The Victorian Internet (15 page)

The Wheatstone Automatic telegraph was widely com pared with the Jacquard loom, which wove cloth into a pattern determined
by holes punched in cards—indeed, it was sometimes referred to as the "electric Jacquard." Following its invention, Wheatstone
further refined his design, and it entered widespread use after 1867, particularly for news transmission, for which it was
particularly well suited; news needed to be sent quickly because its value rapidly diminished. The Automatic was certainly
fast: One night in 1886, following the introduction of Prime Minister William Gladstone's Bill for Home Rule in Ireland, no
fewer than 1.5 million words were dispatched from the central telegraph station in London by one hundred of Wheatstone's transmitters.
The Automatic also dramatically increased the amount of traffic that could be carried by a telegraph line; instead of charging
by the word, messages were charged by the yard of tape.

Wheatstone Automatic transmitter. Messages were prepunched on a paper tape and then transmitted in Morse code at very high
speed as the tape was fed through the machine.

A further boost to network capacity was provided by the invention of the duplex, a means of sending messages in both directions
over a single wire simultaneously. The search for a means of making the local receiver insensitive to signals sent by the
transmitter had been going on since 1853, when Wilhelm Gintl of the Austrian State Telegraph devised an unsuccessful design.
It was not until 1872, by which time electrical theory had advanced dramatically, that Joseph B. Steams of Boston was able
to build and patent a working duplex. It meant that telegraph companies were suddenly able to send twice as much traffic along
a single wire, merely by installing special equipment at each end, and it saved them a fortune, since it cost far less to
buy a set of duplex equipment than it did to string up a new wire.

Meanwhile the French, as usual, were doing things their own way. In 1874, Jean Maurice Emile Baudot of the French telegraph
administration devised a novel form of automatic telegraph that squeezed even more capacity out of a telegraph line. At each
end of the wire, synchronized rotating distributor arms switched the use of a single telegraph line between four or six sets
of apparatus. In conjunction with duplex equipment, this enabled a single line to carry up to twelve lines' worth of traffic.
Instead of Morse code, the apparatus used a five-unit binary code, in which each letter was represented as a series of five
current pulses, each of which could be positive or negative. Operators seated at each of the Baudot terminals sent messages
by holding down different chords in succession on a special pianolike keyboard with five keys. During each revolution of the
distributor arm, the line was automatically switched between each of the operators in turn, and five pulses were transmitted
depending on whether the keys were up (negative pulse) or down (positive pulse). The distributor arm typically rotated two
or three times a second, and each operator had the use of the line for a fraction of a second during each revolution, so timing
was critical; a clicking noise made at the start of each revolution helped operators with their split-second timing. At the
receiving end, an ingenious electromechanical device turned the stream of pulses into a message printed in roman type on a
paper tape.

The Baudot telegraph was capable of up to 3o words per minute on each line-, with twelve sets of apparatus at each end, the
effective capacity of a single wire was 36o words per minute. However, operating a Baudot terminal was very stressful, due
to the need for accurate timing, so on average only around two-thirds of this speed was attained. But since there was no need
for a receiving operator, the Baudot halved the number of skilled operators required to send a message.

The same year, Edison, who had been beaten by Steams in the race to invent the first duplex system, invented the quadruplex,
which, as its name suggests, enabled a single wire to carry four streams of traffic, essentially by superimposing two duplex
circuits. The trick was to find a way to send two messages at once in the same direction; this was achieved by using one set
of apparatus that was sensitive to changes in the direction of electrical current, and another sensitive to large steps in
the magnitude of the current. Like the duplex, the quadruplex was rapidly adopted for obvious reasons. It was far cheaper
to add a gizmo to each end of a wire than it was to string up three new wires. In fact, the "quad" was said to have saved
the Western Union company $500,000 a year in the construction of new lines.

The combination of these new technologies enabled telegraph companies to save money on construction and skilled labor; reducing
operating costs while making maximum use of network capacity was the name of the game. One study in i883 pointed out that
automatic telegraphy from prepunched tapes offered dramatic reductions in labor costs: Unskilled workers could operate the
machines for just a quarter of the salary of a highly skilled Morse key operator.

Thanks to the relentless pace of technological change, telegraphy was changing from a high-skill to a low-skill occupation;
from a carefully learned craft to something anyone could pick up. As the emphasis switched from skilled operators to the latest
high-tech equipment, the tone of the telegraphic journals changed; the humorous stories and telegraph poetry were replaced
by circuit diagrams and lengthy explanations aimed at technical and managerial readers, rather than the lowly minions who
merely operated the machines. The growing use of automatic machinery was undermining the telegraphic community; and another
new invention was to deal it a deadly blow.

T
He INVENNON OF the duplex and the quadruplex had shown that with the right sort of electrical trickery, a single telegraph
wire could be made to carry the traffic of two and then four wires. Could a wire be made to carry even more traffic? Anyone
who could find a way to improve the quadruplex would have a ready market for his invention, since it would save the telegraph
companies huge amounts of money. Not surprisingly, many inventors devoted much time and effort in the search for new ways
to squeeze ever more telegraph traffic into a single wire.

One approach, which was being pursued by several inventors, was known as the "harmonic" telegraph. The human ear can distinguish
notes of different pitches, and if each of those notes is playing a separate rhythm, anyone of a sufficiently musical turn
of mind can "tune out" all but one of the notes—just as it is possible to separate the voice of someone at a party from the
hubbub of the surrounding crowd. The idea of the harmonic telegraph was to use a series of reeds vibrating at different frequencies.
Electrical signals produced by the reeds would be combined, sent down a telegraph wire, and then separated out again at the
other end using an identical set of reeds, each of which would respond only to the signals generated by its counterpart. Morse
telegraphy would then be possible by stopping and starting the vibration of each reed to make dots and dashes.

Elisha Gray, the inventor whose work on a harmonic telegraph contributed to the invention of the telephone.

Elisha Gray, one of those working on a harmonic telegraph, produced a design that he believed would be capable of carrying
sixteen messages along a single wire. But when he tested his design, he found that in practice only six separate signals could
be sent reliably. Nevertheless, Gray was confident that he would eventually be able to improve his apparatus.

Another inventor working on a harmonic telegraph was Alexander Graham Bell. He was testing his equipment on June 2, 1875,
when one of the reeds got stuck and his assistant, Thomas Watson, plucked it much harder than usual in order to free it. Bell,
listening at the other end of the wire, heard the unmistakable twang of the reed—a far more complex sound than the pure musical
tones his apparatus had been designed to transmit. Bell realized that, with a few modifications, his apparatus might be capable
of far more than mere telegraphy. It looked as though he had stumbled upon a way of transmitting any sound-including the human
voice—along a wire from one place to another.

Bell worked for several months to build a working prototype. On February 14, 1876, when it became clear that Gray was pursuing
the same goal, Bell filed for a patent, even though he had yet to successfully transmit speech. He was granted the patent
on March 3, and made the vital breakthrough a week later, when he succeeded in transmitting intelligible speech for the first
time. After several months of further refinement, his new invention—the telephone—was ready for the world.

Initially, the telephone was seen merely as a "speaking telegraph"—an improvement of an existing technology, rather than something
altogether different. Even Bell, whose 1876 patent was entitled "Improvements in Telegra­phy," referred to his invention as
a form of telegraph in a letter to potential British investors. "All other telegraphic machines," he wrote, "produce signals
which require to be translated by experts, and such instruments are therefore extremely limited in their application. But
the telephone actually speaks." Gray's lawyers advised him that the telephone was merely an unimportant by-product in the
far more important race to build a harmonic telegraph, so, initially at least, he did not contest Bell's right to the telephone
patent. It was a decision he soon came to regret.

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone.

The advantages of the telephone over all forms of telegraph were clear, and they were spelled out in the first advertisement
for telephone service, issued by the newly formed Bell Telephone Company, in May 1877: "No skilled operator is required; direct
conversation may be had by speech without the intervention of a third person. The communication is much more rapid, the average
number of words being transmitted by Morse Sounder being from fifteen to twenty per minute, by Telephone from one to two hundred.
No expense is required either for its operation, maintenance, or repair. It needs no battery and has no complicated machinery.
It is unsurpassed for economy and simplicity."

The telephone was an instant success. By the end of June 1877, there were 23o telephones in use; a month later, the figure
was 750; a month later still, there were i,3oo. By 1880, there were 3o,ooo telephones in use around the world.

Meanwhile, a host of new electrical innovations, such as the use of electrical sparks to light gas lamps in large buildings,
were being devised, though they were initially regarded, like the telephone, as mere spin-offs of telegraphy. But with Edison's
invention of the incandescent light-bulb in 1879, and the use of electricity for everything from lighting to powering electric
trams and elevators, it became clear that telegraphy was merely one of many applications of electricity—and a comparatively
old-fashioned one at that. Abandoning his telegraphic roots, Edison turned his attention to electrical matters, devising ever
more efficient forms of generator to supply household electricity and inventing the electricity meter to monitor its use.