It's actually text messaging that started in 1836. Yeah, that's right, if you think your phone is so fancy then you must not have ever seen the coolest texting machine ever. It's Morse Code, and it involved pushing a clicker over and making an electrical connection. Based on holding it or doing short connections, you made words in sequences. The name for Morse Code was derived from one of the creators, an artist named Samuel Morse. It comes from a series of on and off tones which; in effect, is "dots" and "dashes" on a piece of paper. Electrical current was sent through lines, some of the first ways to communicate long distances, and what you got was.... just dots and dashes! Nothing too fancy, but it did the trick. As the picture shows, these dots and dashes when put together in sequences with breaks in between, would make letters. Sure, hitting the A button on your phone is easier then dot dash, or O then dash dash dash, but for something over a hundred years older then texting, you can't complain.
So, what does this have to do with Social Networking? Everything actually. This is a form of communication before Facebook popped up, and when you go on Facebook and talk to friends, you text them through a command on the bottom right of the screen. If you can't see the connection then you need a new pair of glasses, because Morse Code and chatting on Facebook are practically one in the same.
The Morse Code is still widely used in the miliary but another very important piece of communication was the use of the Navajo language. Using Native Americans to transmit military messages to each other had been successfully tried near the end of World War I when 18 Chocktaws helped the U.S. win the Great War. The concept was also used in World War II, most notably for the D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy. But Philip Johnston proposed a different idea. He believed Navajo speakers could develop a code they could teach to other “Code Talkers” who would then be sent wherever they were needed. If Philip Johnston’s idea could be implemented quickly, a code could be in place before the end of 1942.
ReplyDeleteIt remained a national secret until 1968.
Nice post!
I think that is really cool and there should be a class on old ways to communicate. It really seem like having your own way of communicating because people won't take the time out to learn the new way of talking.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post Tyler! I've never thought of morse code as the original texting, lol. I remember texting on my first cell phone! It took so long because the "cat" was written by typing 2 three times, wait, one time, and 8 once. This took forever! Morse code takes even longer. Does anyone remember pagers and the codes typed in to make a statement?
ReplyDeleteThis is a very knowledgeable post. I am glad I came across this. I have always wondered about Morse code and what it stands for. I knew that the military used but that's it. It is a very complex way of communicating. I would not want to be responsible to use Morse code just because I would be too afraid of messing up a certain touch or space.
ReplyDeleteI actually made a post about this on my blog The Hard Workers on this. I found this websitehttp://www.wrvmuseum.org/morsecode/morsecodehistory.htm
ReplyDeletethat shows the history of Morse code.
This is one interesting way of communicating, but certainly very difficult. It is a very precise form of communication.
I think Morse Code is one of the interesting things we have in the world. It is communicating without physically talking with one another. It is always throughout history something of hiding messages from enemies. I would have like to become more in depth with the history of Morse code in school. It seems because we don't really use it as much, it is not evolve in education.
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