How To Electronic Mail A Truthful Cat

From The Economist's 1843 Magazine:

Pneumatic tubes were in i trial a vital component subdivision of communications networks inwards London, New York together with Paris, says Tom Standage

In 2006 Ted Stevens, a senator from Alaska, inadvertently coined a phrase when he cluelessly described the mesh every bit “a serial of tubes”. The mesh is made upwardly of many things – wires, optical fibres, servers, switches together with routers – but tubes are non amid them. Yet at that topographic point was a fourth dimension when communications networks actually did rely on tubes. Messages written on newspaper whizzed along undercover pipes, propelled past times compressed air from steam engines. This steampunk mesh has been largely forgotten but its origins shed lite on the ways that rapid digital communication tin practise problems every bit good every bit solutions.

The origin pneumatic-tube organization was gear upwardly inwards London inwards 1854 to deport telegrams betwixt the Central Telegraph Office (CTO) together with the stock exchange, simply 220 yards away. At the fourth dimension unopen to one-half of all telegrams received at the CTO related to stock trades. As the book of incoming traffic increased, the connection to the stock telephone commutation became overloaded, together with time-sensitive telegrams started to pile up. It became apparent that it would hold upwardly quicker to carry the messages inwards physical cast rather than retransmit them electrically over such a brusk distance. Josiah Latimer Clark, an engineer at the Electric Telegraph Company, devised a novel manner to practise it.

An undercover tube, an inch together with a one-half inwards diameter, was seat along the route. Five messages at a fourth dimension could hold upwardly packed into a leather-coated cylinder alongside a felt bumper at the front. The carrier was together with therefore fired along the subway at xx feet per 2d using compressed air from a six-horse-power steam engine. This increased the capacity of the network link tenfold, allowing 10 messages to hold upwardly sent each minute. In 1858 the organization was upgraded alongside larger tubes that had a greater capacity together with and therefore expanded across London. While the network largely carried stock trades together with describe concern documents, it was likewise used for personal correspondence for people who could afford the expense. In the 1860s similar networks were built inwards Liverpool, Birmingham together with Manchester. The persuasion speedily spread abroad: pneumatic-tube networks were presently operating inwards Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Rome, Naples together with Milan.

One of the nearly elaborate versions was built inwards New York, linking several post offices inwards Manhattan together with Brooklyn. With tubes 8 inches inwards diameter, it could handgrip modest parcels. At its inauguration inwards 1897, a tortoise-shell truthful cat was sent from the southward goal of Broadway to Park Row, nearly a mile uptown. The truthful cat was dazed, but otherwise unharmed. Paris developed the nearly extensive network...MORE