history of morse code
History of Morse Code
The Morse code, invented by Samuel Finley Breese Morse, was an important landmark in the electrical communication system. The article below elaborates on the history of the Morse code.
- Samuel Morse designed the Morse code in such a way, that the letters of the alphabets and the ten numerals were represented by means of short and long pulses. Hence, according to the Morse code, each character of the alphabets, numerals, and punctuation marks were assigned a pattern, unique to the particular character.
- As per the Morse code, an operator translated the short and long pulses (characteristic to the message being sent) into electrical signals with the help of a telegraph key.
- At the receiving end, a sophisticated operator translated the electrical signals back to the alphabetical and/or numeral characters (whichever were present in the message). This way, the Morse system of telegraphy conveyed a message electrically.
- On May 24, 1844, the first telegraph message 'What hath God wrought', was sent electrically from the Supreme Court chamber, in the US Capitol to the railway depot, Baltimore. Since the invention of the Morse code, it was popularly used as a standard means of communication both in the United States and European countries.
- In comparison to the electronic communication systems of those times, Morse code was advantageous in two ways; the easy working principle, and secondly, the ability to function efficiently, even with low quality wires. Nevertheless, a drawback of the Morse code was the use of characters for spaced dots, which was found to be the main cause of error for transmission, especially on undersea cables.
- By 1851, a new code, referred to as the international or continental code, was constructed by modifying the Morse code. In the new system, the characters for spaced dots were eliminated.
- The Morse code was then replaced with the new code in all telegraph systems, except in North America, where the original system was still used. The Morse code was used for over 160 years, which is comparatively longer than other coding systems.
- The basic difference between the Morse code and the present-day telegraph is that in the former case, the codes for each character were sent via a single wire; whereas, a code for each letter is sent through a different wire in case of the telegraph.