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From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: What Hath God Wrought?
Message-ID: <11453@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 28 Aug 90 21:28:55 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 604, Message 7 of 9


Some recent items have had it that Morse invented telegraphy.  Isaac
Asimov says otherwise.  From "Asimov's New Guide to Science":

#  For the work that led to the early application of electricity
#  to technology, the lion's share of the credit must fall to
#  Joseph Henry.  Henry's first application of electricity was the
#  invention of telegraphy.  He devised a system ... [where] the dying
#  signal [would] activate a small electromagnet that operated a switch
#  that turned on a boost in power from stations placed at appropriate
#  intervals.  Thus a message consisting of coded pulses of electricity
#  could be sent for a considerable distance.  Henry actually built a
#  telegraph that worked.

#  Because he was an unworldly man, who believed that knowledge should
#  be shared with the world and therefore did not patent his discoveries,
#  Henry got no credit for this invention.  The credit fell to ... Morse.
#  With Henry's help, freely given (but later only grudgingly acknowledged),
#  Morse built the first practical telegraph in 1844.  Morse's main original
#  contribution to telegraphy was the system of dots and dashes known as
#  the Morse Code.


Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com