The Dead Media Notebook
Page 35
“The duplex telegraph was invented by Dr. William Gintl, of Austria, in 1853, and was afterwards improved by Carl Frischen, of Hanover, and by Joseph B. Stearns, of Boston, Mass, who in 1872 perfected the duplex (U. S. Pats No. 126,847, May 14, 1872, and No. 132,933, Nov. 12, 1872). This system doubled the capacity of the telegraphic wire, and its principle of action permits messages sent from the home station to the distant station to have no effect on the home station, but full effect on the distant station, so that the operators at the opposite ends of the line may both telegraph over the same wire. This system has been further enlarged by the quadruplex system of Edison, which was brought out in 1874 (and subsequently developed in U. S. Pat No. 209,241, Oct. 22, 1878). This enabled four messages to be sent over the same wire at the same time, and is said to have increased the value of the Western Union wires $15,000,000.
“In 1846 Royal C. House invented the printing telegraph, which printed the message automatically on a strip of paper, something after the manner of the typewriter (U.S. Pat. No. 4,464, April 18, 1846). The ingenious mechanism involved in this was somewhat complicated, but its results in printing the message plainly were very satisfactory. This was the prototype of the familiar “ticker” of the stock broker’s office, seen in Figs 10 and 11. In 1856 the Hughes printing telegraph was brought out (U.S. Pat. No. 14,917, May 20, 1856), and in 1858 G. M. Phelps combined the valuable features of the Hughes and House systems (U.S. Pat. No. 26,003, Nov. 1, 1859).
“Facsimile telegraphs constitute another, although less important branch of the art. These accomplished the striking result of reproducing the message at the end of the line in the exact handwriting of the sender, and not only writing, but exact reproductions of all outlines, such as maps, pictures, and so forth, may be sent. The fac simile telegraph originated with F. C. Bakewell, of England, in 1848 (Br. Pat. No. 12,352, of 1848).
“The Dial Telegraph is still another modification of the telegraph. In this the letters arranged in a circular series, and a light needle or pointer, concentrically pivoted, is carried back and forth over the letters, and is made to successively point to the desired letters.”
Source: The Progress of Invention in the 19th Century by Edward W. Byrn Munn and Co., Publishers, Scientific American Office, 361 Broadway, New York 1900
The Telegraph: Fire Alarms, Burglar Alarms, Railroad-Signal Systems, Hotel Annunciators, District Messenger Services
From Paul Di Filippo
“Among other useful applications of the telegraph is the fire alarm system. In 1852 Channing and Farmer, of Boston, Mass, devised a system of telegraphic fire alarms, which was adopted in the city of Boston (U.S. Pat. No 17,355, May 19, 1857), and which in varying modifications has spread through all the cities of the world, introducing that most important element of time economy in the extinguishment of fires. Hundreds of cities and millions of dollars have thus been saved from destruction.
“Similar applications of local alarms in great numbers have been extended into various departments of life, such as District Messenger Service, Burglar Alarms, Railroad-Signal Systems, Hotel Annunciators, and so on.” [Bruce Sterling remarks: It seems to me little appreciated that the telegraph as a species radiated into many specialized niches. Fire alarms and burglar alarms might be better described as “networks of sensors” rather than “media” per se, but these alarm systems were technically impossible before the telegraph, and their economic scope and influence on society must have been huge. I confess I have no idea what a “District Messenger Service” may have been. The deeply symbiotic relationship of railways and telegraphs is a subject worthy of close study. Dead forms of “hotel annunciator” still await the Necronaut who can resurrect this modest but intimate medium.]
Source: The Progress of Invention in the 19th Century by Edward W. Byrn Munn and Co., Publishers, Scientific American Office, 361 Broadway, New York 1900
the Hotel Annunciator
From Paul Lindemeyer
[Bruce Sterling writes; Dead forms of ‘hotel annunciator’ still await the Necronaut who can resurrect this modest but intimate medium.’
You asked for it. The annunciator, an American invention of the 1830s, was designed to replace the old system of manually ringing bells to summon servants. It was intended for large urban hotels with many rooms, where hand bell ringing would obviously have been impractical. As it operated in New York’s opulent St. Nicholas Hotel, built in 1853, each guest room was equipped with a push button and a dial. The dial’s pointer could be turned to read Ice Water, Bellhop, Room Service, etc. Guests turned the dial to the service type desired and pushed the button. At the front desk, a buzz tone was heard and a metal disc dropped to the bottom of a case filled with discs for all the various rooms. Each disc had a room number and a service type stamped in it, i.e., “MAKE UP 405.” The appropriate servant would then be dispatched. The first annunciators had only one disc per room (and no dials), the guest making the request verbally when a servant arrived. By the 1850s the system had been refined for the even greater convenience of hotel patrons.
Source: Charles Lockwood, MANHATTAN MOVES UPTOWN (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1976)
The Telegraph: Inductive Telegraphy
From Bruce Sterling
“Telegraphing by induction, i.e., without the mechanical connection of a conducting wire, is another of the developments in telegraphy in recent years, and finds application to telegraphing to moving railway trains. When an electric current flows over a telegraph line, objects along its length are charged at the beginning and end of the current impulse with a secondary charge, which flows to the earth if connection is afforded. It is the discharge of this secondary current from the metal car roof to the ground which, on the moving train, is made the means of telegraphing without any mechanical connection with the telegraph line along the track.
“ a rapid series of impulses, caused by the vibrator of an induction coil, is made to produce buzzing tones of various duration representing the alphabet, and these tones are received upon a telephone instead of a Morse register. “In 1881 William W. Smith proposed the plan of communicating between moving cars and a stationary wire by induction (U. S. Pat. No. 247,127, Sept 13, 1881). Thomas A. Edison, L. J. Phelps, and others have further improved the means for carrying it out. In 1888 the principle was successfully employed on 200 miles of the Lehigh Valley Railroad.” [Bruce Sterling remarks: Inductive telegraphy, being wireless, would seem to have been a precursor of radio (“wireless telegraphy”). Note the use of telephone receivers, which produced specialized buzzes instead of Morse code. Inductive telegraphy, used only on moving trains (and requiring a moving train in order to produce its signal) is another striking example of the symbiosis of telegraphs and railroads.]
Source The Progress of Invention in the 19th Century by Edward W. Byrn Munn and Co., Publishers, Scientific American Office, 361 Broadway, New York 1900
recording and telling stories with The Inca Quipo
From Bruce Sterling
“In place of writing they used some strands of cord or thin wool strings, like the ones we use to string rosaries; and these strings were called quipos. By these recording devices and registers they conserved the memory of their acts, and the Inca’s overseers and accountants used them to remember what had been received or consumed.
A bunch of these quipos served them as a ledger or notebook. The quipos consisted of diverse strings of different colors, and on each string there were several knots. These were figures and numbers that meant various things. Today many bunches of very ancient quipos of diverse colors with an infinite number of knots are found. On explaining their meaning, the Indians that know them relate many things about ancient times that are contained in them.
There were people designated for this job of accounting. These officials were called quipos camayos, and they were like our historians, scribes, and accountants, and the Incas had great confidence in them.
These officials learned with great care this w
ay of making records and preserving historical facts. However, not all of the Indians were capable of understanding the quipos; only those dedicated to this job could do it; and those who did not study quipos failed to understand them. Even among the quipo camayos themselves, one was unable to understand the registers and recording devices of others. Each one understood the quipos that he made and what the others told him.
There were different quipos for different kinds of things, such as for paying tribute, lands, ceremonies, and all kinds of matters pertaining to peace and war. And the quipo camayos customarily passed their knowledge on to those who entered their ranks from one generation to the next. The quipo camayos explained to the newcomers the events of the past that were contained in the ancient quipos as well as the things that were added to the new quipos; and in this way they explain everything that that transpired in this land during all the time that the Incas governed.
These quipos are still used in the tambos to keep a record of what they sell to travellers, for the mitas, for herders to keep track of their livestock, and for other matters.
And even though many Indians know how to read and write and have traded their quipos for writing, which is without comparison a more accurate and easier method, still, in order to show the great subtlety of this method of preserving history and keeping accounts for people who had no writing and what they achieved with it, I wish to give the following example of what happened in our times.
Two Spaniards left together from the town of Ica to go to the city of Castro Virreina, and arriving at the tambo of Cordoba, which is a day’s travel from Ica, one of them stayed there and the other continued his trip; at this tambo this latter traveller was given an Indian guide to accompany him to Castro Virreina. This Indian killed the Spaniard on the road and returned to the tambo. After some time passed, since the Spaniard was very well known, he was missed. The governor of Castro Virreina, who at that time was Pedro de Cordoba Mejia, a native of Jaen, made a special investigation to find out what had happened. And in case the man had been killed, he sent a large number of Indians to look for the body in the puna and desert. But no sign of him could be found, nor could anyone find out what had become of him until more than six years after he had been killed.
By chance the body of another Spaniard was found in a cave of the same desert. The governor ordered that this body be brought to the plaza so that it could be seen, and once it was brought, it looked like the one the Indian had killed, and, believing that it was he, the governor continued witht he investigation to discover the killer.
Not finding any trace or evidence against anybody, he was advised to make an effort to find out the identity of the Indian who was given to the deceased as a guide at the tambo or Cordoba. The Indians would know this in spite of the fiact that more than six years had passed because by means of the record of the quipos they would have kept memory of it. With this the governor sent for the caciques and quipo camayos.
After they were brought to him and he continued with the investigation, the quipo camayos found out by their quipos the identity of the Indian who had been given as a guide to the aforementioned Spaniard. The Indian guide was brought prisoner immediately from his town, called Guaytara, and, having given his declaration in which he denied the crime, he was questioned under torture, and at once confessed to having killed the man, but explained that the wrong body had been brought. However, he would show them the place where he had killed the man and where the body was located.
Police officers went with him to the puna, and they found the body where the Indian guide had hidden it, and it was in a cave located some distance from the road. With the great cold and dryness of the paramo, the body had not decomposed, but it had dried out, and thus it was whole. The first body that was brought was never identified, nor was the killer.
The extent of the achievement of the record and memory of the quipos can be appreciated by this case.”
Source: History of the Inca Empire: An account of the Indians’ customs and their origin together with a treatise on Inca legends, history and social institutions by Father Bernabe Cobo Translated and edited by Roland Hamilton University of Texas Press 1979 Third reprinting 1991 This book is an excerpt from Historia del Nuevo Mundo a much larger manuscript completed in 1653 by Bernabe Cobo, a Peruvian Jesuit
The Telegraph
From Bruce Sterling
[Bruce Sterling remarks: Mr. Byrn’s ruminations on media evolution are of particular interest. Note his remarkable dead-media nostalgia for “the dusty archives of the patent office.” Will the “coming generation” render the judgement of history—or is the subject “beyond human estimate” and too impressive for speculation?] ”As the art of telegraphy grows apace toward the end of the Nineteenth Century, individuality of invention becomes lost in the great maze of modifications, ramifications, and combinations. Inventions become merged into systems, and systems become swallowed up by companies. In the promises of living inventors the wish is too often father to the thought, and the conservative man sees the child of promise rise in great expectation, flourish for a few years, and then subside to quiet rest in the dusty archives of the Patent Office. They all contribute their quota of value, but it is so difficult to single out any one of those which as yet are on probation, that we must leave to the coming generation the task of making meritorious selection.
“Today the telegraph is the great nerve system of the nation’s body, and it ramifies and vitalizes every part with sensitive force.
“In 1899 the Western Union Telegraph Company alone had 22,285 offices, 904,633 miles of wire, sent 61,398,157 messages, received in money $23,954,312, and enjoyed a profit of $5,868,733.
“Add to this the business of the Postal Telegraph Company and other companies, and it becomes well nigh impossible to grasp the magnitude of this tremendous factor of Nineteenth Century progress. Figures fail to become impressive after they reach the higher denominations, and it may not add much to either the reader’s conception or his knowledge to say that the statistics for the whole world for the year 1898 show: 103,832 telegraph offices, 2,989,803 miles of wire, and 365,453,526 messages sent during that year. This wire would extend around the earth about 120 times, and the messages amounted to one million a day for every day in that year. This is for land telegraphs only, and does not include cable messages.
“What saving has accrued to the world in the matter of time, and what development in values in the various departments of life, and what contributions to human comfort and happiness the telegraph has brought about, is beyond human estimate, and is too impressive a thought for speculation.”
Source: The Progress of Invention in the 19th Century by Edward W. Byrn Munn and Co., Publishers, Scientific American Office, 361 Broadway, New York 1900
Flower Codes
From Richard Kadrey
The Romance of Flowers
“Language of flowers dictionaries which had their first popularity in Paris, were subsequently published in English with equal success. Le Langage des Fleurs by Mme. Charlotte de la Tour was the first flower dictionary, published in Paris in 1818. The great delight of the English in these books began in the day of George IV and continued through the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign.
“The Americans were slower to become enthusiastic and started to take an interest somewhat later. ‘Le Langage des Fleurs’ ran to eighteen editions and Mme. Charlotte de la Tour was a toast of Paris society. It would have been to her displeasure that her book was pirated in America and Spain, although it proved flowers speak an international language.
“In the era of Victorian manners and morals with the accent on gentility, shy Victorians used language-of- flowers books to express their sentiments when they were loath to let words pass their lips.
“One Victorian writer declared that with the help of a flower language book, a courting couple walking decorously in the garden could present flowers to each other and carry on a conversation of considerab
le wit, compliments and flirtation banter.”
Flowers and their meaning
ARBOR VITAE - Unchanging friendship.
CAMELIA, WHITE. - Loveliness.
CANDY-TUFF. - Indifference.
CARNATION, DEEP RED. - Alas! for my poor heart.
CARNATION, WHITE. - Disdain.
CHINA-ASTER. - Variety.
CLOVER, FOUR-LEAF. - Be mine.
CLOVER, WHITE. - Think of me.
CLOVER, RED. - Industry.
COLUMBINE. - Folly.
COLUMBINE, PURPLE. - Resolved to win.
DAISY. - Innocence.
DEAD LEAVES. - Sadness.
DEADLY NIGHTSHADE. - Falsehood.
FERN. - Fascination.
FORGET-ME-NOT. - True love. Forget me not.
FUCHSIA, SCARLET. - Taste.
GERANIUM, SCARLET. - Consolation.
GERANIUM, ROSE. - Preference.
GOLDEN-ROD. - Be cautious.
HELIOTROPE. - Devotion.
HONEY-FLOWER. - Love, sweet and secret.
HYACINTH, WHITE. - Unobtrusive loveliness.
IVY. - Fidelity.
LADY’S SLIPPER. - Win me and wear me.
LILY, DAY. - Coquetry
LILY, WHITE. - Sweetness.
LILY, YELLOW. - Gaiety.
LILY OF THE VALLEY. - Return of happiness.
MIGNONETTE. - Your qualities surpass your charms.
MONKSHEAD. - Danger is near.