DJB@scri1.scri.fsu.edu (08/15/90)
Thanks for the interesting articles on TELEX/TWX in the past few weeks. Can anyone explain what a "cable address" is? For example, the cable address for the Gibraltar Broadcasting Corp. is "Broadcasts." If I wanted to send a cable to them, how would I do it, how would it get there, what would they receive it on, what role does the address play, who keeps track of the address, etc. Davie Brightbill [Moderator's Note: Cable addresses are nothing more than shorthand for the entire telex address. They were devised many years ago by Western Union as a sort of precurser to what we call 'speed dial' today, or 'abbreviated dialing'. Except, you really did not dial anything. You merely passed the cable address to the Western Union agent/operator, who had a lookup table of addresses versus telex numbers. They were used as advertising gimmicks, and ways to easily remember long numbers. Although 'cablegrams' were sent out of the United States and 'telegrams' were sent domestically, they were the same difference, and anyone could have a 'cable address' if they paid Western Union to list it in their tables of same. 'Cable addresses' tended toward to be easy to remember words and phrases. A few I remember still were 'University' (for the U of Chicago); 'Beacon Hill' (I forget who owned it); 'TribTower' (Chicago Tribune); and 'Symphony' (The Chicago Symphony Orchestra). This was all 1950/60-ish stuff. I did not know they were still making them available. I guess any telex carrier can do it. In your example, you would call Western Union and tell the operator to send a message to the cable address "Broadcasts". That is, *IF* s/he even knows what you are talking about! :) PAT]
Lars Poulsen <lars@spectrum.cmc.com> (08/16/90)
In article <10932@accuvax.nwu.edu> DJB@scri1.scri.fsu.edu writes: > ... Can anyone explain what a "cable address" is? ... >[Moderator's Note: Cable addresses are nothing more than shorthand for >the entire telex address. They were devised many years ago by Western >Union as a sort of precurser to what we call 'speed dial' today, or >'abbreviated dialing'. Except, you really did not dial anything. You >merely passed the cable address to the Western Union agent/operator, >who had a lookup table of addresses versus telex numbers. ...] Before FAX, there was TELEX (TWX), and before TELEX there was TELEGRAPH. In the original incarnation, telegraph was an "express mail service", where you took your (short) letter down to the railway station[*]; the telegraph operator sent the message in morse code down the line, until it wound up in the destination city, where it would get transcribed on paper and be delivered by messenger. In order to deliver the message, it needed to contain the destination street address. Since the messages were charged by the word, this could be quite a significant fraction of the cost, as well as being cumbersome and error prone. Thus began the practice of registering one-word "cable addresses", such as "Tribune, Chicago". I.e. the address would be just one word besides the destination city name. Since this produced less revenue for the cable carrier, they charged for registering the address. When TELEX was introduced, it was first used as an update to the implementation of the telegraph system. TTYs operated on point-to-point lines, and operators carried punched tapes across the room for the next hop of the journey of the message. This was faster than morse code, and required less operator training. Later, automated circuit switches (imported from the telephone world) allowed end-to-end connections, for the duration of the message, and allowed the wire carriers to lease terminals to subscribers for installation on their premises, similar to telephones. This must have happened in the 1940's or thereabouts. While the storefront small-user service remained unchanged, it was at that point merely an emulation of the old user interface; the whole system ran internally on dial-up TELEX service. When I lived in Denmark until ten years ago, the post office still offered telegram service, complete with messenger delivery. You could also phone in telegraph messages, and they would be charged on your phone bill, in the same manner as operator-assisted long-distance telephone calls. There was a SEPARATE service offered by the phone company, called "phono-telex" which was cheaper, for submitting messages to telex subscribers; i.e. there was no messenger involved. By the 1970's, old fashioned telegrams were only used for formal greetings to formal parties, such as weddings, confirmations, anniversaries, cityhood anniversaries, ship launchings, party congresses etc. For such occasions, the Postal Service offered formal "celebration forms" with art prints in various styles. I recently heard that the old fashioned telegraph service has now been completely abandoned, but at the same time souvenir covers are now offered as a delivery option for special delivery fax messages. The more things change, the more we get to appreciate the funny ways in which history survives. [*] The railways needed telegraphs for co-ordinating operations; it was natural that they should try to make a business out of excess capacity. But as the telegraph business grew, it apparently was spun off. I often wonder if the "Western Union" company is not really a railway company that has stopped running trains. Pat, do you have a piece on the history of WU ? / Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer CMC Rockwell lars@CMC.COM [Moderator's Note: There were numerous small telegraph companies all over the United States in the 1860-80 period. A group of investors began buying them up, using a lot of the same tricks -- uh, excuse me, I mean 'business techniques' -- Ted Vail would use a half century later to grab up hundreds of tiny telcos everywhere for his 'one way of doing things' Bell Telephone System. It was this merger, or 'union' of many telegraph companies, all of whom would be sharing their lines and facilities which led to the organization we call Western Union Telegraph Co. The fact that there were few competitors left in the United States attested to their success in monopolizing the market. Just as Ted Vail and his pals began an agressive effort to grab as much as possible once the patents on the telephone expired -- which forced them to deal with competitors -- so Samuel Morse and his partners wasted no time once Mr. Morse's patent was due to expire. By the time the telephone was invented, Western Union was already a huge organization. Unlike Alex Bell's first message on the telephone, ("Watson! Come here, I want you."), the first telegraph message from Samuel Morse to an associate was "What Hath God Wrought?" Indeed. PAT]
WANCHO@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil (Frank J. Wancho) (08/18/90)
Hmm. I was under the now probably mistaken impression that cablegrams had a slightly different connotation from telegrams. Cablegrams were a special category of telegrams that sent to overseas destinations via undersea cable, rather than simply by wire (or wireless). Thus, a large corporation, such as a shipping firm, might have had two addresses, one for telegrams, and one for cablegrams, i.e., a cable address. Frank [Moderator's Note: The main difference, I think, was that 'cablegrams' were telegrams going to overseas destinations on the cable. But a network address via the cable was not a cable address. As per messages in recent issues, a cable address was simply an abbreviated form of the address for any subscriber who wanted to pay extra for the ease in addressing and/or advertising value of the phrase. PAT]
cowan@marob.masa.com (John Cowan) (08/20/90)
In article <10932@accuvax.nwu.edu>, The Moderator writes (in a note): >Orchestra). This was all 1950/60-ish stuff. I did not know they were >still making them available. I guess any telex carrier can do it. In >your example, you would call Western Union and tell the operator to >send a message to the cable address "Broadcasts". That is, *IF* s/he >even knows what you are talking about! :) PAT] Cable addresses are alive and well. To contact a friend of mine in Western Samoa, for instance, the procedure is to either cable UNDEVPRO APIA (the U.N. Development Program office in Apia, the capital of W.S.), or failing that, to cable AGGIES APIA (Aggie Grey's Hotel in Apia). I'm not quite sure what "failing that" means in this context, unless it means that the UNDEVPRO machine is off-line or busted -- not unlikely in W.S. conditions. cowan@marob.masa.com (aka ...!hombre!marob!cowan) e'osai ko sarji la lojban
tad@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Tad Cook) (08/24/90)
> Unlike Alex Bell's first message on the telephone, > ("Watson! Come here, I want you."), the first telegraph message from > Samuel Morse to an associate was "What Hath God Wrought?" Indeed. PAT] Well, not really. Any "first" telegraph message is lost in antiquity. S.F.B. Morse sent "What hath God Wrought?" when he demonstrated the telegraph before members of Congress, when he was seeking backing for his invention from the U.S. government. Tad Cook Seattle, WA Packet: KT7H @ N7HFZ.WA.USA.NA Phone: 206/527-4089 MCI Mail: 3288544 Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad or, tad@ssc.UUCP