In India, the Dot Dash Is Done

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In India, the Dot Dash Is Done

Posted by timothy on Sunday July 14, 2013 @06:05PM from the clackity-clackity-dot-dot-dot dept.

cold fjord writes that, as promised last month, telegraph service in India is being honorably retired: "Only 7 years behind the US. From Forbes: '... in India, where I'm now sojourning, telegraph service has survived as a basic means of communication since the British East India Company sent the first telegram from Calcutta to nearby Diamond Harbor in 1850... As of July 15, the state company that runs the telegraph service is shutting it down. ... "For long, the telegraph was eyed with suspicion as an emblem of imperial rule," editorialized The Indian Express ... "Yet it brought various parts of the country together and eventually entered the traffic of everyday life. When the telegraph winds up, one of the oldest markers of a modern India will be lost. Stop" — the word that typically ended brief telegraphic phrases rather than periods. Until fairly recently, several hundred thousand messages a day moved over the wires of the telegraph system ...' From NBC: 'When it was completed in 1856, the Indian telegraph stretched over 4,000 miles ... Tom Standage, author of "The Victorian Internet" writes, the early telegraph networks were responsible for "hype, skepticism, hackers, on-line romances and weddings, chat-rooms, flame wars, information overload, predictions of imminent world peace."'"

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Chat rooms? by SeaFox · 2013-07-14 18:08 · Score: 5, Funny

I'd like to know how a chat room worked on a telegraph.
1. Re:Chat rooms? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-14 18:18 · Score: 1
  
  like this. STOP
2. Re:Chat rooms? by Ozoner · 2013-07-14 18:41 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  > I'd like to know how a chat room worked on a telegraph.
  On most Telegraph lines there were many operators spaced at intervals along the line and its branch lines.
  So when there was no traffic to send, the bored operators would chat.
  And of course there were many amateur telegraph circuits, some connecting dozens of enthusiasts in a town or suburb.
  And then of course Amateur Radio came along.
3. Re:Chat rooms? by Luckyo · 2013-07-14 18:52 · Score: 1
  
  And now we have IRC. And twitter. And facebook.
  And suddenly, it starts to look like we've regressed :D
4. Re:Chat rooms? by vikingpower · 2013-07-14 20:58 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Can confirm this from experience with military telex and morse operation networks on ssb shortwave. Chat, chat, chat 'til you drop dead, just in order not to drop dead from boredom.
  
  --
  Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
5. Re:Chat rooms? by 91degrees · 2013-07-14 21:24 · Score: 1
  
  Telegraph network forums?
  
  I believe dashdot.og was very big in the 1890's. Although the "ADELINA PATTI NAKED AND PETRIFIED STOP" troll posts were rather tiresome.
6. Re:Chat rooms? by cold+fjord · 2013-07-14 22:29 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, but hot grits never went out of style, surviving to the modern age. Of course of late they both seem to be challenged by mycleanpc, the modern equivalent of the old mycleanbuggy.
  
  --
  much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
7. Re:Chat rooms? by cold+fjord · 2013-07-14 23:03 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I'd like to know how a chat room worked on a telegraph.
  I'd like to know what the flame wars were about.
  
  --
  much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
8. Re:Chat rooms? by oPless · 2013-07-14 23:13 · Score: 1
  
  Have you a hosts file to prove that?
9. Re:Chat rooms? by crackspackle · 2013-07-15 02:05 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  For an interesting take on why the telegraph led in part to the modern computer and how both work, read Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold. He argues all the ideas needed to build a modern computer were known around the time telegraph use took off, and he uses those ideas to describe logic gates and put them together into a working computer.
  In short, the relay was invented in 1835 as a way to extend telegraph runs further without requiring operators. Morse code, as the primary way to communicate, happened to also be a binary code that mapped letters to the equivalent of ones and zeros, dots and dashes. In 1854, George Boole published “An Investigation of the Laws of Thought”. Petzold stops there and essentially uses only those ideas to build his modern computer. It wasn’t recognized formally by anyone until 1937 when Claude Shannon published “A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits”. Even Charles Babbage had known of Boole’s work and the telegraph but did not see how it could have been better used to build his Difference Engine.
10. Re:Chat rooms? by gmhowell · 2013-07-15 13:16 · Score: 1
  
  Have you a hosts file to prove that?
  Last one I had set us up the bomb.
  
  --
  Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
11. Re:Chat rooms? by oPless · 2013-07-28 22:50 · Score: 1
  
  For Great Justice?
Probably poetry was possible by tanveer1979 · 2013-07-14 18:22 · Score: 5, Funny

< > ! * ' ' # Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash, ^ " ` $ $ - Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash, ! * = @ $ _ Bang splat equal at dollar under-score, % * < > ~ # 4 Percent splat waka waka tilde number four, & [ ] . . / Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash, | { , , SYSTEM HALTED Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH. http://poetry.about.com/od/poetryplay/l/blwakawaka.htm

--
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
1. Re:Probably poetry was possible by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2013-07-14 18:58 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash, Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash, Bang splat equal at dollar under-score, Percent splat waka waka tilde number four, Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash, Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.
  
  Strange . . . that sounds like my upper management, talking about how we need to "tap into the power of social networks with modeling and visualization".
  
  --
  Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
2. Re:Probably poetry was possible by cold+fjord · 2013-07-14 22:41 · Score: 2
  
  I'd like to see Shakira give a rendition of that. Maybe call it Waka Waka This Time for India.
  
  --
  much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
3. Re:Probably poetry was possible by PopeRatzo · 2013-07-15 01:27 · Score: 1
  
  I'd like to see Shakira
  Yes.
  
  --
  You are welcome on my lawn.
4. Re:Probably poetry was possible by RenderSeven · 2013-07-15 02:48 · Score: 1
  
  Well, social networks are a paradigm shift of the new economy cloud event horizon mindshare.
5. Re:Probably poetry was possible by Darinbob · 2013-07-15 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  Those curly brackets don't lie.
Cellphones killed the Telegram by Frankie70 · 2013-07-14 18:27 · Score: 5, Informative

Landline penetration was never good in India.
Hence telegrams were used by people who wanted to contact people without telephones urgently.
Also telegrams were common during weddings even upto 10 years ago. People who were in cities other than were the couple were getting married typically sent their best wishes to the address given in the wedding card because people won't be at home on that day to pick up the telephone. And telegrams had 20-25 numeric codes for standard messages which made it cheap to send telegrams. If the message you wanted to send was one of the standard 20-25 messages you just send the number as the telegram rather than the message. The receiving telegram office would convert it back to the full message before delivering.
Cell phones essentially killed both of the above scenarios. And cell phone in India is massive as compared to land lines ever were.
1. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by sharma.vasudev · 2013-07-14 18:51 · Score: 0
  
  To add why the penetration was not so good. I remember in 1998 when the cellphone penetration was very low, the charges for mobile service were 36rs(~1$ back in 1998) for outgoing and maybe 16rs for incoming and landlines were 2rs outgoing, the charges for mobile service kept on dropping but never so much as to make it available easily for mass market, in 2003 Reliance-com entered the market with CDMA phone and overnight you had plans as low as 30p, this is when the real competition to the landlines started. Currently landlines rates are cheapest, you can have unlimited calls for 200rs (5$?), now what changed it. Well suddently the government organizations who had JOB security and reason not to work and were always profitable, saw a huge dent in their economics due to cellphone, it takes three days to get a new telephone, earlier it used to take three months (if you are lucky and they have not lost your application). Now if I analyse why the penetration was low, it was because they had JOB security, the same government organisation which should have worked had for the people and development of country was dozing their whole way, I am glad that these government sector services are being replaces with openmarket alternatives.
2. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by ls671 · 2013-07-14 20:56 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  "the charges for mobile service were 36rs(~1$ back in 1998)"
  And now you have to call to in Africa and a few other places to see high rates close to that:
  5321,Cuba - Guantanamo,0.7696$/minute
  22176,Senegal - Tigo Mobile,0.6748$/minute
  24105,Gabon - Moov Mobile,0.5238$/minute
  252225,Somalia - Soltelco,0.5500$/minute
  25778,Burundi - Africel Mobile,0.4460$/minute
  56322100,Chile - Easter Island,0.4600$/minute
  2207,Gambia - Africell Mobile,0.4164$/minute
  22469,Guinea - Areeba Mobile,0.4028$/minute
  India indeed got a lot cheaper:
  917579,India - Bsnl Mobile,0.0134$/minute
  9182310,India - Mobile,0.0122$/minute
  
  --
  Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
3. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-14 21:13 · Score: 1
  
  Not that they (the ex government monopolies) are doing a good job even now, with competition. BSNL has privatized, but dealing with them is still like pulling teeth. Their 'unlimited DSL plans' actually had limits of 4GB, with DSL getting disabled every 1GB. Dealing with their customer service and doing simple things like paying bills is still a nightmare - standing in long queues, and to do online payment, the registration site was something one could not get to without going to their office and getting routed from officer to officer until you got to somebody. The bureaucracies that they had are still largely intact. I replaced BSNL with MTS as far as internet service goes more than a month ago, but have yet to see that reflected in the bill, or their personnel come to collect their modem
  Why do we persist with them, you may ask? My parents - my dad doesn't want to change his land line phone number even though he hardly uses it. Hence, until recently, dealing with them was a nightmare. Personally, I use an Airtel connection, my mom has a Vodafone, my sister Reliance and so on. Dealing with Airtel, by contrast, and even MTS, is a walk in the park.
  However, back on topic. One thing I'm glad is that India is at least on sync with the US, even if lagging by 7 years. This year, India finally switched everything to digital TV: despite local politicians getting it pushed out quarter to quarter, the thing that enabled it was almost all media providers yanking all their content from analog channels, making it worthless for anybody who's just been running extra cable lines to other hice. Airtel currently offers 4G only for wireless USB modems: hopefully, 4G phone services will be next and will be available for all the major carriers.
4. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by MichaelSmith · 2013-07-14 22:40 · Score: 2
  
  Landline penetration was low because it is expensive to run cables. In the 1990s I visited a company who were making fixed phones for houses in Chile. These were big analogue mobiles and dirt cheap compared to stringing cables through the mountains.
  
  --
  http://michaelsmith.id.au
5. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-07-14 22:47 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It probably doesn't help(for the survival of telegraphs) that cellphones encheapen exactly the same part of the process that is most expensive with telegram service.
  Unless you want telegram service to be about as useful as media mail, in terms of timeliness, you need a pretty aggressive short-haul postal service running out of the telegraph office. Technology presumably reduced the price of transmission links between offices(at least in places where it was worth upgrading, rather than just milking the legacy copper); but you still have to collect the text on one end, and have somebody run out and deliver it on the other. Even with arbitrarily cheap data transmission, you've still got a postal service hanging off all your endpoints.
  With cellphones, the technology and bandwidth requirements are higher; but now the messages deliver themselves from the sender to the tower and from the tower to the recipient.
6. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by segin · 2013-07-14 22:59 · Score: 1
  
  I've got to ask, does not India have local number portability? The article mentions mobile number portability, but clearly your dad wants to hang onto a landline number, not a mobile number.
7. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-07-14 23:16 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Landline penetration was low because it is expensive to run cables. In the 1990s I visited a company who were making fixed phones for houses in Chile. These were big analogue mobiles and dirt cheap compared to stringing cables through the mountains.
  It's not just for the sticks and/or brutal terrain anymore: Verizon is looking to move a bunch of Hurricane Sandy-damaged landline customers to 'Verizon Voicelink', essentially a tethered cellular-to-copper bridge. Whether this is a statement on the economics of copper/fiber buildout, or an end-run around the regulations affecting wireline POTS service is a matter of some contention...
8. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by DNS-and-BIND · 2013-07-15 00:15 · Score: 2
  
  77 cents a minute is still pretty cheap, relatively. International long distance used to be $2/3 per minute, easily. I used to work for a long distance company monitoring their network. The highest cost I ever saw to land locations were distant Pacific islands at $5 per minute. The most expensive ever were ships at sea (Inmarsat) for $6/minute. I called one of them and it was the bridge of an aircraft carrier!
  
  --
  Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
9. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by sharma.vasudev · 2013-07-15 00:21 · Score: 1
  
  [snip] CDMA phone and overnight you had plans as low as 30p [/snip]
10. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by Frankie70 · 2013-07-15 02:17 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  In India and most countries outside of the USA, landline numbers and mobile numbers have a different format
  Landline numbers = Area Code + Number
  Cell Numbers = one long 10 digit number (there is no area code)
  Because of this, there cannot be portability between landline and Cell numbers.
11. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by operagost · 2013-07-15 03:12 · Score: 1
  
  Not a Verizon fan, but as long as there is still copper to the premises the POTS regulations still apply.
  
  --
  
  Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
12. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-07-15 03:22 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  That is the root of the suspicion that Verizon has reasons other than repair costs to not re-run the lines that were cut by the hurricane, to ensure that the area has no copper to any premises, and that whether your phone looks like a landline or not, you are at the tender mercy of Verizon Wireless.
13. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-15 04:05 · Score: 0
  
  In India, mobile numbers are portable between carriers; landline numbers are not. As Frankie pointed out, they have different formats.
14. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by tomtomtom · 2013-07-15 05:07 · Score: 2
  
  In India and most countries outside of the USA, landline numbers and mobile numbers have a different format
  Landline numbers = Area Code + Number Cell Numbers = one long 10 digit number (there is no area code)
  Because of this, there cannot be portability between landline and Cell numbers.
  One of the big reasons for this is that outside the USA, generally people do not pay to receive calls on mobile phones; the caller pays a higher cost to call a mobile number than a landline instead (at least in theory, although inclusive minutes deals make this increasingly not the case for either the USA or rest of world). One of the principles that seems to be broadly applied in the numbering systems used in most countries is that you should be able to tell whether a number is an "expensive" one or not by looking at the prefix. Allowing higher cost for calls to mobiles would break this principle (it also makes sense logically, since mobiles are non-geographical so giving them a geographical prefix is a bit weird).
15. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by Pentium100 · 2013-07-15 06:42 · Score: 1
  
  Yea, this also was a problem for a short while after the government of my country decided that people should be able to take their cell phone number to another provider (to encourage competition). You could no longer tell whether the number you are calling belongs to "your" provider (cheaper) or not. This was solved - now when you call a number that does not belong to "your" provider, you hear two short beeps before the waiting signal.
16. Re:Cellphones killed the Telegram by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-17 02:35 · Score: 0
  
  "Cell Numbers = one long 10 digit number (there is no area code)"
  Not so in Australia. All mobile phone numbers begin with "04" - this is the "area code" for a mobile number. The next two number nominally denote the carrier, although number portability makes that not always the case.
  Calls to the same network are usually cheaper, so it's the same reasoning as you said.
Cell phone penetration by Frankie70 · 2013-07-14 18:29 · Score: 1, Funny

And cell phone in India is massive as compared to land lines ever were.

Cellphone penetration in India, I meant - cellphones themselves are not so massive except for the Samsung phablets
sort of a dupe.. by gl4ss · 2013-07-14 18:33 · Score: 0

..and also, the telegram was pretty much just the name for a messaging service that transferred the messages electronically for some amount of distance and got delivered at the other end..

--
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
1. Re:sort of a dupe.. by Blaskowicz · 2013-07-14 21:09 · Score: 1
  
  ..and also, the telegram was pretty much just the name for a messaging service that transferred the messages electronically for some amount of distance and got delivered at the other end..
  ..which is what telegram has always been about?, unless you're a stock exchange or government or military headquarter etc. and have a telegraph line running to your building.
one way to catch dudes is Google by Trax3001BBS · 2013-07-14 18:36 · Score: 1

like:
telegraph service site:slashdot.org
1. Re:one way to catch dudes is Google by wonkey_monkey · 2013-07-14 19:21 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  one way to catch dudes is Google
  Your lifestyle is none of my business, but this isn't the place.
  
  --
  systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
2. Re:one way to catch dudes is Google by cold+fjord · 2013-07-14 22:46 · Score: 1
  
  Telegraph, telephone, cell phone, internet, people's interests never really change, just the medium.
  Almost had a typo. That last bit almost was: "just he medium." Oddly appropriate.
  
  --
  much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
3. Re:one way to catch dudes is Google by Trax3001BBS · 2013-07-15 00:06 · Score: 2
  
  one way to catch dudes is Google
  Your lifestyle is none of my business, but this isn't the place.
  Darn! Got the P 180 degrees off.
  The es was meant, I had to really look at it till I saw the error, I LOL myself.
4. Re:one way to catch dudes is Google by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-15 00:42 · Score: 0
  
  "pudes"?
  what's a pude?
5. Re:one way to catch dudes is Google by drinkypoo · 2013-07-15 00:44 · Score: 2
  
  one way to catch dudes is Google
  Your lifestyle is none of my business, but this isn't the place.
  Are you kidding? What could be more of a sausage party than slashdot? Gay-sausage-party dot com?
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
6. Re:one way to catch dudes is Google by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-15 06:00 · Score: 0
  
  It's like a dude, only after... you know...
7. Re:one way to catch dudes is Google by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-15 08:23 · Score: 0
  
  Cum on now. Dylsexia is no laughing matter.
Is Slashdot by Black+Parrot · 2013-07-14 18:46 · Score: 1, Funny

what you get when you telegraph while drunk?

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
1. Re:Is Slashdot by cold+fjord · 2013-07-14 22:58 · Score: 1
  
  I think they called them drunkgrams. Sort of equivalent to the current practice of drunk blogging.
  
  --
  much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Hmmm... apropos the title by c0lo · 2013-07-14 18:49 · Score: 1

A good tld: .–.
http:///.– looks quite tasty.

--
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
1. Re:Hmmm... apropos the title by cold+fjord · 2013-07-14 22:18 · Score: 1
  
  Close, but I think what you really want is: http://-.
  .
  Or maybe, http://dashdot.org/
  
  --
  much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
2. Re:Hmmm... apropos the title by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-14 23:21 · Score: 0
  
  Close, but I think what you really want is: http://-.
  Naw, http:///..– (slashdot dot dash)
3. Re:Hmmm... apropos the title by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-15 03:42 · Score: 0
  
  I didn't know slashdot had a RTTY interface. Is that just the RSS feed?
I sent a telegram once by symbolset · 2013-07-14 18:50 · Score: 0, Offtopic

It arrived. I'm glad I got to have the experience before it died. One of many lost technology experiences.

--
Help stamp out iliturcy.
1. Re:I sent a telegram once by cold+fjord · 2013-07-14 22:19 · Score: 1
  
  There is speculation in the press that many Indians will be doing the same.
  
  --
  much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
2. Re:I sent a telegram once by unixisc · 2013-07-15 04:19 · Score: 2
  
  On the last day of the service, there indeed was.
  
  Hundreds of people thronged the 75 telegraph offices remaining in the country to send their last telegrams to friends or family as a keepsake.
  Some BSNL employees suggested that had the activity throughout the year been that high, the service would probably not have been ended.
A telegram is... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-14 18:53 · Score: 0

irrelevant anymore. Use Cellphones instead ! : New Cellphone technology
Mish mash by Tablizer · 2013-07-14 19:10 · Score: 1

Is slashdot reporting the dot-com-like flash crash of dot dash from lack of cash?

--
Table-ized A.I.
what dot dash by ewanm89 · 2013-07-14 19:17 · Score: 4, Informative

This wasn't using Morse, in fact outside amateur radio, Morse hasn't really been used for several decades now. Until 2010 this would have been using teletype printers, likely using baudot or Murray code, neither of which use a dash even if one-off keyed. In 2010 the. Company in India upgraded.to a 'web based system's, according to Wikipedia.
1. Re:what dot dash by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-14 20:00 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  There is loads of misinformation going around on this topic.
  It was also claimed that this was the world's last telegram service to shut down, and this is not true at all.
  Many telegram services are still operating, also in India.
  Poor research, I would say.
2. Re:what dot dash by MichaelSmith · 2013-07-14 22:42 · Score: 2
  
  This wasn't using Morse, in fact outside amateur radio, Morse hasn't really been used for several decades now.
  I am pretty sure it is still used in aviation to identify beacons.
  
  --
  http://michaelsmith.id.au
3. Re:what dot dash by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-07-14 23:21 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I haven't been able to figure out where the story got its legs. It is true that 'The' telegram service, the one with organizational continuity back to the original system set up to handle the logistical needs of Her Britannic Majesty's colonial occupation efforts, is shutting down. Game over, goodbye.
  However, since virtually any data transmission mechanism will serve as a telegraph medium(they aren't exactly high-bandwidth or anything), there isn't much stopping other outfits from hanging out a shingle and offering telegram services, as some have.
  Does anybody know if the state-run service that is shutting down had some sort of special status for legal purposes(the way the US Postal Service's offerings sometimes count for legal or procedural purposes where fedex or UPS might not)?
4. Re:what dot dash by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-14 23:41 · Score: 1
  
  Telegrams sent via the state-run service did count as legal correspondence.
Stop. by Hypotensive · 2013-07-14 19:37 · Score: 1

the word that typically ended brief telegraphic phrases rather than periods
It is a period. This is like saying that people used a dash instead of a hyphen.
1. Re:Stop. by Chrisq · 2013-07-14 20:17 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  the word that typically ended brief telegraphic phrases rather than periods
  It is a period. This is like saying that people used a dash instead of a hyphen.
  Though a stop and a period are the same, a dash is not a hyphen:
  
  The hyphen () is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes ( –, — ), which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign, which is also longer.
2. Re: Stop. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-14 22:40 · Score: 0
  
  You're confusing an em-dash with an en-dash.
3. Re:Stop. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-15 11:30 · Score: 0
  
  the word that typically ended brief telegraphic phrases rather than periods
  It is a period.
  I think you have misunderstood. The word 'stop' would be used to end a sentence in a telegram rather than a punctuation character. 'Stop' is short for 'full stop' which is the name of the punctuation character in most variants of English outside of North America, where the word 'period' is used instead.
  
  This is like saying that people used a dash instead of a hyphen.
  No - it's like spelling out the word 'dash' instead of using a dash punctuation character.
Multiple hops in a telegram ? by ProgramErgoSum · 2013-07-14 21:14 · Score: 0

How was the wiring done to ensure that just with a pair of PIN (or ZIP) codes the telegram arrived at its destination ? Was there some sort of DNS servers ?
1. Re:Multiple hops in a telegram ? by quetwo · 2013-07-14 23:49 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Telegrams were prefixed with a routing number (telex number), similar to a phone number, and name. The telex number was usually the number of the receiving office... Most telegram systems used worldwide employed a "store and forward" type of system where they would get the telegram from the originating office, wait for the the trunks to be open to the larger offices that consolidated multiple regions together, and then sometimes sent it to the larger office via other trunks. Then the process would reverse sending the message down trunks as they opened up to the smaller offices.
  Of course, most of this became moot when the old copper lines were decommissioned in most countries in the late 1990's and early 2000's. The US and most of Europe switched to routing the telex messages over the internet. Many countries quickly moved to the same platform after. I don't think anything lives in Western's telecommunication office on 60 Hudson in NYC anymore..
Re:WTF ? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-15 00:13 · Score: 0

India gives in to Slashdot to drop morse code. Now thousands more could post and avoid the "too many junk characters" message.
My dad was a "combined" hand. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2013-07-15 00:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

Combined hand is the term used by Indian Posts & Telegraph Department to describe postal workers certified in morse code. He got his certificate in Chennai in 1957 or so. Most common telegraph traffic was rural merchants exchanging price information and harvest forecasts with district and state commercial centers. Usually in the evening and usually obfuscated in terms unique to each trading family.
But out side business most common people got telegrams bearing death notices. India is a very hot country and usually bodies are cremated within 24 hours. Certain religious ritual need a certain relatives to be present at the cremation. Usually the wife's family (whether the husband dies or the wife) plays an important roles in the rites and the property settlements that follows soon after. Husband's brothers would usually be in the same village, but again sometimes they need to be sent for. Sons/daughters also need to be sent out for urgently. It is not uncommon to actually send messengers out for very important relatives. So for most common people only death notices are important enough to use the expensive, so many rupees per word, messages.
Middle class folks would also send congratulatory telegrams for weddings they could not attend. The custom again requires certain relatives must be present for weddings, but if they could not be, spending money to send telegrams carries the subtext, "sorry I could not attend, see I am spending expensive telegram, so it shows that I value the relationship a lot, I beg forgiveness for being able to attend". I have heard of people sending double telegrams.
In a PGWodehouse novel Betram Wooster and his aunt Dhalia exchange some 10 telegrams or so in one afternoon. I found that to be a lot more hilarious than most other people because my prior notions about what a telegram signifies.
Once the commercial messages went to SMS basically the market disappeared for telegrams.

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sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Typical message? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-15 00:57 · Score: 2, Funny

Kindly do the needful. STOP. Warmest regards. STOP
All of that AND world peace? by nitehawk214 · 2013-07-15 01:09 · Score: 1

hype, skepticism, hackers, on-line romances and weddings, chat-rooms, flame wars, information overload, predictions of imminent world peace.
The internet is only capable of the first seven items in that list.

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I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Damn that idiot Columbus by Thud457 · 2013-07-15 01:39 · Score: 2

is this dot Indian or dash Indian we're talking about?

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the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
A telegraph service, not ALL telegraph service by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-15 01:41 · Score: 4, Informative

There is still telegraph service in India. It's just the state run provider shutting down.
Source
Telex Machines... by CohibaVancouver · 2013-07-15 01:58 · Score: 5, Informative

A century ago telegrams were sent using morse, but in the last 80 years or so, a 'telegram' doesn't / didn't mean 'morse code.'

When Roger O. Thornhill sends a telegram in North by Northwest it would have gone by telex machine. The 'Congratulations!' telegrams we sent and received in my youth were sent by telex.

...same deal in India. Telex, not morse

http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/800px-Telex_machine_ASR-32-640x426.jpg
1. Re:Telex Machines... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2013-07-15 03:52 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Probably in USA. In India regular dot-dash telegraph was operational well into the 1970s. I have visited post offices with my dad and been "shocked" by the telegraph equipment. There key-hammer instruments were not insulated and if you touch it you will get a shock. The voltage is not as high 110V but high enough to feel the tingling and make muscles twitch but not painful. I don't know the actual voltage used. I remember the telex machines being introduced to state capitals in 1970s. I have seen the telegrams telegrams written by the hand of the operator in pencil. Telex messages will have lines and line of tape cut and paste literally on to the same form.
  
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  sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
2. Re:Telex Machines... by rubycodez · 2013-07-15 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  did a web search on BSNL, the images suggest they went to networked PC for telegrams long ago, no more "Sparky working the key"
3. Re:Telex Machines... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2013-07-15 11:24 · Score: 1
  
  BSNL is very very recent. It was established in just 2000. The Indian Posts & Telegraph Department dates back to days of British Raj. I still remember by sixth grade Indian History. Emperor Sher Shah Suri (1540) introduced mail service based on horses to India. Take look at the history of the post office in India: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Postal_Service
  
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  sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
4. Re:Telex Machines... by rubycodez · 2013-07-15 12:29 · Score: 1
  
  as a corporation is it recent, however it used to be known as your Department of Telecommunications
5. Re:Telex Machines... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2013-07-16 01:47 · Score: 1
  
  Let us start all over again. The thread started with the statement: " but in the last 80 years or so, a 'telegram' doesn't / didn't mean 'morse code.' ". The entire concept of PC is about 30 years old. (IBM PC - 1981). PCs did not get network support in USA till about 1990s. Saying "BSNL website says it switched to networked PCs to support telegrams, long ago. This shows Morse code has not been used for 80 years" is wrong.
  When was Morse code discontinued in India for telegrams? Once telephone networks became widespread, most county (or taluq in Indian parlance) level post offices started using telephone to replace Morse code. Still the same message passing network. But instead of Morse code the operators would call the upstream or downstream node and speak the messages on phone. But for villages (branch post office) the connection to their upstream node (sub post office) was usually through telegraph and Morse code. Cheap equipment and ultra reliability were its strength. If monsoon rains wash away a stretch of telegraph poles, these branch masters would simply cross the river/run/brook/rill/nallah/arroyo/stream/creek/whatever, grab the severed wire with a piece of cloth, usually their turban or waist cloth, touch it to the metal pole and start sending and receiving messages!. I vaguely recall my dad talking about the telephone replacing telegraph while he was still in service. May be in the late 1980s. Sections of Indian telegraph network were on Morse code almost till the day they all went out of service.
  
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  sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
DEAR TIMOTHY by PPH · 2013-07-15 02:39 · Score: 1

STOP

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Have gnu, will travel.
NSarse by Korruptionen · 2013-07-15 06:33 · Score: 2

There's one guy at the NSA that just got his world crushed... because this was his job. Spying on telegraph systems. Poor guy.
Coming up next by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-17 02:28 · Score: 0

I look forward to the post in a month, about "one month ago, India retired the telegraph service".