Morse Code

Day 347 / 365

We are living in the digital age right now. A person can instantly communicate with another person halfway across the globe, thanks to the internet. Hell, even astronauts on the ISS can upload youtube videos. But how did this all start?

While the internet is relatively new, electronic communication is actually quite old, and it all started with the telegraph in the 1830s.

Samuel F. B. Morse invented the morse code in 1832 and started working on an electronic device that could be used to transfer this code from one place to another. The initial version of the code was quite rudimentary. It consisted of a series of dots and dashes, combinations of which represented numbers. These numbers will then have to be converted to words using a dictionary.

The telegraph machines actually had a reel of paper that would come out with the dots and dashes imprinted on it. Telegraph boys would then interpret this message. Many people then started to interpret the messages just based on the sound of the machine, thus making the process faster.

By the 1890s, we had strong enough radios that could be used to transfer messages using morse code across the sea! Before this, different countries had different versions of this code. By 1912, an international version of the code was agreed upon.

It’s crazy to think about how a small idea of transferring dashes and dots between two machines connected by wire has grown into the mammoth global communication network that we have today.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — The power to choose