Posted on 12/17/2017 12:37:58 PM PST by Impy
Belgium's telegram service is about to stop. Stop.
One hundred and seventy-one years after the first electronic message was transmitted down a line running alongside the railway between Brussels and Antwerp the final dispatch will be sent and received on 29 December.
The fact that this 19th-Century technology is still up and running in the age of Instagram and Snapchat may seem rather odd - especially when you consider that the UK, which invented the telegram in the 1830s, abandoned it as long ago as 1982.
The United States followed suit in 2006 and even India, which had been by far the world's biggest market for the telegram, finally closed its system down in 2013.
Just 10 businesses and a handful of individual customers have kept the Belgian system going until now. It has been chiefly used by bailiffs, who had need of a system which provided legal guarantees of dispatch and receipt.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
RIP telegrams, stop.
No more “Candygram for Mongo”.
Telephone Operator
Pony Express
Semaphore
Signal fire
All obsolete. And that’s good.
I can still scream a message at my neighbor!
Kind of like how Garret Morris used to do the “messages for the hard of hearing” on the old SNL.
The United States followed suit in 2006 and even India, which had been by far the world's biggest market for the telegram, finally closed its system down in 2013.
What gives? The telegram should have been dead several decades ago.
There was clearly still a small niche market for telegrams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62kxPyNZF3Q
Excellent clip, but they actually do still make (relatively small numbers of) buggy whips.
Semaphore is still utilized by the Navy. Mainly in close in situations such as Underway replenishments when EMCON is set preventing radio communications.
Signalmen take great pride in trying to “out flag” one another.
I miss Shortwave Radio.
oh and flashing light is also still utilized.
We’d better hope for our sakes, that these skills don’t die out, because the time will come when they are going to be needed.
We used to use an ISP called “Telepath.”
Looks like that ghost dance might finally be working ...
At least it outlived AOL Instant Messenger.
>> I miss Shortwave Radio <<
It’s still around, although with fewer stations.
Also, if you’re not hearing anything, you may need a better antenna.
Beat me to it. Oddly enough, in my area, HAM radio is seeing a bit of a resurgence with younger users.
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