Morse and the Telegraph

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-27 07:08pm

Why the hell didnt Morse develope the telegraph further? You would think he would have said "hmm.. how can I make this faster..". A simple rotating drum with various pits and bumps would make for a nice fast way to speed a large amount of information down the lines. A bunch of electromechanical logic circuits would enable a typewriter to automatically convert the signal from and into readable text. Whats better is, the use of those circuits would also give him some inspiration and he might even try to make an electromechanical calculator (to hell with babbages mechanical computer!).

The speed of transmission would have made the teletype machines a means to transmit large documents, or even books, many many miles in mere minutes. Universities and government centers would have begged for the device and the internet may have been born in the days of electromechanical discoveries, not post-silicon.

Morse could have also attempted to make a telephone by using variable resistors hooked up to a membrane. A pulse generator (a wheel with many conducting bits rotating at a few hundred RPM) would produce a carrier for morse code style transmission, and the resistor would alter the amperage in the carrier signal which could be transmitted along the lines. (not that you'd need the carrier signal to be pulsed, but im assuming that that man would have thought along those lines).

Just another rant by me.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-01-27 07:17pm

Hindsight is 20/20

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-01-27 07:30pm

Perhaps because his orginal patent gave him a huge pile of money?

However I doubt your idea would be pratical with the technolgoy of the time. You might be able to build one, but mass produce them? Unlikely.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-27 07:45pm

hindsight may be 20/20, but the simple idea of pushing the button down faster by using a spinning drum really does not require a whole lot of foresight. the fact that telegraphs were used to transmit large numbers of letters would surely convince him (SOMEONE) that speed is of the utmost importants. the fact that we were still using morse code by tapping by the end of the 1800s is amazing.

and skim, the circuits required would be little larger then your monitor and would be easy to mass produce: its just a bunch of electromagnetic relays connected to one another (a total of around 127 relays would be needed for 64 alphanumeric symbols plus various other things like spaces, carriage returns, etc). The relay needn't be more then an inch cubed and a 12x12x12 box would hold 864 relays allowing room for wiring etc.

its nonsense to assume it couldnt be built cheaply and easilly, let alone impossible to do period. It would have been EASY and is a logical progression of technology if it has been continuously advanced.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-27 10:08pm

just looked deeper into the telegraph, it appears a method for rapid transmission was developed from the beginning but not rapid reception.

skimmer, just to go one your idea that the technology for a logic based system didnt exist theres another way to do it without the logic systems:

Typewriters where the buttons print a letter. Granted, typewriters proper were not inveted until 30 years later, but you wouldnt need a typewriter. heres an idea, you have ~50-100 buttons when you push one, a button on the other machine sticks up and the entire letter is transmitter in one push. but this might have even caused the developement of an equally good typewriter only quicker.