The Printing Press 1440

The next time you visit your local book store, stop for a second and stand in awe at the availability of information in the printed form and thank Johannes Gutenberg.

In 1440 his invention of replaceable/movable type known as the printing press helped to revolutionize the world by making books widely available. Before that time, books were hard to come by, took years to be written by hand, and usually were only kept by the wealthy and educated.

The printing press was a technology that helped advance knowlege in the sciences, religion, and art.

http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventors/a/Gutenberg.htm?p=1

ARPAnet

Another major breakthrough technology of the past came from ARPAnet in 1969, which is considered the grandfather of today's Internet. ARPAnet was an acronym that stood for Advanced Research Projects Agency and was created to link a small amount of powerful computers together for researchers that were geographically separated. ARPAnet connected computers from UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. Through 1971-1973 this project paved the way of the information highway by allowing for the development of email, remote network access, and file transfer protocol (FTP). In 1983 more and more people had access to the "highway" and separate networks were created for military only use (MILnet) and also for universities and other reasearch groups. Those were called Local Area Networks or LAN's. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of today's Internet, is that it only took four years to become mainstream once it was opened to the public, surpassing radio, TV, and the first personal computer kit .

http"//inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa091598.htm?p=1

Pony Express

We sometimes take for granted that a letter or a package may take a few days to reach us when the technology of communication promotes high speed in the delivery of todays information. Of course our standard of sending and recieving information wasn't always so fast.

In 1848, a letter sent from New York to California took roughly between three to six weeks to arrive using a combination of railways and steamships to accomplish what would seem to us today, to be a simple task. The problem was that there was no direct route at the time, primarily because the land beyond St. Joseph, Missouri was unknown and wild.

Then in 1860, a nam named William Russell started his own express route in spite of not being approved by the Senate Post Office and Post Roads Committee. He and his two business parters called it the "Pony Express." They built relay stations through eight states from Missoui to California and hired yound boys with great riding skills, mainly orphans, to make the dangerous rides.

The quickest delivery was of President Lincoln's inaugural address in March 1861 and took seven days and 17 hours to deliver. The Pony Express operated for only three months until the telegraph lines spanning coast to coast were completed and the rest is history.

www.inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmailus2a.htm?p=1

String Phone

The string phone was a VITAL part of communication history! Without the string phone, I don't know how we would have achieved some of the things we have accomplished in human history. Ok, not really, but its kind of neat and it has some nice scientific background! The string phone shows how sound waves can carry through a medium (and how they carry through air as well). A few of these images show how people have taken the string phone and made it evolve through the years! The classic string phone is the two tin cans with a string attached. The one with the numbers, hearing devices, and other contraptions shows how we love to "trick out" or evolve our technology to suit our needs, scientifically, practically, and for looks! The one with the phone booth is just classy and made me laugh, how could I not post it?

Vocal Communication

Vocal communication is a vital part of our ability to communicate, and this goes beyond language! Before there was language or written text, vocal communication played a vital role in human history. We can see many forms of vocal communication today; spoken language, music, crying, laughing, screaming, etc... While vocal communication is important to how we interact as humans, it also plays a major role in the animal kingdom. Wolves howl, cows moo, cats meow, dogs bark.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~phyl/anthro/vocal.html Shed some nice light on how Vocal communication is used, learned, and how we develope it.

News Reels

My focus on new reels is those used during the early 20th century, especially those used to give information about the War to end all Wars, and the war that followed! (World War I and World War II). News reels were used as propaganda and did not always show the truth of what was happening at the time.

A sample newsreel can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlTCL8-uvec
Its a German newsreel about D-day, the day which American troops stormed beaches up and down the French coast, one of the bloodiest battles of the war.

Braille

Braille is a form of language used by vision impared individuals. A french teacher named Luis Braille invented the system early in the 19th century to help with his students, who were mostly blind. There are arrangements that list individual letters, as shown here, and also arrangements that are entire words or numbers.

Braille is commonly used in many public places, such as schools, office buildings, and many tourist attractions. I remember there being braille on my calculators in grade school!

information and photo derived from http://www.omniglot.com/writing/braille.htm

First Telephone

This is a picture of his idea, before he made it reality.


Alexander Graham invented the telephone. He made his first phone call on March 10, 1876.

You want to know what he said?

-"Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you"

Under the Presidential Advisory Board for the Post Office Department, the development of a coding system for the United States was pursued. Postmaster General John A. Gronouski announced that the ZIP Code would begin on July 1, 1963. Transportation was one contributing factor that allowed the coding process to develop as well as it did. It was only years after the coding was implemented that it was mandated for mailers to use the coding system. Zip Codes allow for a faster and more efficient mailing process. Without this kind of organization the United States would never get their bills paid on time and communication would still be as slow as it was…

For more information about the history of the Post Office visit: http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmailus4.htm#ZIP

Fiber Optics

The background behind Fiber Optics dates back to 1854 when John Tyndall proved that light signals could be conducted. Then Alexander Grand Bell created the first “wireless phone” by transmitting voice through reflected light in 1880. Soon after, William Wheeler created the light pipe with reflective coatings to light homes from a central location. The progress goes on with new development that eventually arrived to Optical Fiber.

For more information about this invention and its development visit: http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa980407.htm

Electronic-Digital Computer

John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry, built the world’s first electronic-digital computer in 1942. This invention although not patented by these two innovators was the first to pave the way to what we use on a daily basis. Although there is no comparison, without this invention the modern computer as we know it would be non-existent.

From more information about this invention and its related offspring visit: http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa050898.htm

Sign Language

Helen Keller was a remarkable woman. She is the first person that comes to mind when sign language is mention. Most people thought it was only a form a communitcation for those who could see, but Anne Sullivan believed that she could teach it to her and communicate with her.

I found this neat website that gives you ton's of information on all of the different types of sign language.http://www.handspeak.com/

The "Hello Girls"

After doing some research on switchboards, I came across a website about the "Hello Girls". These were women who were accepted into the Army during WWI to control the switchboards. They were the main communication to and from the different countries during the war.

What made this story interesting was after the war was over the women tried to get their honorable discharges they were declined because only "men" were sworn into the Army, not women.
After 60 years of trying to receive their honorable discharges and fighting for their right, the remaining women were recognized for serving in the war and named the first veteran women of the U.S. Army. They are still not recognized in history books, but it is interesting how they are linked to research about switchboards.

Here is the link to the story.

http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=womenshistory&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldwar1.com%2Fdbc%2Fhello.htm

Lighthouses

Lighthouses were designed to guide ships and air planes away from dangerous areas of the coastline. They helped them see where the coastline was when it was too dark to see.

The first lighthouse dates back to 280BC and was built in Egypt. It was called the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

The first American lighthouse was built in Boston Massachusetts on Little Brewster Island in 1716. The originally used different types of oil to stay lit, but then turned electric because of the high costs of oil.

To read more about lighthouses and see more pictures of them you can visit http://www.pbs.org/legendarylighthouses/

The Postal Service

^ above is a picture of a post office in Victorian America...about the late 1800's, early 1900's.

Postal Services were created in Egypt in 2000 BC. Back then, letters were carried from place to place on a horse, or a horse-drawn wagon. During this time, letters mostly consisted of government dispatches.

The Postal Service started in China around 1122-1121 BC. Carriers had to change horses every 9 miles or so at a place called a "relay post."

Other places around the world used the Postal Service as well, and mostly had the same method.

Sure, this was not the quickest form of communication, but at least they had a way to communicate with others, right?

Team Take Over

Telegraph

The non-electric telegraph was invented by Claude Chappe in 1794. This system was visual and used semaphore, a flag-based alphabet, and depended on a line of sight for communication. The optical telegraph was replaced by the electric telegraph.

The electric telegraph is a now outdated communication system that transmitted electric signals over wires from location to location that translated into a message.

for more information-
http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/telegraph.htm

for a video of a telegraph-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lki3jxNLVCI

Past Tech - First Portable Phones

Today, it may be difficult for some people to imagine living life without their trusty cell phone. First Generation or 1G phones were primarily used to only make voice calls, which at the time was not only revolutionary, but also amazing to the average person. Ten years of research and $100 million dollars later, Motorola released the DynaTAC 8000X, which was the "world's first portable phone."

My father had a similar phone in the late 80's - early 90's which was carried in a case and was used mainly in the car, which seemed like a huge convienience at the time. I owned my first cell phone back in 2003, which was a prepaid Virgin mobile Nokia. It had no color screen, didn't feature a camera or have any of the bells and whistles found on today's latest models. Oh yeah, it also had a pull out antenna !

For the full article, check out the following link:

http://www.motorola.com/content.jsp?globalObjectId=7662-10813

Morse Code- Is it still used today?

Morse Code has been around for over a hundred years and is the longest electronic encoding system around. It was developed for the telegraph and was originally used in early radio communication and also by military and commercial pilots.

My main question: "Is it still used today?"
I found my answer in this article.
http://home.clara.net/rod.beavon/morse.htm
Eventhough it is not the main form of communication used today, it is still required for air pilots to know and understand Morse Code.

I also found a translation for Morse Code.
http://www.onlineconversion.com/morse_code.htm

Past communication: Smoke signals

Smoke signals is one of the oldest forms of communication, and is a form of visual communication used over a long distance.

On an elevation the signaler built a fire of material that would make heavy smoke, such as damp grass. By passing a blanket across the fire, he created separate puffs of smoke that conveyed information by their number and spacing

Around 150 BC, another system was created, it was a more complex system of alphabetical smoke signals. By converting greek alphabetic characters into numeric characters, it was devised to enable messages to be easily signaled by holding sets of torches in pairs


http://history.howstuffworks.com/native-american-history/smoke-signal.htm

“Paper is writing material made from wood pulp or other fibrous material.

Almost 5,000 years ago, in ancient Egypt, the papyrus plant was processed and used as paper. Papyrus paper was made from thin sheets of papyrus pith that were soaked in water, pressed together with the grains at right angles, and then dried - the sticky sap of the plant made the thin sheets stick together, forming a sturdy writing surface. Papyrus (Cyperus papyrus is its genus and species) is a grass-like aquatic plant native to the Nile valley of Egypt. Our word paper comes from "papyrus."

Paper is made by grinding plant material into a pulp, forming it into thin sheets, and drying it in a form. This process was invented in AD 105 by Ts'ai Lun, a Chinese official and member of the Chinese Imperial Court, a bout 2000 years ago; he originally used the waste from silk production. Early Chinese paper was made from the bark of the mulberry tree and other plant fibers.”

Paper is one of the most commonly used means of communication to date. New and exciting avenues for art have developed with this scientific achievement. History would not be so inclusive without paper as a catalyst.

For Information Check out this site:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/communication.shtml