Slashdot Mirror
A Call That Made History, 100 Years Ago Today
alphadogg writes These days, making a call across the U.S. is so easy that people often don't even know they're talking coast to coast. But 100 years ago Sunday, it took a hackathon, a new technology and an international exposition to make it happen. The first commercial transcontinental phone line opened on Jan. 25, 1915, with a call from New York to the site of San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Alexander Graham Bell made the call to his assistant, Thomas Watson. Just 39 years earlier, Bell had talked to Watson on the first ever phone call, in Boston, just after Bell had patented the telephone.
Notably, this was accomplished before the negative feedback amplifier was invented in 1927.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
The historical date of the first transcontinental call could've been many years earlier.
However, the Canadians got really mad about it... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
really? He patented it before ever testing it? Same shit, different millennium, eh?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"On May 22, 1886 .. Zenas F. Wilber, a former Washington patent examiner, swore in an affidavit that he'd been bribed by an attorney for Alexander Graham Bell to award Bell the patent for the telephone over a rival inventor, Elisha Gray, who'd filed a patent document on the same day as Bell in 1876." ref
Bell's telephone sketch
Elisha Gray's sketch of a telephone
Maybe he highlighted the first two paragraphs then clicked the middle button (:
I rarely see people do this. Are you the type of guy who would blow somebody away for texting the babysitter during the trailers
Why the upside-down smiley face?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
And neither did Elisha Gray.
The phone was invented in 1860 by Johann Phillip Reiss, a german self-taught engineer and scientist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Philipp_Reis
That's the style these days.
That's the style these days.
I was into upside down smiley faces before we even knew what they were.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Back in my day upside down smiley faces were used by left handed people.
Have gnu, will travel.
On May 22, 1886 .. Zenas F. Wilber, a former Washington patent examiner, swore in an affidavit that he'd been bribed by an attorney for Alexander Graham Bell to award Bell the patent for the telephone over a rival inventor, Elisha Gray, who'd filed a patent document on the same day as Bell in 1876.
But read on...
His October 21, 1885 affidavit directly contradicts this story and Wilber claims it was ''given at the request of the Bell company by Mr. Swan, of its counsel'' and he was ''duped to sign it'' while drunk and depressed. However, Wilber's April 8, 1886, affidavit was also sworn to and signed before Thomas W. Swan. These conflicting affidavits discredited Wilber.
Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell telephone controversy
There were 600 lawsuits over Bell's patent, none successful, and a bad smell about the business from the start.
Others also laid claim to inventing versions of the telephone, including a Mr. Rogers, manager of the Pan-Electric Telephone Company. Rogers distributed his company's stock to members of Congress, including Senator Garland, (soon to become Attorney General) in the unstated hope of favorable treatment. If the Bell patent were to be invalidated, the Rogers patent and the Pan-Electric stock could become very valuable.
On This Day - February 13, 1886
Back in my day upside down smiley faces were used by left handed people.
I thought that was called "The Stranger"...
or was that just right handed people using their left hands?
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
With all due respect to the accomplishment, recall that transcontinental telegraphs had been operating for over half a century prior to this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Transcontinental_Telegraph), and the transcontinental telephone was strictly a wealthy person's luxury at the time, with a 3-minute call costing USD $20.70 at the time (worth something on the order of USD $400 in today's currency)...
I am not a number - I am a free man!
Tesla didn't do squat when the Martians invaded Earth. Edison commanded a fleet of electric ships armed with disintegrator beams and kicked their asses.
Yes, transcontinental, as in, "across continent." Perhaps you are thinking of intercontinental ("between continents")?
But making a long telephone transmission is much more difficult than making a long telegraph transmission, which just needs to determine whether the guy on the other end is charging or discharging the cable at any instant. Bandwidth, and all that?
Alexander Graham Bell was a BU professor initially ... interesting writeup at http://www.bu.edu/bridge/archi....
That's bound to happen when you ask government for everything from education to health cost, retirement fund and even jobs and training.
People in 1700s didn't fight over a few jobs left - they created it. They didn't need the government to babysit them. We all do now and that's what we end up.
It will get worse and worse.
So you insult the guy who used science to invent stuff that is practical and has in general enhanced our lives.
While you fully support a guy who had difficulty making a device that can be used.
Now don't get me wrong, I look up to Tesla as the better scientist. But Edison had the vision to use science to solve problems. Yes He made money from it. But I wouldn't say he is a sell out, he started inventing stuff as a way to make money.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.