Friday, July 12, 2013
  RIP telegraphy ||| No, NOT RIP!

I didn't realize commercial telegrams were still in use. Turns out India still has an active telegraph system, because some parts of the country are still too rough and poor for newer communication. The system will shut down this Sunday.

Polistra is conducting an old-fashioned telegrapher's funeral for all of commercial telegraphy.



Morse '30' signifies end of transmission; the cut wire signifies a circuit no longer grounded.

= = = = =

Broadly speaking, of course, telegraphy is more alive than ever before. Bear in mind that the original telegraph of the 1830's used keyboards and printers and visual displays, and was meant to be a system that anyone could use without special skills. The iconic combination of key and sounder and code was a somewhat accidental development, a diversion from the original idea. Commercial telegraphy returned to keyboards and printers (Baudot-code teletypes) in the 1930's, except for a few military and railroad outposts. And today's txting and tweeting (keyboards, visual displays, printers) is exactly what Wheatstone and Cooke had in mind. The underlying circuitry is infinitely more complex, but the end-user experience is identical.


= = = = =

Later: After a bit of looking around, it's clear that commercial telegraphy is NOT dead after all. Several countries have symbolic telegram services, more or less decorative overlays on e-mail. Similar to the way you can generate a snail-mail greeting card by email. But Mexico and (OF COURSE!) Russia still have genuine and active telegraph services.

Polistra is happily sending QTX in honor of Russia's constant regard for old technology. (QTX = "Yes, I can send telegrams.")

  11:58 AM


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