This is a nice article about early communications using electrical circuits, but doesn't deliver on the promise of the title. For that I recommend "The Early Hi

This is a nice article about early communications using electrical circuits, but doesn't deliver on the promise of the title. For that I recommend "The Early History of Data Networks" by Gerard Holzmann (http://spinroot.com/gerard/hist.html http://spinroot.com/gerard/hist.html) or the short paper "Data Communications: The First 2500 Years" (http://spinroot.com/gerard/pdf/hamburg94b.pdf http://spinroot.com/gerard/pdf/hamburg94b.pdf).