Steam-Age Tech

STEAM-AGE FOUNDATIONS

Traveling Technology Workshop

Presentations:

= Telegraph & Telephone =

Electromagnetic Communication

For most of us, if you asked, one of the hardest inventions to be without would be our telephones; whether land-line, mobile or even smartphone, they all rely on electromagnetic communication. From the first practical application of electricity - the telegraph, to the entire computer age, we are looking at developments largely using the same fundamental technology. We will focus on pre-transistor developments, starting with the principles of electricity and electromagnets, and working our way to telephones with a brief nod to television and computers.

Technology Principles:

• Electricity
  • Static
  • Lightning
  • Generated / Transmission
• Electromagnetism
  • Motors
  • Generators
• Inductance => Microphone / Speaker
• Electric Relay

Program Outline

[ Seminar Format Ca. 45 minutes ]
[ Workshop Format Ca. 90 minutes ]
Workshop Format has more hands-on time for the participants

Electricity and Electromagnets

• The Early discoveries
• 1753 "Scots Magazine" dedicated wire/letter telegraph
• 1800 Volta - Voltaic Pile [Practical Demo]
• 1820 Ørsted - Electro Magnetic Fields
• 1821 Faraday - Electro Magnetic Rotation (proto-motor) [Practical Demo]
• 1823 Ronald - "Descriptions of an Electrical Telegraph"
• 1825 Sturgeon - Electromagnet [Practical Demo]
• 1830 Joseph Henry - Telegraph (electric bell)
• 1831 Faraday - Electromagnetic Induction [Practical Demo]
• 1835 Henry & Davy - Electric Relay
• 1837 Cooke & Wheatstone - First Commercial Telegraph
• 1837 Morse & Vail - Morse Telegraph [Practical Demo]
• 11 January 1838 - First Morse Transmission
• 1850 Brett - First undersea cable England to France
• 1866 - Trans-Atlantic Cable

Morse Printers 1846 Bain - Chemical Printer 1855 Hughes - Printing Telegraph 1874 Baudot - Automatic recognition of 5 character code (first machine code)

[Hands-On - Workshop only]

• Electromagnets
• Telegraph - using original equipment

Telephone

• An idea whose Time had Come
• 1844 Manzetti - Proposes idea of Speaking Telegraph
• 1854 Bourseul - "Electric Transmission of Speech"
• 1861 Reis - Introduces a Make-Break telephone
• 1871 Meucci - Patent Caveat No. 3335 "Sound Telegraph"
• 1875 Bell - U.S. Patent 161,739 "Transmitters and Receivers for Electric Telegraphs" with vibrating steel reeds
• 1877 Edison files for a patent on a carbon (graphite) transmitter

Closed Circuit Telephone - [Practical Demo]

Telephone Exchanges

• Manual Connections
• 1908 Kruckow - Introduces the Dial-Tone Hildesheim, Germany
• 1940s Bell System establishes a uniform system of Exchange Codes within Area Codes
• 1940s Bell System begins implementing Dial Tone
• Automatic Switching with Electromagnets
• Computer Switching

[Hands On - Workshop only]

• Simple Microphone / Speaker
• Closed loop Phone system
• Dialtone Demo

Steam-Age Site