In 1838, an American portrait painter by the name of Samuel Morse developed a system whereby signals could be sent down an electrical wire.

This system allowed for information to be sent almost instantly over vast distances. However, sending pulses of

electromagnetic energy down a wire isn't in and of itself communication. So he

developed a system to encode these pulses in a way that was legible. Learn more about Morse Code, how it works

and how it's actually still used today on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. In In some ways the invention of the telegraph was far more profound than the

communication technologies which came after it. Yes the telephone and the

internet could do much more and were better than what preceded them, but the telegraph was basically competing with someone carrying a letter on a horse or a ship.

Future communication an electronic device for communications actually dates back to the 18th century

when concepts and early prototypes were built. These systems were really impractical

in that they used a separate wire for each letter of the alphabet and could only

transmit the distance of a single room.

The discovery of the electromagnet furthered things along as it allowed for a mechanical action to take place

on the other end of an electrical wire. The earliest telegraph systems were known as

needle telegraphs. A needle telegraph worked by moving a needle to the right or

the left depending on the current sent down the wire. The first needle telegraphs tried to make the needle

point to a letter of the alphabet, but eventually they settled on a code where a letter would

correspond to a series of needle movements. For example, left left was the letter A, right, right was the letter N.

Eventually, a five needle system was developed where you didn't even need a code.

The needles would just point to the correct letter and then you didn't need a skilled operator.

But you did need five different wires which proved difficult early on.

Many of the early systems developed in Britain were multi-wire systems, which was their weak point.

Each wire was a point of failure, and more wires equaled more cost.

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