Masters of Space. Walter Kellogg Towers
he was to receive a one-fourth interest. Very shortly afterward they filed a caveat in the Patent Office, which is a notice serving to protect an impending invention.
Alfred Vail immediately set to work on the apparatus, his only helper being a fifteen-year-old apprentice boy named William Baxter. The two worked early and late for many months in a secret room in the iron-works, being forced to fashion every part for themselves. The first machine was a copy of Morse's model, but Vail's native ability as a mechanic and his own ingenuity enabled him to make many improvements. The pencil fastened to the armature which had marked zigzag lines on the moving paper was replaced by a fountain-pen which inscribed long and short lines, and thus the dashes and dots of the Morse code were put into their present form. Morse had worked out an elaborate telegraphic code or dictionary, but a simpler code by which combinations of dots and dashes were used to represent letters instead of numbers in a code was now devised. Vail recognized the importance of having the simplest combinations of dots and dashes stand for the most used letters, as this would increase the speed of sending. He began to figure out for himself the frequency with which the various letters occur in the English language. Then he thought of the combination of types in a type-case, and, going to a local newspaper office, found the result all worked out for him. In each case of type such common letters as e and t have many more types than little used letters such as q and z. By observing the number of types of each letter provided, Vail was enabled to arrange them in the order of their importance in assigning them symbols in the code. Thus the Morse code was arranged as it stands to-day. Alfred Vail played a very important part in the arrangement of the code as well as in the construction of the apparatus, and there are many who believe that the code should have been called the Vail code instead of the Morse code.
[Illustration: MORSE'S FIRST TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENT
A pen was attached to the pendulum and drawn across the strip of paper by the action of the electro-magnet. The lead type shown in the lower right-hand corner was used in making electrical contact when sending a message. The modern instrument shown in the lower left-hand corner is the one that sent a message around the world in 1896.]
Morse came down to Speedwell when he could to assist Vail with the work, and yet it progressed slowly. But at last, early in January of 1838 they had the telegraph at work, and William Baxter, the apprentice boy, was sent to call the senior Vail. Within a few moments he was in the work-room studying the apparatus. Alfred Vail was at the sending key, and Morse was at the receiver. The father wrote on a piece of paper these words: "A patient waiter is no loser." Handing it to his son, he stated that if he could transmit the message to Morse by the telegraph he would be convinced. The message was sent and recorded and instantly read by Morse. The first test had been completed successfully.
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