Learn, hack!

URL

http://dewy.fem.tu-ilmenau.de/CCC/24C3/mpeg4/24c3-2338-en-steam_powered_telegraphy.mp4

File name

24c3-2338-en-steam_powered_telegraphy.mp4

File size

120.0 MB

MD5

3e54a4995844ccc4f70741839147dff7

SHA1

b98cd4f85844107e6553e121e58c89ba42191cf2

We have built and modified a steam-powered Telex machine and connected it to the new-fangled invention for modern telegraphy known as "the Internet". We will present this steampunkish invention in form of a lecture, thus hoping to enlighten interested ladies and gentlemen on the principles of steam engine physics, 5-bit Baudot encoding, and historic telegraphy in general. "The Magnetic Telegraph annihilates distance. So complete is this annihilation that the newspapers at Baltimore have made arrangements to report the proceedings of congress by telegraph, so as to have the intelligence from the capital (40 miles distant) as soon even as the Washington papers. A like effect will happen when the line is established between New York and Boston. The news from Europe brought by the Boston packet will be known in New York (220 miles distant) as soon as it is in Boston." -- Albany Argus, The Magnetic Telegraph, 1845. Telegraphy truly holds the potential to connect the world, from the icy lands of Russian Alaska to the centres of modern progress in Manchester and London and the farest corners of Her Majesty's Empire in India or former colonies in America. Over the last few months, a League of Telextraordinary Gentlemen at the Chaos Computer Club Cologne, after having acquired a historic Telex machine, have built a steampunkish modification of said machine, making it probably the first steam-powered telegraph connected to the new-fangled invention for modern telegraphy known as "the Internet".