Civil War: The Invention Of Morse Code

The telegraph quickly became popular between people that wanted to send messages over long distances easier and faster than ever before. The telegraph also improved ways of communicating across continents. The first telegraph line was laid across the Atlantic Ocean in 1866; later in 1940 40 lines were laid across the Atlantic Ocean. History.com also states that:

The telegraph was invented by Samuel Morse in 1844, and telegraph wires soon sprang up all along the East Coast” (http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/civil-war-innovations/). During the Civil War, there were 15,000 miles of cables laid for the telegraph, mainly for military reasons. The telegraph also helped news reporters to be able to spread the news more quickly. Obviously now we don’t use telegraphs anymore, but since the Civil War technology has developed and now the telegraph has basically become the telephone. Today, we have updated the telegraph to fit modern society, but the basic principle of the telegraph is still used

Prior to the discovery of the electrical telegraph, information and ideas were transmitted via boats, horses, and trains. Soon enough scientists realized the ease of constructing an electrical telegraph, this led to two working systems one created by William Cooke from England and the other one by Samuel Morse from the United States. Morse’s rendition of the system came to be known as the Morse Code System, which was a series of dots and lines that represented letters. Despite the hard work of the scientists, the government did not think much of their inventions and denied any support for their projects. After much convincing, the Congress granted Morse $30,000 to make improvements to his model, which he did. Even after his impressive presentation, people undermined the true value of the potential of electronic telegraphing. Meanwhile, in Britain the impact of the new telegraph was brought forth as it announced the birth of Queen Victoria’s second son. Regardless of the hard efforts of Cooke and Morse (along with other contributors), the government and public still

In the 1800s information would take weeks if not months to be sent and delivered in order  to gain small to vital bits of information. In those times obtaining or sending information was tedious and slow, using methods like a letter, pigeons, or messengers. These tactics were unsafe and not secure for vital governmental information. Samuel Morse a graduate of Yale University is credited with the invention of Morse code (a code invented by him and named after him) and the invention of the

From the textbook, we are shown five examples of coding methods, with three explained in deeper detail. They are the Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC), the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), Unicode, International Alphabet 5 (IA5), and International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Each of these coding methods are different, but do have some similarities. ASCII was the standard coding method used due to vendors using it as the bases for their devices for so many years. Unicode is special due to being made as the multilingual coding method. It borrows from other coding methods to generate a code that can be deciphered by most major technology based regions around the world. It uses ASCII as part of its bases, which allows user to translate ASCII based programing code into

Jevec, “Semper Fidelis, Code Talkers”) At Camp Elliot, the Navajo language was refined and encoded to ensure security by the initial recruits and communications personnel. This was the first Navajo code, and it consisted 211 words that were to be used to communicate in combat. Some of the words in the vocabulary were words such as: Be-al-doh-tso-lani, that directly translated to Many Big Guns, which was understood as Artillery, and Ni-ma-si, that directly translated to potatoes, which was understood as hand grenades. If there was a word that needed to be relayed that was not in the vocabulary, it was spelled out using the translated corresponding word for the abc’s. For instance, the letter A was pronounced Wol-la-chee, which translated to ant, or the letter J was pronounced Tkele-cho-gi, which translated to Jackass. The first Navajo Code proved to be inadequate, and many words were being spelled out. T. Holm states “They expanded the code to include terms for various countries. Eventually the code contained a vocabulary of 411 terms.” (Code Talkers and Warriors Native Americans and World War II, 78) Those who encoded, decoded, and translated messages regularly became exceptionally good and efficient and encoding, sending, receiving, decoding, and translating messages. In total, 421 Navajo Indians had finished wartime training at Camp Pendleton’s code talker school, and they were all capable of communicating in the newly coded Navajo

Back in the 1800s there were no telephones or anything like that so they had to create something that could go long distances in the shortest possible time, so they created the telegraph which at first consisted of letters not dots and dashes. But people found out that it is easier to do dots and dashes rather than full

Binary code is a coding system used by computers that uses the numbers 1 and 0. Binary code is used by computers to encode data such as character strings. Although computers were not yet invented, the binary number system was discovered in 1679. This system of coding a communication has been used for many years by computer technicians and scientist. Without binary code, many inventions and

In 1836, long before phones, and before technology had the ability to transmit actual voices from one place to another, a series of dit’s and dahs were used to communicate. Samuel F. B. Morse, along with his colleagues Joseph Henry and Alfred Vail, created what is widely known today as Morse code (Why was Morse code Invented, 2014). The high frequency sound that different dits and dahs made was transmitted through radio signals. At the other end of the message was a receiver, whose job it was to match those dits and dahs to the corresponding alphabetical letter or number, in order to decode the message being sent. Although due to its lack of use today, Morse code deciphering has become sort of a lost trade. Today, there is an array of different ways to learn Morse code. In general, almost all individuals prefer to learn in very different ways. Whether that is visual, kinesthetic, or auditory, learning can take a unique form for everyone. Because of the uniqueness among learners, it can be difficult to pinpoint one specific way of learning something as intricate as Morse code. Some people are visual and memorization learners, while others prefer a more hands-on approach. Overall, Morse code is a very specific code to learn; one small mistake and the entire message could be changed entirely. Determining what method is most effectively used to learn Morse code could be crucial in the correct decoding of potentially important messages.

The telegraph was the first major advancement in communication technology. In 1838, Samuel Morse perfected and demonstrated the first telegraph machine. His machine used Morse code to send electronic currents along a wire, allowing the first high speed long distance communications. By the 1850s, the telegraph was widespread. In 1861, Western Union installed the first trans-continental line and by 1866, the first trans-Atlantic line was completed. At this time, telegraphs were all keyed by hand and transcribed from Morse code to English by ear. Fredrick Creed invented a way to convert Morse code into text in what became known as the Creed Telegraph System. That was in 1900, and by 1914, these automatic transmissions handled twice what a

Dots and dashes with dashes and dots. It’s Morse Code; the seemingly basic system of communication which initiated a monumental trend in global society. Samuel Morse, Alfred Vail, and Leonard Gale, the creators of the code, began cooperating on the project in 1837 (Bellizzi 2). Morse had a background as a professional artist and was a professor of art and design in Massachusetts. His motivation to create this amended form of correspondence sparked in 1832 on a return voyage from Europe (Hanlon 2). The “Needle Telegraph” was the rivaling technology of the day, but it lacked a straightforward code, making it inconvenient for the majority of society (Hanlon 1). The introduction of the electromagnetic telegraph made life much simpler for the American population. The only crucial materials for the telegraph were a wire, an electric current, and a telegraph receiver, which would write down the code which the messages were transcribed in. The code, which was formed in 1837, consisted of a series of pauses, “dashes”, or long signals, and “dots”, which are short signals. These units of time ranged between letters and numbers (NRICH Team 4). The trio obtained a patent for their improved communication system in 1838, which later led to the approval of a wire system to be constructed between Baltimore and Washington D.C. (Nonnenmacher 6). On May 24, 1844, the message, “What hath God wrought,” was successfully exchanged between Vail and Morse in their respective

What is the Enigma Machine: The enigma machine was a coding device that was used by the Germans during World War 2 to write, send, and decipher encrypted messages.

When the line was officially completed on May 24, 1844, the message, "What hath God wrought," was the first message sent over the completed line. It was sent from the old Supreme Court chamber in the United States Capitol to his partner in Baltimore. Annie Ellsworth, the daughter of a friend of Morse’s, chose the verse from Numbers 23:23. This was a very significant point in history as an improvement in communication; however, the message was difficult to understand at times and was very difficult and tedious to create.

Prior to the 1960s, computer communication consisted of basic binary data and simple text, carried by telecommunications network

Means of communication has evolved over the years. Communication which started with the smoke signals, sending messages tied to pigeons feet, telephones, telegraphs, postal mails, emails, cellphone, internet, blogs, social network, smartphones and the evolution is still on and there is more is in store as the possibilities seem endless. Only the future will tell the direction it is taking.