Wczesna historia telegrafii drukowanej

Abstrakt

In telegraph systems using the Morse code or other special alphabets, it is necessary to translate the message into such an alphabet (code) at input and turn it back into an open text, written in the alphabet used in the destination country, at output. As character encoding delays the flow of telegrams and leads to errors and distortions, innovators quickly started to seek solutions that would allow for transmitting and delivering the text of the message directly in a commonly used alphabet. The article focuses on their designs, ie printing telegraphs, not to be confused with teleprinters that only mark indentations on a moving paper tape. Its aim is to present the evolution of these devices in the early stage of their development, up until the 1930s, the time of accelerated advances in electromechanics, and compare them on the basis of historical technical specifications as seen from an engineer’s perspective. Through an extensive use of German reference sources, the article also specifies which solutions were being employed by the partitioning powers, especially Austria, in the Polish lands.