TYPED TELEGRAMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18946, 18 February 1925, Page 13

TYPED TELEGRAMS.

POSSIBILITIES OF FUTURE. A NEW ERA BEGINNING. i; ' LIMITATIONS OF .THE PRESENT. "The era is Beginning when typewriter keyboards in the offices of business men will not merely type letters but will type and transmit telegrams to correspondents in any part- of the world. This is the keynote of a paper read by Mr. Donald Murray before the Institution of Electrical Engineers in London on December 18 last, There have been articles innumerable, said Mr. Murray, in the technical and lay press about the unsatisfactory condition of the telegraph service, and the need for cheapening and speeding up the telegraphs to save them from extinction, and all sorts of weird remedies have been proposed. Wo have been told that the; world's telegraphs are in the melting pot, - and that they are liable to be swept away bv the telephone and wireless and by tie air mails, and nobody seems to know what f 0 do to remedy this dreadful state of affairs. "Practical telegraph men realise that telegraph traffic is not likely to grow faster than the slow annual increment due to increase of population, if the presentlines of development are adhered to, and thev know there are only two other direc-tions-from, which increased traffic can be expected. The telegraphs have suffered from the pressure of the telephone on on«* hide, and the post office on the other, arid "the obvious remedy is for the telegraph men to attack the telephone and make j war on the mail bags. Complaint oi Slowness. " The chief complaint is _ about the slowness of the telegraph service, and the complaint is world wide. In order to ret an idea of the possibilities of telegraphy it has' to be remembered that there are only two practicable methods of communication -by the ear and by the eve. We can talk and we can write, we ran telephone and we can telegraph. At present the telephone has no effective rival, and it has interwoven itself into the industrial life of the world to an ex- j traordinarv degree, and to a substantial j extent, it- is doing work that the- telegraph could do better, especially over considerable distances. But for a variety of j reasons the telegraph has not been able to stand up against the competition of the telephone, and the result is that the. telegraph has been stunted and cramped between the competition of the telephone service and the postal service. A his j stunted growth of the telegraph is ccono- j mi rally unsound. "It "is, of course, hopelessly idealistic to suppose that, for moderate distances, I the telegraph can ever be as quick and as intimately connected with the life of the community as the telephone, but we are safe in assuming that in 15 or 20 years business men will have at their disposal a telegraph service, by wire and wireless, far quicker and more accessible than at present, and progressively cheaper than the telephone for distances exceeding, say, 50 miles. If business men could telegraph over distances exceeding 50 miles more easily and quickly and cheaply than they can telephone (and that will be the case by-and-bye) what would be the result ? Clearly the new facilities would create new traffic; but, in addition, many messages now going by telephone would "go by telegraph and also a great many letters that now go by mail would go by wire. The telephone has great advantages over the telegraph, I bat a perfected telegraph network would , have other great compensating advantages over the telephone. We must type as well as talk; wo must teletype as well as telctalk. The Bisk of Error. " With the telephone the risk of error is great, because the electric currents representing the voice have not only a very high periodicity, but they are also extremely feeble. They are likewise very delicate because varying amplitude is an important- factor. To shut out disturbances which would ruin these, extremely delicate telephone vibrations, it is necessary to use a loop made up of two costly telephone wires for one message. Also it is only possible to speak on the telephone "simplex; that is .to say, a man cannot talk and listen to the telephone at the same time. The telegraph can do so. It can work duplex. Consequently the limit of speed on the two costly telephone wires is 150 words a minute; that is to say. 75 words a minute on one wire. " The telegraph, on the other hand, only requires one wire at about half the cost of the telephone wire, and will give 240 words a minute each way.simultaneously, or 430 words a minute in all on the one cheap wire. This means that- for long distances the telegraph is far cheaper than the telephone, and it is for tjiireason that the stunted growth of the telegraph is economically unsound. There is also the great advantage with the telegraph of being able to store up telegrams in order to send them at an opportune time. " So far as the air mail service is concerned, it cannot compete with the telegraph except for handling documents. In this particular respect aeroplanes may Ik to empty the ordinary mailbags, but the risk of loss of valuable documents is too great in the case of aeroplanes; and for urgent communications such as are suitable for telegraphy, the aeroplane has no chance in competition with the telegraph. Under the most favourable conditions il t-akes four hours for a letter posted in London to reach Paris by air mail. A properly-developed system of telegraphy would deliver a long telegram from a correspondent in London to a correspondent in Paris within ten minutes. Link With Business Man. " The defects of the telegraph service are not appreciable to the average man, and -it is not until we begin to consider how the telegraph service might be improved and how inferior it is compared with the telephone, that we realise that the telegraph service is slow, costly, and inaccessible. For moderate distances the telephone is as cheap as the letter post, and we can get through to anyone we want in a minute or two. The telephone is quick, cheap, and very accessible. At my desk I am in close, quick and cheap touch with London, and I ought to be in similar touch with the world by telegraph. • The telegraph does not possess the dose linkage enjoyed by the telephone with the business world. " It. is probably not an exaggeration to say that the present telegraph plant of the world, wire and wireless, can handle twice the present volume of traffic; and technical developments, now past the experimental stage, can multiply the present telegram carrying capacity by ten, and even twenty. But these wonderful facilities suffer from a grave defect. They do not link up closely with the business man. The telephone does, and the telegraph does not. The telegraph has to get the assistance of ihe telephone to complete the linkage. That- is quite satisfactory for the occasional telegram, and for the private and domestic message, but big users of the telegraph require something better. Tlje> neea a telegraph linkage that will put 'tnem directly in touch with their correspondents, just as the telephone does. The really important part of the telegraph traffic is* that devoted to business. . " A large portion of telegraph in-f still handled by the Morse key. That is the same thing as using a pen. We i'iave to use a pen to sign letters, and the Morse key will always be with us; but letters are typed nowadays, and the typewriter, keyboard should be as supremo in telegraphy as it is business. That condition is coming rapidly. It is in full flood in the United States. The era is beginning when typewriter keyboards in the offices of business men will not merely typo letters, but will typo and transmit telegrams direct to correspondents in any ipari-ollhe-world.

"It is only within the last ten years that the multiplex in its modern form, with typewriter keyboards and speeds to correspond, has won acceptance as the best machinery for trunk line telegraphy: and it is only within the last two or three years that the second great step, probably the greatest step of all, has been taken in the successful development of start-stop printers. It is only just dawning on the telegraph world what an immensely important thing the start-stop printer really is, and that it is the lonssought missing link that will complete the. telegraph network and give the world a really efficient telegraph service, corresponding to the highly satisfactory telephone service to which wo have been accustomed for yea Vs. "In France considerable importance appears to he attached by technical men to the possible development of using the teletype in conjunction with the, tele phone for working through telephone exchanges ; but it would appear to be better in all respects to have separate teletypo exchanges. This does not mean ■that there will be separate teletype exchange buildings. "Although there are engineering difficulties in working telegraph apparatus through telephone exchanges, it ought to be practicable for a subscriber having one telephone line and a teletype, to ring up the telephone exchange and say "Teletype." He would then be plugged through to the teletype section and he would he put through and would have his message typed direct at its destination. The sine qua non for improvement of the telegraph service is close co-operation between the telegraphs and the telephonos, and the foregoing teletype call is an illustration. "After the arrival of the teletype ex- ] change no business man will he able to afford to be without the, four T.'s, namely, one telephone, one teletype, one typewriter and one typist. "The teletype exchange plan will in time effect a complete revolution in telegraph methods and organisation in head telegraph offices, especially in largo cities, which will be provided with automatic telephone exchange equipment for the teletype exchange. The telegraph operator belongs to a doomed profession and he will disappear for the same reason that the telephone girl is being driven out by the automatic telephone switches. On the other hand there will be an increase in the number o? engineers and gangs of mechanics will drift about in the otherwise silftni and deserted galleries of St. Martins le Grand, and the screwdriver and the soldering iron will take the place of the Morse key and sounder. "The general public will continue to write out their occasional telegrams and hand them in at the nearest telegraph office. There, calls will be. put through to Glasgow or Manchester or elsewhere, and the telegrams will be teletyped direct to their destinations. Every hotel and public place, will have » teletype for delivery j and reception of telegrams, There will ho teletype call offices at hotels, big stores, underground stations, post offices and other convenient centres, where it will be possible to use the teletype on similar terms to the telephone in similar circumstances, namely payment, of a sum according to time and distance."