Book - The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage (1998) \ stacker news ~BooksAndArticles

Book - The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage (1998)

1324 sats \ 8 comments \ @Signal312 5 Sep BooksAndArticles

I just finished this really interesting and easy-to-read history of the history of the telegraph, and I think the Stacker.news crowd might like it quite a bit. The history of the telegraph is the history of how the world went from the fastest communication going at the pace of a speeding horse, to almost-instant communication for much of the world. This happened within a few decades. It's that Zero to One thing, like in Peter Thiel's book of the same name.

Also there were some tidbits in here that I'd never heard of. The most interesting was that before the electric telegraph, an OPTICAL telegraph system was used in Europe, and was fairly widespread. It's exactly what you might think - a string of towers on hills, with operators looking at neighboring towers with telescopes. They started in around 1790, and were there were a few different designs - here's 2 of them:

https://m.stacker.news/50104

https://m.stacker.news/50105

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77 sats \ 0 replies \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 5 Sep

Read this when it came out and loved it (and have read all of Standage's books since then). Really fascinating and made me think about the telegraph and its impact on society.

26 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 OP 5 Sep

I just went down a little rabbit-hole on the optical telegraph. It's a very interesting history.

Here's a map of the optical telegraph lines in France

https://m.stacker.news/50111

And the telegraph referenced in the book The Count Of Monte Cristo was actually an optical telegraph, of the Chappe variety, with the moving arms:

I had often seen one placed at the end of a road on a hillock, and in the light of the sun its black arms, bending in every direction, always reminded me of the claws of an immense beetle, and I assure you it was never without emotion that I gazed on it, for I could not help thinking how wonderful it was that these various signs should be made to cleave the air with such precision as to convey to the distance of three hundred leagues the ideas and wishes of a man sitting at a table at one end of the line to another man similarly placed at the opposite extremity, and all this effected by a simple act of volition on the part of the sender of the message.

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @Malachi17 5 Sep

That is an interesting find. The Telegrapher's Union that was formed shortly after the civil war was sorta like the first ICANN.

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @rebel_nomad 6 Sep

Oh, it goes waaaay back!

I bring to you this from the Roman empire:

Semaphore was also big, and this is certainly from the Victorian times:

Who would have thunk!

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @SatsMate 6 Sep

Other than AI, what does everyone think the next telegraph will be on society? Interplanetary communication?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undergotten 6 Sep

I guess Neuromancer-style telepathy(telemetry?) is an obvious evolution to that.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undergotten 6 Sep

Relevant historical data:

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Akg10s33 6 Sep

I love reading! And I find the article very curious... note that they even established a union... it seems to me that the telegraph has always been very useful... especially of great importance in the wars that our country fought!!