Who invented the telegraph? Electric telegraph in pre-revolutionary Russia.

In 1832 Russian scientist Pavel Lvovich Schilling invented the telegraph, which was successfully tested in St. Petersburg. Schilling also succeeded in creating a rubber insulated submarine cable and an overhead wire lead.

Werner von Siemens (1816-1892) was a German physicist, electrical engineer and entrepreneur. Born in Lenta near Hannover. Shortly after graduating from the Berlin Artillery School, he left his military career and took up inventive activity.

W. Siemens and his brother Karl improved the design of an electromagnetic telegraph, and together with the mechanic I. Halske, the brothers designed an electric telegraph. In 1847, in Prussia, W. Siemens received a patent for a telegraph. I. Halske improved the manufacture of wires and their insulation. Werner and Karl Siemens, together with I. Halske, created the Siemens and Halske company, which was engaged in the industrial production of communications equipment. Telegraph lines were built all over the globe. In a short period of time, a small workshop turned into a large factory that manufactured telegraph installations and various cables.

Siemens Ernst Werner was seriously engaged in electrical telegraphy, precision mechanics and optics. In 1846, a scientist invented a machine for applying rubber insulation to wires. This machine came into general use in the production of insulated conductors for underground and underwater telegraph cables. W. Siemens introduced the term "electrical engineering". On January 17, 1867, the scientist presented his theory of the dynamo at the Berlin Academy. This machine became the basis for all modern electrical engineering.

In 1879, the first electric railway and the first tram, built by W. Siemens, were presented at the Berlin exhibition. With this, the active work of the inventor began in the development and distribution of electric railways.

The plant, founded by W. Siemens, gave the world many inventions and improvements in telegraph and electrical engineering: in induction electric machines, steel magnets were replaced by electromagnets; a self-excited electric generator was developed; an electric pyrometer was designed; an industrial electric melting furnace and a selenium photometer were designed.

At present, enterprises of the joint-stock company Siemens and Halske operate in various countries for the production of apparatus and accessories for electrical engineering, for electric lighting, for the operation of telephones, telegraphs, electric railways, and for the transmission of electricity.

In honor of the scientist, physicist and inventor Werner von Siemens, the unit of measurement of electrical conductivity is named Siemens.

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Primitive modes of communication: fire, smoke and reflected light

From time immemorial, mankind has used various primitive types of signaling and communication in order to transmit urgent and important information in cases where, for a number of reasons, traditional types of mail messages could not be used. Fires lit on elevated areas of the terrain, or smoke from fires, were supposed to notify of the approach of enemies or an impending natural disaster. This method is still used by those who get lost in the taiga or by tourists experiencing natural disasters. Some tribes and peoples used certain combinations of sound signals from percussion musical instruments (drums) for these purposes, others learned to transmit certain messages by manipulating the reflected sunlight using a system of mirrors. In the latter case, the communication system was named " heliograph».

Optical telegraph

In 1792, in France, Claude Chappe created a system for transmitting information using a light signal, which was called the Optical Telegraph. In its simplest form, it was a chain of typical buildings, with poles with movable crossbars located on the roof, which was created within sight of one another. Poles with movable crossbars - semaphores - were controlled by cables by special operators from inside the buildings. Chapp created a special code table, where each letter of the alphabet corresponded to a certain figure formed by a semaphore, depending on the positions of the transverse bars relative to the support pole. The Chappe system allowed messages to be transmitted at a speed of two words per minute and quickly spread throughout Europe. In Sweden, a chain of optical telegraph stations operated until 1880.

Electric telegraph

Morse key

Telegraph switch designed by P. Koshkodaev.
It was used at stationary nodes of the People's Commissariat of Communications and headquarters of military districts. During the Second World War, it was widely used for the equipment of cross-countries of stationary communication centers
Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps, St. Petersburg

One of the first attempts to create a means of communication using electricity dates back to the second half of the 18th century, when Lesage built an electrostatic telegraph in Geneva in 1774. In 1798, the Spanish inventor Francisco de Salva created his own design for an electrostatic telegraph. Later, in 1809, the German scientist Samuel Thomas Semmering built and tested an electrochemical telegraph.

The first electromagnetic telegraph was created by the Russian scientist Pavel Lvovich Schilling in 1832. A public demonstration of the operation of the apparatus took place at Schilling's apartment on October 21, 1832. Pavel Schilling also developed an original code in which each letter of the alphabet corresponded to a certain combination of symbols, which could appear as black and white circles on a telegraph machine. Subsequently, the electromagnetic telegraph was built in Germany by Karl Gauss and Wilhelm Weber (1833), in the UK by Cook and Wheatstone (1837), and in the USA the electromagnetic telegraph was patented by S. Morse in . The Schilling, Gauss-Weber, Cooke-Wheatstone telegraph apparatuses belong to the electro-magnetic devices of the pointer type, while the Morse apparatus was electro-mechanical. Morse's great merit is the invention of the telegraph code, where the letters of the alphabet were represented by a combination of dots and dashes (Morse code). The commercial operation of the electric telegraph was first started in London in 1837. In Russia, the work of P.L. Schilling was continued by B. S. Jacobi, who built a writing telegraph apparatus in 1839, and later, in 1850, a direct-printing telegraph apparatus.

Main telegraph lines at 1891

Phototelegraph

In 1843, the Scottish physicist Alexander Bain demonstrated and patented his own design for an electric telegraph that allowed images to be transmitted over wires. Bain's machine is considered the first primitive fax machine. In 1855, the Italian inventor Giovanni Caselli created a similar device, which he called the Pantelegraph and offered it for commercial use. Caselli apparatuses were used for some time to transmit images by means of electrical signals on telegraph lines both in France and in Russia.

wireless telegraph

On May 7, 1895, the Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov, at a meeting of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society, demonstrated a device that he called a "lightning detector", which was designed to record electromagnetic waves. This device is considered the world's first wireless telegraphy device, a radio receiver. In 1897, with the help of wireless telegraphy devices, Popov carried out the reception and transmission of messages between the coast and a military vessel. In 1899, Popov designed a modernized version of an electromagnetic wave receiver, where signals were received (in Morse code) on the operator's head phones. In 1900, thanks to the radio stations built on the island of Gogland and at the Russian naval base in Kotka under the leadership of Popov, rescue operations were successfully carried out on board the warship General-Admiral Apraksin, which ran aground near the island of Gogland. As a result of the exchange of messages transmitted by wireless telegraphy, the crew of the Russian icebreaker Yermak was promptly and accurately informed about the Finnish fishermen on the torn off ice floe in the Gulf of Finland. Abroad, technical thought in the field of wireless telegraphy also did not stand still. In 1896, in the UK, the Italian Gulielmo Marconi filed a patent "on improvements made in the apparatus of wireless telegraphy." The device presented by Marconi, in general terms, repeated Popov's design, which had been repeatedly described by that time in European popular science magazines. In 1901, Marconi achieved a stable transmission of a wireless telegraph signal (letter S) across the Atlantic.

Bodo apparatus: a new stage in the development of telegraphy

In 1872, the French inventor Jean Baudot designed a telegraph machine that could transmit two or more messages in one direction over a single wire. The Bodo apparatus and those created according to its principle are called start-stop. In addition, Baudot created a very successful telegraph code (the Baudot Code), which was subsequently adopted everywhere and received the name International Telegraph Code No. 1 (ITA1). A modified version of MTK No. 1 was named MTK No. 2 (ITA2). In the USSR, the telegraph code MTK-2 was developed on the basis of ITA2. Further modifications to the design of the start-stop telegraph apparatus proposed by Bodo led to the creation of teleprinters (teleprinters). In honor of Bodo, the unit of information transfer rate was named baud.

telex

Telex Siemens T100

By 1930, the design of a start-stop telegraph apparatus equipped with a telephone-type disk dialer (teletype) was created. This type of telegraph apparatus, among other things, made it possible to personalize the subscribers of the telegraph network and to quickly connect them. Almost simultaneously, in Germany and the UK, national subscriber telegraph networks were created, called Telex (TELEgraph + EXchange). Somewhat later, a national subscriber telegraphy network, similar to Telex, was also created in the United States, which was called TWX (Telegraph Wide area eXchange). International subscriber telegraphy networks were constantly expanding and by 1970 the Telex network united subscribers in more than 100 countries of the world. Only in the eighties, thanks to the appearance on the market of inexpensive and practical facsimile machines, did the subscriber telegraphy network begin to lose ground in favor of facsimile communication.

Telegraph in the new century

Today, the ability to exchange messages over the Telex network is largely preserved thanks to e-mail. In Russia, telegraph communications still exist, telegraph messages are transmitted and received using special devices - telegraph modems, interfaced in electrical communication centers with personal computers of operators. Nevertheless, in some countries, national operators considered the telegraph an obsolete form of communication and curtailed all telegram sending and delivery operations. In the Netherlands, telegraph communications ended in 2004. In January 2006, the oldest American national operator, Western Union, announced a complete cessation of services to the population for sending and delivering telegraph messages. At the same time, in Canada, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Japan, some companies still support the service of sending and delivering traditional telegraph messages.

see also

  • Subscriber telegraphy

A hotel without a telex cannot be rated five stars. There are now more than one and a half million telex numbers in the world. Telex is a documentary type of communication and is recognized as a document on the basis of international agreements of the 30s of the last century. In Russia there is a public network in which each message is stored for 7 months, and can be found along the entire route, and can also be issued to you with a certification seal as a document.

Related links

  • Central Museum of Communication named after A.S. Popova: P.L. shilling
  • History of Fax Machines and Phototelegraphs
  • Virtual Teletype Museum (English) - a large collection of devices and photo exclusives.

Telegrams in large cities have long been replaced by e-mail, telexes by modern computers, and the chirping of teletypes has been replaced by the quiet hum of modern servers. But for decades, the dots and dashes of Morse code transmitted information about the most important events in people's lives. This material is a brief history of telegraph communications in Russia, which is fully presented in a special departmental museum of the Central Telegraph company.

History of development

Short text messages appeared much earlier than telephone communication. If you "dig" very deep, then you can remember the signal fires that flickered on the tops of hills in ancient times, which were used to transmit military information, as well as various models of semaphores that were used in both the Old and New Worlds.

Models of semaphore telegraphs of the Chateau (left) and Chappe (right) systems.

The most efficient semaphore-type system is still the telegraph of the French inventor Pierre Chateau. It was an optical system of semaphore towers in direct visual communication with each other, usually located at a distance of 10-20 km. On each of them was installed a crossbar about three meters long, at the ends of which movable rulers were attached. With the help of traction, the rulers could be folded into 196 figures. Initially, its inventor was, of course, Claude Chappe, who chose 76 of the most clear and distinct figures, each of which denoted a certain letter, number or sign. The borders of the rulers were equipped with lanterns, which made it possible to transmit messages even at night. In France alone, by the middle of the 19th century, the length of optical telegraph lines was 4828 kilometers. But Chateau improved the system - instead of individual letters and signs, each combination in his interpretation began to denote a phrase or a specific order. Of course, the police, state authorities and the army immediately appeared with their own code tables.

An example of an encrypted report that had to be sent using a semaphore telegraph.

In 1833, the Chateau semaphore telegraph line connected St. Petersburg with Kronstadt. The main telegraph station was, oddly enough, right on the roof of the Emperor's Winter Palace. In 1839, the government telegraph line was extended to the Royal Castle in Warsaw for a distance of 1200 kilometers. 149 relay stations with towers up to 20 meters high were built along the entire route. Observers with spyglasses were on duty around the clock on the towers. In the dark, lanterns were lit at the ends of the semaphores. The line was serviced by over 1000 people. It existed until 1854.

All standards for the transmission of information were regulated by special instructions.

But the real breakthrough did not come until September 1837, when, at New York University, Samuel Morse demonstrated to an enlightened public his early designs for electric telegraphs - a legible signal was sent along a 1,700-foot-long wire. Now it would be called a presentation to potential investors, but then for Morse, who by education was, in fact, not an engineer, but an artist, this was the last chance to receive funding for his developments. Fortunately for him, the hall was attended by a successful industrialist from New Jersey, Stephen Weil, who agreed to donate two thousand dollars (at that time - a lot of money) and provide a room for experiments, on the condition that Morse would take his son Alfred as an assistant. Morse agreed, and it was the most successful step in his life. Alfred Vail possessed not only real ingenuity, but also a sharp practical instinct. Over the following years, Vail greatly contributed to the development of the final form of Morse code, the introduction of a telegraph key instead of a connecting rod, and the reduction of the apparatus to the compact model that has become generally accepted. He also invented the printing telegraph, which was patented in the name of Morse, in accordance with the terms of the contract between Vail and Morse.

Rare Morse apparatus - a demonstration of work and a description of the functionality.

One of the first phrases that Morse transmitted with the help of his apparatus is "Wonderful are Your works, Lord!"

In Russia, by the way, they managed without the invention of Morse - the telegraph of the Russian inventor Schilling was already in operation, however, the only line in St. reporting to the monarch. At the same time, a project was implemented to connect Peterhof and Kronstadt by telegraph, for which a special insulated electrical cable was laid along the bottom of the Gulf of Finland. By the way, this is one of the first examples of the use of the telegraph for military purposes.

Scheme of the first electric telegraph lines in Russia.

By the middle of the 19th century, there were several telegraph communication lines in the world, which were constantly being improved. After testing, the ordinary wire was rejected, and it was replaced by a braided cable. Interestingly, one of the great ideas that spurred the development of telegraph communication in the United States was the desire to transfer money throughout the country. To organize such a system, the Western Union company was organized, which is still alive today.

"Hat" of the imperial telegram.

In Russia, however, telegraph communication developed simultaneously with the construction of railways and at first was used exclusively for military and state needs. Since 1847, the first telegraph lines in Russia used Siemens devices, including a horizontal pointer with a keyboard. The very first telegraph station began operating on October 1, 1852 in the building of the Nikolaevsky railway station (now Leningradsky and Moscow railway stations in St. Petersburg and Moscow, respectively). Now any person could send a telegram to Moscow or St. Petersburg, while the delivery was carried out by special postmen on carts and bicycles - everyone understood that this was not a letter and information had to be transmitted quickly. The cost of sending a message around the city was 15 kopecks for the fact of sending a message, and beyond that - a kopeck per word (at that time, the tariff was significant - as now a couple of minutes of conversation via satellite communications).

October 1852 - the first Moscow telegraph began operating at the Nikolaevsky railway station in Moscow.

If the message was intercity, then additional billing was already applied. Moreover, the service was highly intelligent - texts were accepted both in Russian and in French and German (try now to send a message from the regional telegraph office, at least in English!).

The telegraph from the station building is transferred to one of the buildings of the Moscow Kremlin.

True, it was not particularly convenient to work there, and in May 1856 the telegraph was transferred from the station building to one of the buildings of the Moscow Kremlin (a communication center would later be equipped there). At the station there was only a telegraph apparatus for the needs of the railway - we assure you that it did not stand idle. During the Emperor's stay in Moscow, the reception of private dispatches was carried out in one of the rooms at the Trinity Tower of the Kremlin. By the way, local telegraph lines were installed in the country as early as 1841 - they connected the General Headquarters and the Winter Palace, Tsarskoye Selo and the Main Directorate of Communications, the St. Petersburg station of the Nikolaevskaya Railway and the village of Aleksandrovskoye. From that time until the middle of the 20th century, Morse black writing machines from Siemens and Halske were used. The devices were widely used and a large number of modifications, the best of which was the version of the Digne brothers. And Yuz's direct-printing apparatus, invented in 1855, was used in Russia from 1865 until the Great Patriotic War of 1941.

Checking the correctness of the clock was established by a special decree.

By the end of 1855, telegraph lines had already connected cities throughout Central Russia and stretched to Europe (to Warsaw), the Crimea, and Moldova. The presence of high-speed data transmission channels simplified the management of state authorities and troops. At the same time, the introduction of the telegraph for the work of diplomatic missions and the police began. On average, a report the size of one A4 page "skipped" from Europe to St. Petersburg in an hour - a fantastic result for those times. A little later, with the help of telegraph stations, another useful service was organized - the exact setting of the time. It was still far from atomic clocks on communication satellites, therefore, with the help of telegraph stations located by the end of the 19th century in almost all major cities of the Russian Empire, a single time was set using the chronometer of the General Staff. Every morning for telegraph operators throughout the country began with the signal "Listen" from the Winter Palace, five minutes later the command "Clock" was transmitted and "clocks" all over the country started simultaneously.

October 1869 - Telegraph station on Myasnitskaya street.

In connection with the construction of the Moscow city telegraph network (a network of city telegraph stations), the telegraph station from the Kremlin was first moved to Gazetny Lane, and then to a specially adapted building on Myasnitskaya Street, next to the Post Office. Since the 1880s, Bodo, Siemens, Klopfer, Creed devices, as well as teletypes, have been used at the station. In December 1898, in the building of the Moscow Central Telegraph Station, a call center was set up for the first, longest in Russia, long-distance telephone line St. Petersburg-Moscow.

An example of a perforated tape.

At the same time, in the middle of the 19th century, C. Wheatstone developed a device with tape perforation, which increased the speed of the telegraph to 1500 characters per minute - operators typed messages on special typewriters, which were then printed on tape. And it was she who was then loaded into the telegraph office to be sent through communication channels. It was much more convenient and economical this way - one telegraph line could work almost around the clock (later, in the 70s of the 20th century, GRU special forces cipher machines worked on the same principle, "spitting out" an encrypted message in a fraction of a second). A little earlier, in 1850, the Russian scientist B. Jacobi created a direct-printing apparatus, which was perfected by the American D. Hughes in 1855.

The telegraph operator's workplace on the Bodo-duplex apparatus - he used two hands to print on five keys - two fingers on his left hand and three on his right, the combinations had to be pressed simultaneously and quickly.

The Bodo apparatus operates in duplex mode (in total, up to six working posts could be connected to one transmitter) - the response data was printed on paper tape, which had to be cut and pasted onto the form.

The telegraph signal amplification point for the Bodo apparatus was set at a distance of 600-800 km from the transmitting center in order to "drive" the signal further: for work, it was necessary to synchronize electricity in two channels and carefully monitor the parameters of information transmission.

The control panel of the telegraph signal amplification point for the Baudot apparatus.

Demonstration of the operation of the Bodo apparatus.

Another acceleration of technical thought happened in 1872, when the Frenchman E. Baudot created an apparatus that allows several telegrams to be transmitted simultaneously on one line, and data was no longer received in the form of dots and dashes (before that, all such systems were based on Morse code), and in the form of letters of Latin and Russian (after careful completion by domestic specialists) of the language. The Bodo apparatus and those created according to its principle are called start-stop. In addition, Baudot created a very successful telegraph code (the Baudot Code), which was subsequently adopted everywhere and received the name International Telegraph Code No. 1 (ITA1). The modified version of the code was named ITA2. In the USSR, on the basis of ITA2, the MTK-2 telegraph code was developed. Further modifications to the design of the start-stop telegraph apparatus proposed by Bodo led to the creation of teleprinters (teleprinters). In honor of Bodo, the unit of information transfer rate, baud, was named.

Telegraph in the Russian Empire and the USSR

The beginning of the 20th century for telegraph communications in Russia can be considered a full-fledged Golden Age. Half a century after the opening of the first telegraph, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as other large cities of the Empire, many telegraph branches are opened, distributed on a territorial basis. The media have the opportunity to release operational news, which are transmitted by correspondents from the scene. For the central telegraph, which has been located here since 1870, a separate floor is being built in the post office building on Myasnitskaya and about 300 communication lines from all over the country are being pulled there - now the Main Post Office of Moscow is located there. The connection between the telegram reception department and the computer room with the telegraph machines displayed there was carried out with the help of couriers - boys of 10-12 years old had to run for several hours between floors with telegraph forms.

The main working hall of the telegraph on Myasnitskaya in Moscow.

During the First World War, the newly created communications units, which were engaged in establishing telephone and telegraph lines, showed themselves well in the Russian army. By the beginning of the war, in 1914, the highest military engineering unit was a battalion - in the Russian army, one sapper battalion accounted for an infantry or cavalry corps. Moreover, out of the four companies of the battalion, one was telegraph. At the end of 1916, the Russian Supreme High Command created, with each corps, an entire engineering regiment of two battalions - a sapper (two sapper companies and one road-bridge) and a technical one (two telegraph companies and one searchlight), as well as a field engineering park. The infantry divisions received an engineering company each, which consisted of two half-companies, a telegraph department and a park platoon.

Rare portable telegraph - such models have been used in combat units since the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

All devices had a personal number and release date; in this case, 1904.

The practice of operating a portable field telegraph based on Morse code.

With the establishment of Soviet power on the territory of the country, a significant part of the telegraph communication lines was given to party bodies, the NKVD, the army and the people's commissariats. In addition, the top of the People's Commissariat of Communications was staffed by state security officers - communications in peacetime was a strategic direction that needed to be protected and controlled. That is why, in the seventh year of Soviet power, the Central Committee decided to build a special building for the telegraph. It was supposed to be located not far from the Kremlin and the First House of the People's Commissariat of Defense (a special 4-storey building was built there for military communications), to contain a long-distance communication station (at that time - a very great value), the entire People's Commissariat of Communications, as well as the central telegraph station. This is how the historic building of the "Central Telegraph" appeared, occupying an entire city block on Tverskaya, 7 (formerly it was Gorky Street).

Commemorative plaque on the construction of the Central Telegraph building.

The bulk of the "Central Telegraph", 1948.

The modern view of the "Central Telegraph" 82 years after the start of construction.

Scheme of operation of pneumatic mail for sorting telegraph messages.

The building was erected with a large margin of safety (special attention was paid to the protection of communication lines in underground utilities) and in record time - construction took a year and a half and ended in 1927. The style of the building has different interpretations, but one of the most common is the transition from Art Nouveau to constructivism. The total area of ​​the premises is 60 thousand square meters. For about two years, the telegraph was equipped with various equipment, work premises were being arranged (only four internal mail systems were installed, including pneumatic mail). Officially, the new building on Tverskaya was called the "Communication House named after V.N. Podbelsky", but sometimes it lost to the unofficial one - the "Mechanized Palace". Here, the use of direct-printing devices by A.F. Shorin and L.I. Treml began, and since 1937, the domestic direct-printing device ST-35 began to be introduced.

The advent of telegraphs was a breakthrough in the development of technology. With its help, it was possible to transmit various signals and messages. What year was the telegraph invented? Who is its author? Learn about it in the article.

origins

Man, as a social being, has always needed to communicate with his own kind. Even in ancient times, from the moment people were united into small groups, there was a need to create a signaling system. She was transmitting a message warning of danger.

So, one of the oldest ways of signal transmission is sound. They warned about the approach of enemies by imitating the sounds of wildlife, for example, the chirping of birds, the calls of an owl. Sounds were also made with the help of a horn or musical instruments. Another effective means of transmitting a signal is fire. Even today it can be useful for tourists who get lost in the dense forests.

As society developed, a more efficient and innovative way of transmitting signals was required. And he showed up. Next, let's try to figure out who invented the telegraph. The concept of telegraph means a means of transmitting a signal through communication channels. Such channels can be radio waves or wires. The name of the term was formed from the words of the ancient Greek language - tele and grapho, which translates as "far" and "I am writing." The terms "telephone" and "telex" have a similar origin.

Who first invented the telegraph?

The first telegraph was optical. It is not known exactly who invented the telegraph. Printed articles about this mechanism began to appear quite early. But among those who invented the telegraph, there is certainly an English scientist Hooke. He demonstrated his device in 1684. The mechanism was based on movable rulers and circles that were visible from great distances.

The heliograph was used as an optical telegraph. It was first installed in 1778 between the observatories of Greenwich and Paris. Usually the heliograph was located on a tripod, and inside it was a small mirror. The signal was transmitted using flashes of light, which were received when the device was tilted. It is difficult to name the author of this device, but the invention was popular among the military even in the 19th century.

Semaphore

In 1792, the Frenchman Claude Chappe invented a resembling heliograph mechanism. The signal was transmitted thanks to the light emitted by the semaphore. Several identical tall buildings were placed within sight of each other. They had semaphores and the people who controlled them.

As early as 1794, 22 semaphore stations were installed on the route from Paris to Lille. It took about 2 minutes to transmit one signal. This signaling system has become very popular. Other stations were soon built. The signal was transmitted much more accurately than the beacon and the smoke signal.

Chapp invented a special system of codes. Planks were placed horizontally on the semaphore. Moving apart or connecting, they formed a certain figure, each of which corresponded to a letter of the alphabet. In one minute, two words could be transmitted.

Electric telegraph

At the end of the XVIII century, researchers and inventors study the properties of electricity. There is an idea to apply it to the telegraph. In 1774 Georg Lesage creates the first electrostatic telegraph. Later, Samuel Semmering invents an electrochemical mechanism, with gas bubbles inside.

In 1832, Pavel Schilling becomes the one who invented the electromagnetic telegraph. Five magnetic arrows were suspended on silk threads, which moved inside coils wrapped in wire. The direction of the current determined the direction in which the magnetic needle moved. It was possible to transfer both letters and numbers.

Schilling was immediately followed by a number of identical inventions from the Germans Gauss and Weber, the British Cook and Watson. But the patent for the electromagnetic telegraph went to Samuel Morse, since it was not of a switch type, but of a mechanical type. Later, the inventor came up with the world-famous signal code - Morse code.

Phototelegraph

A physicist from Scotland has moved several steps forward at once. Alexander Bain was the first to invent the telegraph capable of transmitting images. The device appeared in 1843 and was called "phototelegraph". He is rightfully considered the progenitor of the fax.

The Italian Caselli creates an apparatus similar to Bain's invention and begins mass production. A special lacquer transferred the image or drawing onto lead foil. The machine read the elements and transferred them to paper in an electrochemical way. Later models of phototelegraphs were even used for the production of geographical maps.

wireless telegraph

In 1895, a completely new type of telegraph was demonstrated in Russia, called the "lightning detector". Who invented the wireless telegraph? The author of the invention was a well-known scientist. The main task of the mechanism was to register radio waves produced by a thunderstorm front.

In fact, it was the world's first radio receiver. By improving the model of the first "lightning detector", it was possible to achieve that the signal, encrypted in Morse code, was transmitted directly to the headphones to the receiving side. Popov's device was successfully used to communicate between ships and the shore. It has found wide application in military affairs.

new era

A new stage in the development of telegraphs came in 1872, after the invention of the start-stop telegraph by Jean Baudot. Thanks to him, it became possible to transmit several messages at once in one direction.

In 1930, the Bodo apparatus was supplemented with dialers on disks. They were similar to the dialing dials we are used to on old phones. Now it was possible to specify the subscriber to whom the message was intended. Such a device is called "telex". In many countries of the world, they began to create national subscriber systems for telegraphy. Such networks have appeared, for example, in Germany, Great Britain, and the USA.

Telegraph communication still exists today. But, of course, innovative technologies have long supplanted it in place of "retrosystems".