Chuck Guzis wrote: ... I don't know, but he was a late-comer if he did. The first granted fax for a patent was 1843: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Bain_(inventor) Quite a guy.

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 :-) 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

On 8 Nov 2006 at 15:20, Charles Fox wrote: We also can't ignore drum signaling. I suspect that signal fires, particularly among the seafaring peoples go back to prehistoric times. But then, to qualify as email, they'd have to be ELECTRIC signal fires, no? :) Cheers, Chuck

Sridhar Ayengar wrote: I want to keep all my magic smoke inside my stuff. That makes me real happy.

Hi, Charles Fox said: The Romans used flaming torches and simple water-clocks, but they're not electrical. I think electric light sgnalling had to wait for the light bulb, first working examples 1860 or so, but carbon arc lamps were somewhat earlier, I think. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this!

I read a book called _The Victorian Internet_ which I found fascinating. It's about the age of telegraphy and touches on tech that preceded it, such as semaphore and relay stations. It's a great read.