4 ms·
I think you're on the wrong abstraction layer. The telegraph was the physical layer. Messages from telegraphs would be passed to other lines, or even other syst
by nomel 4y ago
I think you're on the wrong abstraction layer. The telegraph was the physical layer. Messages from telegraphs would be passed to other lines, or even other systems (telephone, mail, etc) if the person meant to be contacted wasn't standing right there.
- lucas_membrane 4y agoThe telegraph network in the US was built (late 19th century) with relay stations a few hundred miles apart. The relay was an actual electromagnetic relay in the telegraph office that would automatically re-send the incoming signal over the next leg of the network. Along the segments of a few hundred miles, stations along the wire were all hooked up in a sort of party-line arrangement. Presumably, the electromagnetic relays would add some some little delay on key-down and maybe on key-up, perhaps making real high-speed sending and receiving difficult. When Morse retired, around the 50th anniversary of the telegraph (1894?), somehow the US telegraph network was briefly wired together so that he could send a farewell message to all the telegraph operators across the country listening simultaneously. How that was done, IDK.