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A Call That Made History, 100 Years Ago Today

Posted by timothy on from the bet-he-was-slammed-for-texting-too dept.

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.

16 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Done without negative feedback by wiredlogic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Notably, this was accomplished before the negative feedback amplifier was invented in 1927.

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    I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
    1. Re:Done without negative feedback by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Funny

      Negative feedback amplifier?

      Is that what a person upmodding a troll AC post is? ;)

    2. Re:Done without negative feedback by stephanruby · · Score: 2

      Does this mean that Alexander Graham Bell made the very long range call to his assistant in 1915, but that until 1927 it was just a bunch of garbled noises that no else but the assistant could understand?

      Hopefully, AT&T will jump on that expired patent. It would be nice if AT&T allowed its cell phones to do the same thing by year 2027

    3. Re:Done without negative feedback by dtmos · · Score: 2

      What it loses in gain it gains in bandwidth: While the gain-bandwidth product is a constant, one may trade gain to obtain bandwidth. In addition, the bandwidth was settable by external components, rather than by the parasitic reactances inside the tube (valve) itself -- an important property given the (relatively) short lives of the tubes, and the manufacturing variations between different copies of them.

      Negative feedback was very popular with vacuum-tube (valve) amplifiers of the 1930s and 1940s, for just these reasons.

  2. They should've made the call in Panama by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The historical date of the first transcontinental call could've been many years earlier.

  3. First ever phone call? Doubt it by spiritplumber · · Score: 4, Interesting
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

    However, the Canadians got really mad about it... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

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  4. After the patent? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Bell had talked to Watson on the first ever phone call, in Boston, just after Bell had patented the telephone.

    really? He patented it before ever testing it? Same shit, different millennium, eh?

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  5. The Bell Telephone: Patent Nonsense? by lippydude · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "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

    1. Re:The Bell Telephone: Patent Nonsense? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Funny

      "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

      You have to admit, both of thoes were pretty sketchy.

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  6. Re::p by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 2

    Back in my day upside down smiley faces were used by left handed people.

  7. Want to guess ... by PPH · · Score: 2

    ... who they got to connect the call?

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    Have gnu, will travel.
  8. It's nonsense all right, I'll grant you that. by westlake · · Score: 3, Informative

    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

  9. Re::p by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 2

    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
  10. Notable achievement, but hardly revolutionary by alleycat0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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)...

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  11. Re: BOO to a DOUCHE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.

  12. Re:BOO to a DOUCHE by jellomizer · · Score: 2

    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.

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