8 Nov
2006
8 Nov
'06
2:30 a.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
I have this discussion with people on a pretty regular basis. It seems like
the little companies are always the ones with the real bright ideas and the
innovation - then a big company comes along and either steals or buys whatever
it is that the small company has, and presents it to the world through lots of
marketing as though it were all their own work. Then they get rich off it, and
the whole cycle repeats.
It's certainly one of the things I want to get across at the museum. Not
trying to tell the public who was first with any one thing - because as you
say that's a complete minefield - but to tell the story of some of the little
guys who really did all the hard work. It's scary how many people there are
who think that Microsoft invented the GUI and Dell invented the computer...
I wonder if there were any electrically-operated semaphore stations around
which pre-date wired telegraphy? Most countries had networks of optical
semaphores which could of course route a message (the original idea seems to
have cropped up in the 1600's) - but to my knowledge they were all manual and
only operable in daylight, despite electricity being available long before the
last ones closed (mid 1800's I think). However it seems strange if the
transition was made straight to wired telegraphy with no intermediate system
using electric light.
Of course it also depends on whether 'electro-mechanical mail' rather than
'electronic mail' qualifies :-)
That's the
problem with making a claim to be the "first". Many
concepts are evolutionary instead of revolutionary.
Nearly all, I think. Then the waters get muddy with lies, half-truths,
politically charged claims, ignorance, and so forth. I suppose
Western Union might have originated the first email system
using teletypes, no? It's a networked system and messages are stored
in hardcopy form with routing information, so the receiving end can
run unattended. I submit that the presence or absence of a
"computer" in the middle of all of this is a minor quibble.
Yes, the WU networks were surprisingly advanced for a bunch of
switches and relays. It is a good thing the Greenkeys people have an
interest in this stuff, as I have found a lot of computer people
conveniently ignore* the networks that existed before ARPAnet. AUTODIN
anyone?
It's a common thing. Along with a tendency to forget who really invented
stuff, there's also a tendency to forget that electronic systems often grew
out of electro-mechanical ones rather than being 'new ideas', and in turn
electro-mechanical systems grew out of pure mechanical systems - and I suppose
they in turn were often mechanical replacements for purely physical processes.
It's an interesting progression, which raise the question of whether there's
anything after the electronic age and what it might be.
As you say though, very few ideas are 'new' - although many of them make use
of new technologies.
cheers
Jules