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From: westmark!dave@uunet.uu.net (Dave Levenson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: 50th Anniversary of Data Communications!
Message-ID: <12138@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 14 Sep 90 11:42:33 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 644, Message 11 of 12


In article <12009@accuvax.nwu.edu>, wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil (Will
Martin) writes:

> On Sept. 9, 1940, Dr. George Stibbetts [sp? just heard it pronounced],
> of Dartmouth University, at a meeting of two [unnamed] mathematical
> societies at that campus, demonstrated the first recorded instance of
> computer data transmission over telephone lines, from New Hampshire to
> New York City. He entered, from Dartmouth, instructions to a computer
> in NYC to divide two eight-digit numbers, and received the answer back
> in 30 seconds. (No information was given in this item as to the nature
> of the "computer" he was using in 1940, nor the terminal equipment,
> nor the "modem" or equivalent, nor the communications protocol used.)

There was no modem.  The line was a telegraph line.  The terminal was
a teletypewriter.  The cpu was constructed of telephone relays,
including several crossbar switch matrices, and was located at Bell
Laboratories, West Street, New York City.  Stibitz is quoted, in a
recent press release describing the event, that "one of the
representatives of Bell Laboratories emphasized the fact that there
would not be another computer made; he touught that no use would be
found outside of the Bell Laboratories.  I think we found he was in
some error."


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