Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.00.1204182305090.29874@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Telegraph
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:06:06 -0400 (EDT)
Telegraph The 19th century telegraph and railroad provided the first habitus for virtual communities. The railroad objectified time and created the potential for liaisons at a distance. The telegraph workers used their spare time to talk to one another - friendships and marriages resulted. The telegraph used a protocol stack reminiscent of tcp/ip - the layers ranged from hardware to application, with redundancy and several layers of coding, including addressable messaging systems, in-between. The telegraph has its parallels in ascii, in terms of bandwidth; visual telegraphy never really caught on. The telegraph communality was celebrated in popular literature and song. For a long time I've been interested in the apparatus itself as well; recently in Omaha, I was able to buy a small station consist- ing of a sounder and key. Soon I'll have a telegraph between my table and Azure's desk, about twenty feet away. http://www.alansondheim.org/telegraph.mp3 (sounds of 1880s key and sounder with various adjustments for proper tuning: documentary) http://www.alansondheim.org/telegraphb.mp3 (altered for the sake of making a sound-work: docudrama) documentation of telegraph station unit plus unmounted sounder and key (the unmounted sounder is 1895, the key early-mid twentieth century): http://www.alansondheim.org/telegraph1.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/telegraph2.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/telegraph3.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/telegraph4.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/telegraph5.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/telegraph6.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/telegraph7.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/telegraph8.jpg unmounted key: 37 mounted sounder: Western Electric mounted key: Western Electric / AT&T The best book I've seen on the subject: The Telegraph Instructor, G. M. Dodge, Valpraiso, Indiana, 1908.