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The digital internet began with the telegraphy network in the early 1800s. Many, many network protocols were developed and used.
by WalterBright 9mo ago
The digital internet began with the telegraphy network in the early 1800s.
Many, many network protocols were developed and used.
- LPisGood 9mo agoReally? That is so interesting - which ones? Any ancestors of commonly used ones today?
- WalterBright 9mo agoOff the top of my head BIX, Prodigy, Compuserve, MCIMail, BBS, Ethernet, Token Ring, $25 Network, AOL, Timeshare, Kermit, Fax Anyone with 2+ computers immediately thought about connecting them.
- littlestymaar 9mo ago> with the telegraphy network in the early 1800s. Late 1700 actually, and war was indeed a key motivation for the deployment of the Télégraphe Chappe.
- WalterBright 9mo agoSee "The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers" https://www.amazon.com/dp/162040592X https://www.amazon.com/dp/162040592X Télégraphe Chappe was a semaphore system using flags. It was not an electrical telegraph, nor was it binary.
- littlestymaar 9mo agoIt wasn't binary nor electrical, but it was already digital. Excluding it would be arbitrarily restrictive.
- DrPhish 9mo agoWouldn’t you also need to include the Ancient Greek phryctoriae military fire signalling system by that logic? It probably wasn’t the first, at that.
- littlestymaar 9mo agoIt depends, how versatile was the Greek signaling system? AFAIK the Télégraphe Chappe was the first general purpose telegraph able to send arbitrary messages, and was used by both the administration (for civilian as well as military purpose) and the private sector for business.
- tim333 9mo agoIt was optical. The modern internet mostly goes over optical fiber.
- littlestymaar 9mo agoAlso, most networks work with non-binary signals. So in a way, it was closer to the current internet than an electrical telegraph (it was farther in other ways though).
- WalterBright 9mo ago"The Victorian Internet" gives it its due. And its drawbacks - didn't work at night or in bad weather. It was very expensive as it needed human operators and towers. Only simple messages could be transmitted. And it was slow. Morse's electrical single wire telegraph was an instant success and quickly transformed the world. It wasn't an evolutionary advance over the Chappe, it was revolutionary. There were also electric lights before Edison's lightbulb. But Edison invented a lightbulb that was simple, cheap, reliable, and it worked. Hence his bulb gets the nod. He nailed it.