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Ta Ta, Telegrams! — Parallax Forums

Ta Ta, Telegrams!

ercoerco Posts: 20,256
edited 2013-06-16 03:06 in General Discussion
The world's last telegram will be sent in India in July. Kind of ironic that computer-supporting India is clinging to old school?

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2013/0614/India-to-send-world-s-last-telegram.-Stop

http://www.newser.com/story/169527/the-worlds-last-telegram-will-be-sent-next-month.html

Comments

  • ElectricAyeElectricAye Posts: 4,561
    edited 2013-06-14 18:55
    erco wrote: »
    The world's last telegram will be sent in India in July....

    I guess they've gone the way of India's venerable letter writers, too.

    What's the world coming to?

    http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/south-asia/digital-age-spells-doom-for-indias-letter-writers


    information.jpg
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2013-06-15 05:01
    He needs an IPad with G4 to transition.

    Another cottage industry lost to technology. When did I last own a typewriter? I always wanted an IBM Selectric, but couldn't afford one, and then suddenly they were gone.
    Poof.

    I still file all my tax forms on paper via registered letter.
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2013-06-15 05:21
    On thursday I helped a woman at the office to replace the type-wheel on her electric typewriter.

    The typewriter is a model with built-in memory and macro functions, and from what I understand, the memory is almost completely full. It's mostly used to make one-off shipping labels or writing adresses directly on large envelopes.
    No one has any idea of what to replace the machine with when it one day fails.
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    edited 2013-06-15 06:08
    <i>No one has any idea of what to replace the machine with when it one day fails. </i>

    Someone will finally have to figure out how to lay out addresses for printing by a laser or inkjet printer using the bypass feed. I suggest feeding regular paper with the envelope drawn on until the print appears in the right place before trying real envelopes.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-06-15 08:28
    Damn it, I have never received or sent a telegram and now my chance has gone forever.
    Like the VCR the DVD, CB and Windows it's a technology that has come and gone in my life time and I some how managed to totally miss.

    Yeah, yeah, I'm not that old, the telegram was around a little bit before me. But it had it's peak in 1985, at least in India. Anyone know about the rest of the world?

    P.S. Looks like peak telegram usage was in 1929 http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38141219/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/t/ten-technologies-should-be-extinct-arent/#.UbyJROe1TxA
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2013-06-15 08:38
    localroger wrote: »
    <i>No one has any idea of what to replace the machine with when it one day fails. </i>

    Someone will finally have to figure out how to lay out addresses for printing by a laser or inkjet printer using the bypass feed. I suggest feeding regular paper with the envelope drawn on until the print appears in the right place before trying real envelopes.

    I am beginning to supect that unless you have a really great laser printer, you merely waste paper and risk a nasty paper jam.

    So I just print the address on a full sized sheet to paper, cut it out and use a glue stick to attach it to the envelope. We are all getting caught up in fiddling with new feature after new feature when time really is worth something.

    Having to run proofs that can be used as originals is a bit wasteful, isn't it?

    No more telegrams is a pity. It was a tradition in my family for everyone to send a telegram on a couple's 50th wedding anniversary to be collected as memorabilia. Twitter or email seems so less substantial.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-06-15 08:52
    Yes, I'm hoping that twitter, facebook. linkedin and such like will also have come and gone before I leave this planet.
  • Dave HeinDave Hein Posts: 6,347
    edited 2013-06-15 11:03
    There seems to be a lot of websites that claim they can send a "telegram" for you. I guess it depends on how a telegram is defined. It's probably been a few years since a telegram was sent through morse code using a telegraph. Now days telegrams seem to just be letters that look like old fashion telegrams. For $20 (plus 79 cents/word) you can send a hand-delivered telegram.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-06-15 11:14
    Dave,

    Glad to here it.

    The thing I liked about a telegram is that you could be sitting in a hotel bar or restaurant and some bell hop could deliver the telegram to you. They only ever came if it was important. So much more civilized that an SMS or a twit or whatever youngsters have now a days,
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2013-06-15 11:19
    localroger wrote: »
    <i>No one has any idea of what to replace the machine with when it one day fails. </i>

    Someone will finally have to figure out how to lay out addresses for printing by a laser or inkjet printer using the bypass feed. I suggest feeding regular paper with the envelope drawn on until the print appears in the right place before trying real envelopes.

    The bypass feed, or 'manual feed' as it's often called just won't cut it.
    On just about all smaller printers it's in the front, with output on top, so the envelope will get crinkled as it passes the fuser and is turned upside down before exiting.
    Inkjets just aren't an option.
    (I don't want them in the organisation at all as they're a bl**dy pain in the seating arraignment!)
    Besides, most inks aren't that waterproof, and tends to smear if they get moist. Not something you want on the outside of an envelope...

    Most probably, we'll end up with a small laser and a lot of Avery stickers.
    Or one of those small label-writers, even if they're more finnicky than a HP Designjet plotter on a bad day...
    (Don't ask. Really don't ask)
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-06-15 12:40
    I own a piece of Western Union history, a Desk Fax circa 1950: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/deskfax/index.html

    My brother and I each got one of these back in the 70's for ham radio experiments. They did a slow mechanical spiral optical scan and printed on electrolytic/thermal paper using a tiny wire stylus. They printed a negative image (white lines on a black background) so I built the inverter circuit shown in QST. We could send photos (and dollar bills) over the phone lines. Fun stuff.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2013-06-15 13:28
    What is the status of TELEX?

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telex

    It seems hotels all over the world still provide the service. It pretty much was a major competitor of Western Union telegrams.

    Opps.. here we go. It looks dismal everywhere.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphy#Worldwide_status_of_telegram_services
  • tritoniumtritonium Posts: 543
    edited 2013-06-15 14:53
    Hi

    Well I was a Telex engineer in UK.
    Started in the telex workshop that overhauled telex machines. They never were thrown away, just overhauled after a few thousand hours. In those days entirely electro mechanical - no semiconductors within miles, unless you count rectifiers.
    The same with the telex exchanges. Worked on a similar principal as the telephone exchanges (strowger) but with +/- 80 volts.
    Same pairs of wires to the customer. Bit rate was 50, (yes fifty, (called bauds)) those same wires now carry 11 Million bits/s.
    I LOVED it!
    Teleprinter 7B, 7E, 11 and 15. The eleven was used to print out the telegram tapes on gummed paper, which the operators wetted on a sponge, and stuck onto a form, and passed them to couriers who use BSA bantams (motorbikes) to deliver them pronto.
    The 7B's were slowly phased out and I acquired one and hooked it up to my 8080 Triton computer, for hard copy (hand coded machine code then - no assemblers) - was the envy of the computer community!!
    Happy memories (arrr, young people today......)

    Dave
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-06-15 22:04
    Blimey,

    "Triton" computer. Given that I was a young'n yearning for a NASCOM or such like back in the day how did it happen that I have never heard of a Triton Computer?

    Here's one drawing a fractal landscape! http://www.warrenfamily.madasafish.com/triton.html
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2013-06-15 22:14
    I had a Telex account once, through the RCA system. This was pre-internet (ca. 1986), accessed via 300 baud modem from my CP/M computer. I needed it to do international sales and tech support for the produce sorters I was invovled with. I don't recall that it was very expensive, and I was surprised that RCA would just issue me a net 30 account without any kind of application or references.

    -Phil
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-06-15 22:33
    I had high hopes that my Desk Fax was worth ten million dollars, but it's more like ten bucks... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1940s-to-1960s-Western-Union-Desk-Fax-by-Seeburg-Company-/380635553569?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item589fa59f21

    Guess it's up to Corvair to skyrocket in value so I can retire early.
  • ErlendErlend Posts: 612
    edited 2013-06-16 00:12
    @tritonium

    Seriously, I have been looking around for an old telex. I just cannot get the idea out of my head to have a telex in the living room, which can send and receive SMS (or email) - a nice job for the propeller to be hidden away and do all the 1980<->2013 conversion. A telex in the living room?? - yes, my wife started her career as a telex operator for a shipping company, so she supports the idea. Ah! imagine the sound of messages ticking in....
    Do you think it is possibl to obtain one still?

    Erlend
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2013-06-16 00:20
    There have got to be some ASR- or KSR-33s still floating around. I had an old Western Union Model 100 when I was in college that I used for amateur RTTY. It was a cranky so-and-so to keep running. I believe that the Teletype Model 15 was the defacto standard for newsrooms, though.

    -Phil
  • ajwardajward Posts: 1,130
    edited 2013-06-16 03:06
    erco wrote: »
    I had high hopes that my Desk Fax was worth ten million dollars, but it's more like ten bucks... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1940s-to-1960s-Western-Union-Desk-Fax-by-Seeburg-Company-/380635553569?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item589fa59f21

    Guess it's up to Corvair to skyrocket in value so I can retire early.

    Heh... On an episode of "Pawn Stars" a young woman brought in her 1960 Corvair hoping for $10K. Of course we know how =that= turned out. :-)

    @
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