[108026] in Cypherpunks
Fwd: over and out...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brian B. Riley)
Mon Feb 1 20:35:37 1999
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 20:12:28 -0500
From: "Brian B. Riley" <brianbr@macconnect.com>
To: "CypherPunks List" <cypherpunks@algebra.com>
Reply-To: "Brian B. Riley" <brianbr@macconnect.com>
---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------------
Date: 2/1/99 12:38 PM
Received: 2/1/99 7:50 PM
From: Sara Thigpen, thigpen@gmpvt.com
To: brianbr@wulfden.org
Yahoo! NewsOddly Enough Headlines Monday February 1 10:25 AM ET
End Of Road For Morse Code's Dots And Dashes
By Paul Majendie
LONDON (Reuters) - Morse Code, which spelt out the demise of the Titanic
and
the end of two World Wars, Monday fell victim to the relentless march of
technology.
For those in peril on the sea, three dots, three dashes and three dots
once
spelt out SOS -- the universally recognized call sign for a ship in
distress.
Now Morse is being replaced by a satellite-based ``Mayday'' system on all
ships over 300 tons which have to carry satellite and radio equipment for
sending and receiving distress alerts.
``Morse is a system that has played an incalculable part in the
development
of trade and history itself -- but it has now died of old age,'' said
Roger
Cohn of the International Maritime Organization.
It was invented in 1832 -- appropriately enough on a Transatlantic sea
crossing -- by Massachusetts portrait painter Samuel Morse.
His system, the 19th century precursor of the Internet, was hailed as in
its
heyday as ``the instantaneous highway of thought.''
By the time of his death in 1872, the world boasted 650,000 miles of
telegraph lines on land and 30,000 miles of submarine cable.
With Marconi's invention of the wireless, Morse Code was given a new lease
of life. In 1899, the first shipwreck was reported by Morse Code in the
English Channel.
By 1910, Morse had even trapped its first murderer when the notorious
British killer Dr Crippen was trapped. A message was tapped out to the
liner
Montrose on which he was trying to escape to Canada with his mistress.
Tragedy struck in 1912 when the fateful message ``SOS. Come at once. We
have
struck berg'' was tapped out by the Titanic.
Hundreds of lives could have been saved by the liner California, just
miles
away. But its radio operator was not on duty and never heard the message.
>From then on, all ships maintained a 24-hour radio watch.
The radio telegraph station in Isahaya, Japan closed Sunday after more
than
90 years of operation.
And Scottish coastguards, who picked up a Morse Code message from a
listing
cargo ship last month, confessed they were so surprised that they thought
it
was a joke.
The London Times, reflecting nostalgically on the 19th century answer to
e-mail, said in an editorial Monday: ``Morse broadcast the cease-fires of
both World Wars.
``It was used by generals and spies, speculators, journalists and
prisoners
communicating with the next cell.''
And then it concluded sadly...''Over and Out.''
-----------------------------------------------------
a woman who walks the woods
-----------------------------------------------------
----------------- End Forwarded Message -----------------
Brian B. Riley --> http://members.macconnect.com/~brianbr
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"It would take an archimedean fulcrum to raise you to the level of
total depravity" --Thomas E. Carney, ca. 1920
