Belgium Ends 19th-Century Telegram Service (bbc.com)

Belgium's telegram service is about to stop. From a report: One hundred and seventy-one years after the first electrical message was transmitted down a line running alongside the railway between Brussels and Antwerp the final dispatch will be sent and received on 29 December. The fact that this 19th-Century technology is still up and running in the age of Instagram and Snapchat may seem rather odd -- especially when you consider that the UK, which invented the telegram in the 1830s, abandoned it as long ago as 1982. The United States followed suit in 2006 and even India, which had been by far the world's biggest market for the telegram, finally closed its system down in 2013.

Comments

Next we'll hear that telex is dropped

[billrp]

maybe in about another 100 years

Stop

[oldmac31310]

Stop

Re:Stop

[jellomizer]

You know this sounds like a fun project for kids with a Raspberry PI. Program the PI to receive Morse code, translate it to the actual text. Send it over the internet via SSH to an end point, where it would decode the message, and play the Morse Code back onto a ticker tape writer. All the nostalgia without having dedicated cable.

Re: Stop

[houghi]

As somebody living in Belgium and having used telegram service, morse has nothing to do with it. What we did was send an email asking them to deliver a telegram. They prited it out and deliverd it, minus the headers and what not. For birthdays you could even buy cards that would go with it it was billed to the phonebill.

Think of it as what you see in mivies where they have to hand over a soupena by hand. The underlaying protocol didnot matter. Sono morse code, but boring TCP/IP.

Re: Stop

[CohibaVancouver]

As somebody living in Belgium and having used telegram service, morse has nothing to do with it

Yeah - Every time one of these 'death of telegrams' stories appear on Slashdot people always assume it means morse-code telegrams, which is of course wrong.

Teletypes were in use for telegrams for over 100 years.

RIAA??

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the RIAA do this? Something like "MESSAGE FROM RIAA STOP STOP TRADING TAYLOR SWIFT SHELLAC STOP IT OR ELSE STOP THIS TELEGRAM WILL SELF DESTRUCT IN 5 DECADES STOP"...?

filter errors are non funny. stop. will resend stop slashdot sucks

dah-di-di-dit dah-di-dah-dah dit

[Anonymous Coward]

NO CARRIER

Sam Morse's son's comment on the telegraph

[jabberw0k]

Da-da did-it.

But seriously, it is good to remember that the telegraph's current loop (with ground/earth return) was used for Teletypes; paper tape punched by these was easily stored or repeated to multiple recipients over radio or other links; Teletypes themselves were easily interfaced to early computers, and begat RS-232 and all today's serial I/O. Dig deep into any modern computer and in a way, it still talks click-clack telegraphy.

Re:Sam Morse's son's comment on the telegraph

[mingot]

Petzold wrote a neat book called 'code' that spends a lot of time on telegraphs and how the relays they used became the transistors in modern computers.

Re:Sam Morse's son's comment on the telegraph

[chthon]

The telegraph embodies everything that is necessary to know in modern digital electronics: transmission lines, the relationship between bandwidth and frequency, and the basis for information theory.

Re:Sam Morse's son's comment on the telegraph

[xanthos]

My college senior project involved writing a bootstrap loader, written on paper tape, for a PDP-11 that dialed up a HP3000 over a 300 baud modem to download the OS.

Those were the days.

Re:Sam Morse's son's comment on the telegraph

[Anonymous Coward]

Da-da did-it.

But seriously, it is good to remember that the telegraph's current loop (with ground/earth return) was used for Teletypes; paper tape punched by these was easily stored or repeated to multiple recipients over radio or other links; Teletypes themselves were easily interfaced to early computers, and begat RS-232 and all today's serial I/O. Dig deep into any modern computer and in a way, it still talks click-clack telegraphy.

The fact that a technology started as an improved solution to a problem, a better way of doing something, does NOT mean that the resulting tech is "descended from" the older one any more than a plane is descended from a BIRD since both have been used by man to carry messages, for example. The modern airplane is NOT a descendant of the carrier pigeon, even if it IS descended from things inspired BY them, and just the same way, deep inside any modern computer you will find it does NOT "still talk" in "click-clack telegraphy." They're barely even related. Might as well argue that since both rely on the same kind of chemical reaction, that the rotary gas turbine, or jet engine, deep inside, is still a piston engine.

Re:Sam Morse's son's comment on the telegraph

[bws111]

You appear to have absolutely no understanding of what descended from means, as it means exactly what you claim it doesn't. Either that or you are too dumb to know the difference between a teleGRAM (the message itself) and teleGRAPHY (the method used to send the message). It doesn't have anything to do with 'an improved solution to a problem', it has to do with extending an EXISTING thing to a new purpose.

The telegraph was sending DIGITAL signals SERIALLY over a wire using a CODE. Are you really going to claim that does not still happen in modern computers? Telegraph using Morse Code led to teletype using Baudot code. Teletype using Baudot code led to RS-232 using ASCII led to Ethernet and so on. Of course over time the electrical characteristics of the connections changed, but the exact same concepts are still in place.

Re: Sam Morse's son's comment on the telegraph

[houghi]

Another thing you could do with Telex was put it in a loop so the other side ran out of paper. Fun times

Re:Sam Morse's son's comment on the telegraph

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascinaing. Thank you for mentioning this book!

Re:Sam Morse's son's comment on the telegraph

[tehcyder]

Haha who cares about old tech haha granpa go shit in diapers haha

Good Lord, is that Oscar Wilde posting on slashdot?

There goes the planet.

[Anonymous Coward]

How will we coordinate our counter-offensive with the rest of the world now?

Re: It never ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I think it would be a favor to America if Trump replaced all of his twittering with a telegraph connection.

It'd be Presidential, even more so if they never wired it up.

Seasons Greetings!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fleece Slobbynuts (horn part)
Fleece Slobbynuts (horn part)
Fleece Slobbynuts

Prospero anus on Phylicia Rashad!!

Re:It never ends

[jmccue]

Is there no length that Trump will not go to, to destroy all that we love and cherish? #MTTA (Make Telegraphs Tap Again)

You have it wrong, with NN going away I think "Make America Great Again" involves bringing back the telegraph :)

Used for legal reasons

[guruevi]

When I was young, telegrams were used for "instant" communication regards legal matters.

It had guaranteed delivery, proof when it was sent and a chain of custody similar to "registered mail" in the US, I don't know of any products in the EU/Belgium that have similar guarantees, hence the need for telegrams.

Re:Used for legal reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know about the rest of the EU, but Belgium has registered mail. It even has registered e-mail (http://www.bipt.be/en/consumers/faq/64-what-is-registered-electronic-mail)

Re:Used for legal reasons

[thegarbz]

I don't know of any products in the EU/Belgium that have similar guarantees, hence the need for telegrams.

Registered mail exists in pretty much every country that has a mail system.

Re:Used for legal reasons

[toddestan]

Registered mail isn't instant. In the US we have a similar problem with fax - it only hangs around because it's viewed as an acceptable way to send legal documents.

Fake News Detected

[jrmcferren]

"The United States followed suit in 2006..."

While in 2006 Western Union stopped handling telegrams, the business was sold not discontinued.

There are two companies providing this service. International Telegram took over the Western Union Service, but American Telegram is another company in the business.

The official time stamp on a telegram is valid in court for purposes of contract law regardless of delivery method, in fact cancelling time share agreements is a common use of telegrams.

Like paging, the telegram business is healthy but smaller than it once was. The service has evolved significantly with classic and contemporary entry and delivery methods.

Telegrams can be delivered in one or more methods:

- Traditional Hand Delivery
- Postal Delivery
- Telephone (an operator calls and reads the telegram to you)
- Fax (the telegram is transmitted to your fax machine).
- Email: Yes, even email delivery of a telegram is available. Telegrams, even if delivered by email are kept on file by the telegraph (Morse isn't used BTW) for legal verification purposes.

Re:Fake News Detected

[Anonymous Coward]

Western Union pivoted into the crime industry. "Western Union admits to aiding wire fraud, to pay $586 million" "Western Union, which has over half a million locations in more than 200 countries, admitted “to aiding and abetting wire fraud” by allowing scammers to process transactions, even when the company realized its agents were helping scammers avoid detection, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission said in statements." https://www.reuters.com/articl...

Re:Fake News Detected

[Anonymous Coward]

Like paging, the telegram business is healthy but smaller than it once was.

Yeah, no kidding ... I know a bunch of people who still carry pagers.

People say "why don't you just use a cell phone", but pagers work pretty much all the time, every time, and will work in places you can't get cellular. I've known teams who have switched entirely to smart phone apps, and pretty much every one has missed oodles of calls and missed SLAs.

The reason these things have lasted as long as they have is they work, and they solve the problem they were meant to do reliably and affordably. I cringe when I see everyone thinking the world can be replaced with an app. Usually the people saying this haven't been around long enough to know how immature and not trustworthy some of their pet technologies are.

Not odd at all ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that this 19th-Century technology is still up and running in the age of Instagram and Snapchat may seem rather odd

See, unlike Instagram and Snapchat, 19th century technology solved the problem it needed to, and ran reliably for decades.

In 2-5 years, I bet one or both of Snapchat and Instagram will not exist either.

All you whiny fucking millennials may think you're the pinnacle of civilization, but mostly you're about pointless toys and distractions to feed your shallow, narcissistic lives ... I mean, who the fuck needs to post a picture of their meal on the internet as soon as it arrives on your table?

Honestly, the world could use less of that shit.

Re:Not odd at all ...

[FunkSoulBrother]

In 2-5 years, I bet one or both of Snapchat and Instagram will not exist either.

I'll take that bet for any amount, but you won't put up.

I think you're too busy bitching about millennials to realize how big these products have gotten. They might not be the hottest thing on the block in 5 years, but they'll exist. See Sears and Myspace.

"the UK, which invented the telegram in the 1830s"

[K. S. Kyosuke]

What would Claude Chappe say? ;)

Russia ends Telegram.me service on Dec 28, 2017

[Anonymous Coward]

If you didn't know, Telegram Messenger is up for blocking in Russia next week.

Telegram trying to appeal in UN, but why would Russia care... It's not the first time they happily ignore international treaties.

https://meduza.io/en/news/2017/12/14/telegram-wants-to-make-its-fsb-dispute-a-un-issue

Still alive

[enriquevagu]

That's funny, because telegrams are still alive in Spain. They still charge per words.

As mentioned in previous comments, telegrams are still alive in many parts of the world (including the US, despite what's in the article) and they are used for legal reasons, in cases in which registered delivery is required.

Alas we will just revert to optical semaphores

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Alas I guess we will just have to revert to optical semaphores to manipulate the financial markets of a European country to ruin our personal enimies.

mister gower

[tgibson]

cables you need cash STOP my office instructed to advance you up to 25000 dollars STOP hee haw and merry christmas sam wainwright

Oscar Wilde, an inspiration to us all

[fahrbot-bot]

Or, I imagine, Ken Thompson when he developed "ed".

From TFA:

No-one could rival Oscar Wilde for brevity. He is said to have once asked his publisher how a book was doing, by telegraphing simply "?". To which the publisher replied enigmatically "!"

Re:Oscar Wilde, an inspiration to us all

[mnemotronic]

That rivals the rumored Ernest Hemingway short story: "For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn."

“Brevity" said Shakespeare, "is the soul of wit.” (Hamlet)

Lamented

[GerryHattrick]

Still much-lamented in the UK - the 'Best Man' reads telegrams at the wedding - how? My parents got engaged by telegram. When you're 100, the Queen 'sends you a telegram' (now it's just a cheesy card). Sic transit gloria mundi.

As they say:

[LordHighExecutioner]

alles hat an Ende....nur die Wurst hat zwei!

Re:As they say:

[MavEtJu]

I think he got a dare. And lost. And then had to do this.

last chance?

[drwho]

I wish I could be there to send or receive one of the last telegrams.

The last message...

[mnemotronic]

The last message should be something like "What hath God wrought", or an anagram of that like "Oh. Thwart what God hug".

Breaks my workflow

[skoskav]

I still use it to connect to my IRC gateway

Re:"the UK, which invented the telegram in the 183

[Anonymous Coward]

What would Claude Chappe say? ;)

I don't know but Douglas Adams would have asserted the truth that they are "So Unhoopy!"

It is clear there are no Froods in Belgium.

Bitcoin over telegram

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we could send bitcoin over telegram? Make it popular again!

Ok but how

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok but how do we organize a counter offensive with the other countries around the world when the aliens come?

Last post

[Trogre]

BELGIUM STOP