathless anticipation, to find out why it's such a significant number for you.

How will we ever survive?

Re:Significant aniversaries

[OneSmartFellow]

in breathless anticipation,

Not another reference to asthma ?

Re:Significant aniversaries

[Anonymous Coward]

I have gills, you insensitive clod!

Progress and inventions

[little1973]

This is a classic example why patents are bad. When the time is ripe for a technology to emerge it will emerge in several people's minds and not just in a lone genius' mind. This is called progress and mere progress should not be patented. There are no inventions but there is progress.

Re:Progress and inventions

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately that's very naive...while it's true that there are problems like this, and several examples pop up through history, most progress does not happen like this. Patents are still needed to promote innovation, it's just the details of the patent process that need some work. Also, don't all patents represent progress of some kind? It only happens because people take the time to innovate and figure it out.

The real reason Bell got the patent

[rollingcalf]

They gave it to him instead of others who developed a phone, because they thought history would prefer that somebody named "Bell" invented the telephone, like how Sir Thomas Crapper is credited with inventing the flush toilet even though he really didn't invent it.

Re:The real reason Bell got the patent

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of like how Walter Dildo is credited with inventing the marital aid?

Re:The real reason Bell got the patent

[eln]

They gave it to him instead of others who developed a phone, because they thought history would prefer that somebody named "Bell" invented the telephone, like how Sir Thomas Crapper is credited with inventing the flush toilet even though he really didn't invent it.

He didn't invent the toilet, but he did invent the ballcock! This makes Crapper and the ballcock perhaps the most hilarious inventor-invention combo ever. The fact that a ballcock is a primary component of most toilets is just icing on the cake.

kdawson

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else suprised kdawson posted this article? Yeah, me neither. Starting reading, realized the article was crap (and even if it wasn't, what's so special about 133?), though, "who posted this crap?.. it couldn't be...yeah, kdawson figures".

Bell won the patent and Gray died in obscurity.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Gray sure died in obscurity but still manages to send out a press release every year to make us remember.

Some might say Gray is still with us.

133?

[aaron alderman]

Call me again in five years.

pah...

[Canazza]

When it's 3213 then it may be considered 'news for nerds'... otherwise it's just the aniversary of the phone...

Re:pah...

[laejoh]

When it's 1337 then it may be considered 'news for nerds'...

There, I corrected it for you!

Re:pah...

[Canazza]

no... no you didn't...

And Tomorrow....

[DavidD_CA]

And tomorrow marks the 133rd anniversary of the first telemarker.

Re:And Tomorrow....

[arth1]

And tomorrow marks the 133rd anniversary of the first telemarker.

A telemarker is someone who practices a particular form of skiing.
A telemarketer, perhaps?

Re:And Tomorrow....

[Anonymous Coward]

Spelling troll...

I wish all of you would die in obscurity like Elisha Gray!

Re:And Tomorrow....

[shutdown -p now]

A death anniversary, surely?

Died in Obscurity?!!

[krygny]

How could he have died in obscurity if we're discussing him today? I'm still trying to find out who, from the US, invented the automobile (according to Obama). Now, *THAT GUY* died in obscurity.

Re:Died in Obscurity?!!

[Anonymous Coward]

...or he's really, really old by now.

Re:Died in Obscurity?!!

[Lars T.]

How could he have died in obscurity if we're discussing him today? I'm still trying to find out who, from the US, invented the automobile (according to Obama). Now, *THAT GUY* died in obscurity.

His name was Uncle Benz and he invented the ricer.

Re:Died in Obscurity?!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you misspelled George W. Bush.

Re:Died in Obscurity?!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing here is how literal of a meaning some nerds infer. However, I understand you completely lack social skills, and thus the ability to communicate "normally" with the public masses. So let me explain:

The automobile's success is what was really invented in the US. Before Henry Ford's perfection of the assembly line, the automobile was literally a novelty for the wealthy elite.

I just looked up some numbers, Ford started producing the Model A in 1903, and produced 10,000 Model T's in 1908. I am having a hard time finding production numbers for Daimler, Benz for their first few years. My guess is: the reason no one gives a shit about Daimler/Benz/Maybach is because Ford's achievements dwarf the Europeans, and made the automobile accessible and affordable in vast numbers.

Re:Died in Obscurity?!!

[mog007]

I thought the first automobile was invented by Gottlieb Daimler, over in Germany.

Re:Died in Obscurity?!!

[bsDaemon]

And for the first time in weeks, I *DON'T* had mod points... very disappointing. That was pretty funny.

Re:Died in Obscurity?!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on who you ask. When was it first designed, type of design, improved upon, manufactured, cheap enough to buy, reliable enough, etc., also which type of propulsion you are referring to(steam, electric, gasoline). For gasoline it's George Baldwin Selden. As vehicles move to electric again, the answer changes, Robert Anderson. But once again, none of them invented everything, merely improving upon what was already known, often without the knowledge of others working on the same ideas, often in different countries. Even the list below does not take into account the multitudes of other people that had the same idea but to this day are unknown and unaccredited for their contributions.

Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (1725-1804) 1769 STEAM / Built the first self propelled road vehicle (military tractor) for the French army: three wheeled, 2.5 mph. France

Robert Anderson 1832-1839 ELECTRIC / Electric carriage. Scotland

Karl Friedrich Benz (1844-1929) 1885/86 GASOLINE / First true automobile. Gasoline automobile powered by an internal combustion engine: three wheeled, Four cycle, engine and chassis form a single unit. Germany Patent DRP No. 37435

Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler (1834-1900) and Wilhelm Maybach (1846-1929)
1886 GASOLINE / First four wheeled, four-stroke engine- known as the "Cannstatt-Daimler." Germany

George Baldwin Selden (1846-1922) 1876/95 GASOLINE / Combined internal combustion engine with a carriage: patent no: 549,160 (1895). Never manufactured -- Selden collected royalties. United States

Charles Edgar Duryea (1862-1938) and his brother Frank (1870-1967)
1893 GASOLINE / First successful gas powered car: 4hp, two-stroke motor. The Duryea brothers set up first American car manufacturing company. United States

http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/auto.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_B._Selden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Benz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottlieb_Daimler

Re:Died in Obscurity?!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Haters always gotta hate. Shrug.

You'll be dragged kicking and screaming into a better future whether you like it or not. Crybaby.

Re:Died in Obscurity?!!

[camperdave]

That was the first GASOLINE powered automobine. Interestingly, both hydrogen and electric powered vehicles predate the gas guzzler by at least 50 years. Of course, wood and coal fired steam engines powered automobiles were in operation some thirty years before Herr Daimler was even born.

Re:Died in Obscurity?!!

[mog007]

Hydrogen and electric cars in the beginning of the 19th century? Cite your source.

world makets up 7-10% in just 2 days

[Anonymous Coward]

scary. opens the window for many who have lost nearly all, & are still paying attention (cheap enough) to recoup a few more pennies on the $.

why must the last of our dwindling dough be siphoned into the wall street of deceit betting pool, with short sellers, & folks from other countries, taking it all home at the end of the day?

as some things are clearly changing, other failed processes are being clung to as though our lives/well being depended on them. very misleading, as the total opposite is closer to the facts. the disproportionate allocation of assets has not changed... yet.

please do not be confused between 'religion' & being spiritual. taking care of each other is our purpose here. somehow that's become background noise to the greed/fear/ego based trappings of man'kind'.

what is special about 133?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, if it were 128 years, sure, that would be newsworthy but what's special about 133 years?

At the time patent duration was shorter

[tlambert]

At the time patent duration was shorter, per the patent act of 1790, and was decided by a board, not to exceed 14 years. In addition, it wasrequested that you have a working prototype of your invention that you could demonstrate for the patent office for the purposes of the parent examination process. There were other hard requirements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Act_of_1790.

So it's a little disingenuous to claim this as an example of why patents are a bad thing.

-- Terry

Re:At the time patent duration was shorter

[kansas1051]

The Patent Act of 1790 was considered a complete disaster by everyone. The "modern" US patent law was set forth in the Patent Act of 1832: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Act_of_1836

Re:At the time patent duration was shorter

[Hatta]

At the time patent duration was shorter, per the patent act of 1790, and was decided by a board, not to exceed 14 years

That's an improvement over the current system.

In addition, it wasrequested that you have a working prototype of your invention that you could demonstrate for the patent office for the purposes of the parent examination process

That's another improvement over the current system.

So it's a little disingenuous to claim this as an example of why patents are a bad thing.

If it was harder to get a bad patent in the past than it is now, and it still happened, that's an even stronger argument than an example from the present day.

Re:At the time patent duration was shorter

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's a little disingenuous to claim this as an example of why patents are a bad thing.

-- Terry

No, this is a good example of why patents were already a bad thing in the 19th century. Later they became even worse.

k007

Tags

[Anonymous Coward]

Suprised this doesn't have a patent troll tag. Obviously that practiced started very soon.

Don't forget Philip Reis

[sapone]

...who also invented an early telephone. In 1861!

TRooLKORE

[Anonymous Coward]

quarreled on FreeBSD continues BSD had become of challenges that conglomerate in the Whether you conversation and BSD culminated in big picture. What EFNet servers. it ju st 0wnz.', are just way over But with Netcraft more grandiose Stand anymore, OF AMERICA) today, other members in arithmetic, completely before way. It used to be charnel house. I've never seen 7o have regular and some of the gloves, condoms The mobo blew this is consistent Fact: *BSD IS A Truth, for all Percent of the *BSD

Oblig. Fam. Guy

[ettlz]

Bell. Well, we did it Watson. What an afternoon. We finally perfected the first telephone.
Watson. Yeah, uh, hey listen, somebody called me today. Uh, whoever it was, said some very sexual things, very angry, sexual things.
Bell. Oh, really? Probably just some teenagers somewhere...

Re:Oblig. Fam. Guy

[destroyer661]

Family Guy is anything but obligatory mate.

Re:Oblig. Fam. Guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory? Well, you, sir, are a festigio. See? I can make up words too.

Re:Oblig. Fam. Guy

[destroyer661]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obligatory

;)

Re:Oblig. Fam. Guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Here, I fixed your link for you.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obligatory

Today's hard-earned entertainment

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone making fun of TWSS...

Actually,

[Anonymous Coward]

Leonardo da Vinci built the first telephone. Unfortunately, it took somebody over 400 years to build another one, during which time poor Leonardo had nobody to talk to.

Of course, Leonardo being dead for the last 300+ of those years, it would have been a rather one-sided conversation anyway once Bell/Gray/wotsizname finally got connected.

Anybody Here Remember Rotary Dials?

[aquatone282]

Yeah? Well the rest of you can GET OFF MY LAWN!

Re:Anybody Here Remember Rotary Dials?

[oodaloop]

I remember rotary dials...does that mean I can stay on your lawn?

Re:Anybody Here Remember Rotary Dials?

[Mikkeles]

Actually, I remember the old, fully automated systems: one picked up the phone, turned a crank, spoke (e.g.) "Hello, Mabel. I would like to talk to Frank at the garage", waited a moment, and magically one was connected to Frank!

Voice recognition and no need to memorise the number!

Re:Anybody Here Remember Rotary Dials?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually this could be easily done on these dark days... And all unemployed people could get work as operators.

It would be fantastic, just press the one and the only button on the phone (Hey! iPhone!) and then you would get connected to operator and do the usual smalltalk with them first before connecting. And eveeeery body would be happy.

Re:Anybody Here Remember Rotary Dials?

[CompMD]

There are still two rotary dial Western Electric 554 phones hard wired into my parents' house that are fully operational and used on a nearly daily basis. They have the finest sound quality and reliability of any phone I've ever used.

Good old family history

[Photo_Nut]

I like this story. See, I married into the family... Mr. Watson is my wife's great great grandfather. He left his family with an estate in New Hampshire which we go to every year and in this estate there are 2 telephones. An interesting family tradition in her branch of the family is to give the male children the middle name of Watson. Anyway, to place a call, you crank a generator which causes a bell to ring at the other end of the line, then the person at the other end of the line picks up and the call is connected.

Today we all have cell phones (and ironically, the cell phone reception isn't that great - verizon or AT&T - we brought an iPhone last summer to the estate, and it browsed the web painfully slowly - a 28K modem with AOL and all the ads would beat it), but how many people can say that they have talked on a phone made by hand by the inventor of the telephone in this day and age where cell phones can make video calls and store books and play video games and browse the web?

Re:Good old family history

[tttonyyy]

how many people can say that they have talked on a phone made by hand by the inventor of the telephone

Not you, according to the article/Wikipedia entry. It would seem Meucci got there before Gray/Bell.

Re:Good old family history

[mykro76]

I like the original story too. See, I turned 33 on Tuesday. I was born on 10th March 1976, exactly 100 years to the day after the telephone was (according to legend) invented by A.G. Bell for his deaf wife. Now for the delicious irony! I was born deaf, and have never been able to use a phone.

Wrong number

[Samah]

Bell: Hello, Watson?
Other person: Oh I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong number. What did you dial?
Bell: Three.
Other person: Ah, this is two.
Bell: Oh, simple mistake to make, sorry to bother you.
*hangs up*

Elish Gray hardly obscure

[tjstork]

I love how everyone loves to paint poor Elisha Gray as this hard working guy, but, he was actually by no means a poor man himself. He had a nice little business that he sold to Western Union for a healthy chunk of change. Viewed in that context, what we're really talking about here is the then giant Western Union, via Elisha Gray, versus the then tiny Bell, fighting over the telephone. If anyone was the "tiny" guy fighting the system at that time, it was in fact, Alexander Graham Bell!

Antonio Meucci here

[Anonymous Coward]

I sumbmitted the story four times but it was rejected.

Obama is drowning, so to speak...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every day Obama is announcing some new initiative. *YAWN* Press announcements are not results. Wake me when there's some actual legislation on the table. Meanwhile, his buddy Tim Geitner, the tax-dodger who was supposed to be a financial Doogie Howser and the only man who could save us, has yet to present a clear plan as to how the government is going to fix the banking system, and the stock market has punished him accordingly. I love how Obama built up expectations for Geitner, only to discover that he basically had no plan. Classic! These two guys are fucking clueless!

Re:Obama is drowning, so to speak...

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely they can't be any less clueless then the last administration, dick head.

Twain said it best . . .

[OhHellWithIt]

. . . about a decade later in a letter to Bell's father-in-law.

edited for 2009

[acedotcom]

"idk, my bff jill?"

Correct me if I'm wrong.....

[Khaloroma]

But didn't Tesla come up with the concepts of both the telephone and radio and all Bell really did was just get the first patent?

Edison almost invented it

[peter303]

Randall Stross , Silicon valley historian and NY Times technology columnist, wrote an interesting biography of Edison a few years back. He compared Edison [favorably] to modern Silicon Valley entrepenuers.

With regard to telephones, Edison was obssessed with increasing telegraph line capacity. He invented several multiplexing schemes. One scheme would transmit/decode messages at different frwquencies multiplexed on the same line. His competitors made the conceptual leap of using ALL frequencies to transmit the voice instead of clicks. At least Edison developed the first useful microphone for the telephone then.
Another multiplexing scheme pre-recorded telegraph messages which would be played across the liens at superhuman speeds, recorded at the other end, then played back slow enough to transcribe. The turned into the more successful audio record player then.

How nice...

[King_TJ]

To commemorate this historical event, it appears AT&T knocked out all the phones here at work....

Had to unplug the Adtran unit for about 20 seconds to hard reset it, to get the voice T1 circuits to come back up again.

Actually it was Daniel Drawbaugh

[bdraw]

It wasn't Elisha Gray either, it was actually Daniel Drawbaugh. And yes I'm related to him. http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMMBG Of course everyone would know this if he wouldn't have lost the patent case.

this isn't the important anniversery

[Anonymous Coward]

that will come 1,204 years from now. foolish n00bs :D

Sadly...

[Mister Whirly]

..it was a wrong number.

Gray didn't die in total obscurity

[swschrad]

Gray and a Bell exec named Barton got together after Grey's Western Electric was bought by ATT, and set up the wholesale telco business Graybar to supply equipment to the Bells and the independents.

he didn't get the patent, but he didn't camp out by the side of the railroad tracks, either.

Meucci Telephone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't have a nice "ring".

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

I read "133rd" as leerd.

Bell's answerphone

[AdamWill]

I always liked the I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue joke about the first telephone. They were doing famous people's answerphone messages. Here's Alexander Bell's:

"Hello, this is Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first telephone. If you've invented another telephone, please leave a message after the beep."

The SECOND phone call....

[CarlosHawes]

Was asking Watson if he wanted to change his long distance carrier....

The Revisionist

[westlake]

Some of the latest research into Bells own lab notes is showing that he saw Grays pre patent applications for a liquid based microphone before hand.

The Centennial Exposition was our coming-out party.

It's heart and soul the grand Corliss steam engine which powered the exhibits - a breath-taking 45 feet high and with a flywheel 30 feet in diameter.

Eliza Gray was an electrical engineer of national reputation, an inventor with a huge and lucrative patent portfolio.

Doesn't it seem at least passing strange that he should appear as a mere spectator at so extraordinary an event?

Eakins is there with "The Gross Clinic."

Remington his typewriter. Edison his phonograph...

But in Philadelphia Eliza Gray is caught - quite literally - standing in the audience when Bell takes the stage.

Bell's demo microphones are electromagnetic. Bell's production microphones are electromagnetic.

Bell is stringing a ten mile test line in August. The first Bell exchange opens in New Haven in 1878.

Gray understands promotion. He understands the ground game. He has Western Union at his back.

If he has a telephone -

What the hell is he doing those two years?

They don't care. They don't have to.

[Mr Z]

They don't care. They don't have to. They're the Phone Company. Just ask Ernestine!

Bell wasn't first

[Anonymous Coward]

Bell wasn't first, first was Jara Cimrman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jara_Cimrman). ;-)

Don't forget the inventor the clinical thermometer

[NotSoHeavyD3]

He certainly had the right name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Allbutt

Funny, I thought Gottlieb invented

[NotSoHeavyD3]

The pinball machine and Q-Bert. Now you tell me he invented the car too?

Don't you know this?

[Anonymous Coward]

You people are making way too big of deal out of this... the guy that invented the telephone is not the guy that deserves all the celebration; it's the guy that invented the second telephone.

Graybar

[Understudy]

Don't feel to bad for Elisha. He was part owner of the Graybar Electric Company. Which today is still one of the largest suppliers of electric and voice data supplies who still today suck up large amounts of money for over priced items. It was that money he used to try and patent the telephone.