Re: Very Early Modems

In the IBM history series by Pugh et al, they said IBM converted

> punched cards to paper tape for transmission in the 1940s. My guess > is that that particular transmission used telegraph TTY lines (not > voice) of either AT&T or Western Union. Recall that AT&T maintained > telegraph long distance lines as part of carrier long distance > circuits. Because of the low bandwidth, a telegraph channel could be > carried on the low end of a carrier channel. Accordingly, no > modulation was required and thus no modem needeed.

Telegraph circuits were widely used, both Morse and teletypewriter, well into the 1950s and 1960s by news services, stock brokers, railroads, pipeline companies and no doubt many other users. The use of telegraphy pre-dated carrier systems and while many of the circuits were later converted to carrier, many of them undoubtedly remained copper.

There were also the TWX services (Bell) and Telex (Western Union) which were similarly carried on telegraph circuits.

Incidentally, in later years Western Union was a big user of Bell telegraph circuits, especially within a city but also many intercity routes where they were either not able to finance their own circuits to accomodate their growth or did not feel the rate of return would be adequate.

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

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Wesrock
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