@standageVictorianInternetRemarkable1998

NOTE:¶

Since I was unable to annotate or download a pdf to import to zotero I decided to include the rough ideas i gathered from reading instead of typing out every quote I wanted to highlight.

Reference: Standage, T. 1998. The Victorian Internet : the remarkable story of the telegraph and the nineteenth centuryʼs on-line pioneers. New York : Walker and Co.

Own stuff to add: add a note about linguistics and there is more to information then the words present, like the tone and stuff. Make a link to this note with the telegraphs and talk about how trying to get across personal information like a conversation would be tricky because you lose the tone and stuff in this MEDIUM, that is it only good for learning info, (can link gitelman and me)

I noticed a lot that it's not very user-friendly this stuff, it took skilled people to be able to use these technologies, needed a whole book of different codes which an average person did not have the time to learn.

In the sixteenth century, an urban myth of a device that can send messages letter by letter over magical needles came to be. I think this was people trying to get their hopes up about a new, exciting way to communicate to people. There was a French minister Cardinal Richelieu who people thought had one because of how informed he was. I think this could be because people are scared of the unknown, so they make up stories that are plausible to make it less scary.

Accessibility is a big thing here as well, like the OPAC stuff. The more development went into the telegraph, the more user-friendly it became (like library systems). The more user-friendly something is, the easier it is to monetizee to the public, create more drive for innovation (money).

Claude Chappe Signalling Device "telegraph"¶

Personal note, look into what Chappe did before doing all this designing. Page 9 important. Ended on page 28. Sends signals by sending a "clang" by striking casserole dishes, could be heard from far away. They had a code book (talk about encryption, how they needed a way that knew to reliably translate their info) this let them translate what the different kinds of "clangs" meant. The caveat was the person had to be withing earshot for communicating. They then switched to flipping a tall board with white on one side and black on the other, with each set of flips representing something in the code book. This increased the distance the message could be sent and made it more reliable. Then, in its final design it become a tower with a few arms that could be tilted each combination having its own meaning in a code book (can link cipher here).

Things holding it back¶

• Turmoil of the revolutionary France.
• The second test was sabotaged by a mob.

Things that accelerated it¶

• When they changed it to the swinging arms, it made it a lot more reliable and standardized.
• Picked up by Charles-Gilbert Romme, president of the Committee of Public Instruction.
• Big team to help engineer it consisting of: Joseph Lakanal, Louis Arbogast, Pierre Claude Francois Daunou.
• It was funded.
• The widespread success of the French one.

Social Necessities for Adoption¶

• It would need to work faster, essentially the workers just need to do this more.
• Proof that it worked well enough that it would be more practical in timed situations compared to other means like horse carriage.

Competencies on which it lies¶

• It relies on the ability of the user to tell each signal apart
• relies on the codebook
• Skilled operators who can efficiently translate using the codebooks.

Consequences¶

• Very expensive to run.
• It was only for government uses, the general population could not use it.
• Politically, it would help spread the government's opinions and help them have a tighter grip on territory near the edges of their country because only the government could afford it.

Electric Telegraph¶

Started as a rumour by an unknown author who goes by "C.M."(Standage,1998). Even though this claim of an electrical telegraph was false, it sparked curiosity in others eye, who began to experiment to create one. Nowadays, an electric telegraph is simple, just a battery with a lightbulb with someone on one end breaking and reconnecting the circuit to flash a code. (Standage,1998). Schilling's device used a galvanometer and the left and right swings of the needle to indicate letters and numbers. Wheatstone and Cooke's partnership created the first five needle design that was semi user-friendly, each needle could be deflected to point to a symbol on a diamond shaped grid, no need for a crazy codebook. image from Stagners book, page 36. Morse and Leonard Gale teamed up, with Vail to provide the financials.

Things holding it back¶

• No more war with France and England, stopped Ronald's test. (page 20)
• John Barrow had the idea of if it is not broken, don't fix it.
• That using electromagnetism, the signal will start to diminish after 200 feet (page 24).
• The death of Schilling.

Things that accelerated it¶

• The discovery of electromagnetism by Hans Oersted (Standage, 1998, 23)
• The thought of a fortune for the person who could create an electric telegraph (page 31).

Social Necessities for Adoption¶

• The simplicity of using it.

Competencies on which it lies¶

• Electromagnetism, the first way to reliably repeat electrical signals.
• Galvanometer, "which indicates the flow of current by the deflection of a rotation needle, and the electromagnet, a coil of wire that behaves just like a permanent magnet- but only as long current is flowing through it (Standage,1998) (page 24)."
• using many small batteries instead of one large one to transmit the signal further (page 33)

Morse's Inspiration pg.25-27

Morse's History (pg.25-27)¶

• A painter.
• Became interested in faster information relay when he only got notice of his wife's passing and funeral a day before it.
• Was into inventing, first idea was a marble cutting device that could make duplicates of a famous piece, then he invented a new kind of water pump.
• Became interested in the telegraph after Dr. Charles Jackson introduced him to electromagnetism.
• Ironic how the lack of information travel led him to not knowing that people already tried to build an electric telegraph and failed.

The Morse Code (page 29-)¶

• Used the clicking of an electromagnet to send numbers the same way of a church bell.
• Very long.
• He created a series of short and long bursts to signify numbers from 0-9.
• Could be used to indicate a word in a codebook.
• Tried to create a way to automatically write down the dots and dashes.

Morse Telegraph¶

How it worked: (page 38-39)¶

By tapping a key by hand, it would raise and lower an ink pen on the other side, inscribing dots and dashes. Morse had simplified his code by making characters be represented by the number of consecutive dots and dashes. morseCode.png

His ambition:¶

• As a way of communicating through written language, ignoring distance collapsing space-time just like the Romans with their roads.
• Morse thought it would be so easy to use that practically everyone would use it in their daily lives.
• A world connected by a wire.
• His thought of how he could have been at his wife's funeral if the telegraph was a thing.

Accelerating forces¶

• He was unaware of the earlier failed attempts, so he was a breath of fresh air in the path to the electric telegraph.
• Morse's telegraph was used officially to connect France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, and Sardinia. (pg 69)

The hard part for both Cooke and Morse was convincing people how great the telegraph was.

The telegraph Legacy (page 68-72)¶

Interconnection Treaties¶

• Prussia and Austria (October 3,1949).
  • It was inefficient, instead of just connecting across the border they made it political by having official stations with representatives in them.
  • Had to physically write down the message, then pass it to a representative from the other country.
• Agreements were made between Prussia and Saxony, and Austria and Bavaria.
• Austro-German Telegraph Union tried to regulate messages between the countries.
• It was a political game of connections. Especially Prussia, who was trying to spread their influence to the Germanic countries.

Morse's Graph¶

• Morse's telegraph was used officially to connect France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, and Sardinia. (pg 69) The challenge of crossing water led to Morse having a successful experiment across a couple of feet. He proclaimed that soon we would cross the Atlantic, a plot to try and increase the popularity of his telegraph.

Crossing The English Channel¶

• The water would distort the signal.

Competencies on which it lies¶

• gutta-percha, a kind of rubber, was used. It was expensive but ideal for cable insulation.

Consequences¶

• very inefficient to get the sap from the trees. Had to cut down the whole tree.
• Very expensive, not economically viable.
• Destroyed these natural forests that the natives had to suffer for.

Chapter 5 Wiring the world (page 74)¶

Need to rewrite a lot of the stuff here finished reading (not making notes pg 82)

Transatlantic Telegraph¶

Gisborne's attempt¶

• to start with a link from New York to St. John's to prove the concept. It worked, but quickly stopped because of the harsh winter conditions.

Thomsons Attempt¶

• Successfully linked Europe and India through the Persian Gulf. After Whitehouse's catastrophic failure led the public to firmly believe in the Atlantic Telegraph Company.

Holding it back¶

• Skeptic of interference of nature, such as sharks and the tides.
• Increased skepticism due to Gisborne's failed attempt.
• The multiple failed attempts of laying the first cable.
• Dr. Edward Orange Wildman Whitehouse
  • Incompetent
  • Got nearly everything wrong.
• The failed attempt by the British government that used the public's money hit hard on the reputation of this. (pg 84-86)
  • They but the blame on Whitehouse by pointing the finger at him for making the conducting core too small, and how the high-voltage destroyed the cable.
  • Trying to cover the failed attempt of the British government.
  • Whitehouse who became outraged from his firing, published a one-sided book that blamed everyone but him for the failure, how he was a man of science.
  • The efforts continued after they successfully said it was soleys Whitehouse's fault.
  • Basically, the British government played politics by putting the blame on Whitehouse (who they hired) so they could continue to experiment.
  • They could not admit to their own fauly of hiring Whitehouse when he really did not know anything.
• Cost
• The failure of the first cable (pg 84).
  • After all the hype of the first cable, it failed after only a month, was not even available to the public before it failed.
  • Skeptics believed it to be a hoax, that the message between Victoria and Buchanan was sent weeks in advance by mail.
• Since the cables were such a huge success the demand across the network was very big and the instant delivery that brought the telegraph in the light could be its own demise (pg 93).

Accelerating it¶

• Patriotism (pg 81-83)
  • The laying of the first cable brought mass celebration, this led to more enthusiasm and support from the public.
  • It was the thing, Tiffany's made jewlery out of the old cable, books were published it was the talking point.
  • Compared to the discovery of the New World by Columbus.
  • Even thought it would lead to world peace, at the time Europe was filled with wars between countries like France, Prussia and Austria-Hungarian Empire.
• Whitehouse's retaliation (pg 86)
  • When Whitehouse published his book blaming everything but himself for the failure of the cable, it only added fuel to the fire of it being his fault.
  • Whitehouse saying he had a "better" version of Morse code that was clearly already abandoned by Chappe and Morse further plummeted his credibility.
  • With all this, the Atlantic Telegraph Company took none of the blame (even though they should have partly) allowing them to continue on without any repercussions of the failure in the eyes of the public.
• Hype returned after the success of the Atlantic cable,

Social Necessities for adoption¶

Competencies on which it lies¶

• The ability to construct a cable strong enough to survive in the harsh environment.
• Using low currents instead of very high ones.

Consequences¶

• Political
  • Lost trust in the British government for the failure of the cable.
• Economical
  • Very expensive.
  • Supply and demand, since the demand to use it was so high to costed so much for a person to send a message over it.

Timeline of Cable Laying (successfully)¶

• 1864 first cable linking Europe and India via the Persian Gulf (pg 87).
• Friday July 13, the Great Eastern successfully linked Ireland and Newfoundland (pg 88).

Legacy of The Telegraph (page 201)¶

When Morse died, the role of an 'amateur scientist' died with him (pg 202). I feel like this is because the science has become very complex using a lot of details from many different areas of research that a painter like Morse in the modern day couldn't just quit painting because he heard someone talk about how a phone worked and reinvent the next revolutionary communication method. It still does take someone with drive and aspiration to create the ideas so that scientists can research them. There is a trend to the creation of technology I've noticed. It starts out with people like Morse and Chappe to create the initial idea, then they pitch it to established scientist like Thomas or Wheatstone, then once its stable is when businesses will try to swoop it and commercialize it (pg 202).

Wheatstone Legacy (pg 203)¶

• Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, knighted in 1868.
• Continued to perform experiments with interests in optics, acoustics and electricity.
• Invented the stereoscope and the concertina.
• Died rich and respected.

Cooke Legacy (pg 203)¶

• failed to distinguish himself.
• created stone and slate cutting machines.
• Unsuccessfully designed a rope hauled railway with remote controlled doors.
• Died in 1879 The golden age of the telegraph faded away in the early 20th century (pg 205).