subject: Gone But Not Forgotten - Ancient Communications Ways [print this page] Gone But Not Forgotten - Ancient Communications Ways
In these days's fast-paced and hi-tech world of the Net, instant messaging and every alternative potential type of digital communication, it is easy to forget that, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't therefore long ago that communications strategies were an entirely different kettle of fish (or pile of wood as the case might have been). In a very world obsessed with staying 'connected', it appears that nothing is impossible in the realms of communications strategies. What once appeared like science-fiction is currently a part of our everyday life. But imagine if we tend to still had to communicate the old-fashioned way. Will you see yourself firing up the outside barbeque to send a message to your mother; or obtaining out the flags to signal to your best friend that you will be 0.5 an hour late for cocktails? Well spare a plan for our ancestors who didn't have it as straightforward as us... Smoke Signals As a communications strategy, the apply of smoke signalling obviously had some major drawbacks but still, for the time, it absolutely was a very successful approach of sending messages over long distances. The earliest recorded practices of smoke signalling were in China, where soldiers stationed at varied points along the Great Wall would signal an approaching enemy to their comrades. With this crudest of communications ways they were nonetheless in a position to convey messages over distances of hundreds of miles in just some hours. The North Yank Indians were maybe the foremost famous proponents of smoke signalling, and every tribe had their own complicated systems involving the location and angle of the smoke plume. Today, smoke signals are not entirely outmoded and they're still employed in the Vatican Town to signify the selection of a replacement Pope. Morse Code Although quite totally different from Samuel Morse's original system, a form of his famous code continues to be used nowadays as a good communications strategy between amateur radio operators. Back in 1840 when Morse developed his unique system of translating information telegraphically using rhythm, it revolutionised the manner individuals were able to communicate and effectively spread out a whole new world. Using a sequence of long and short electrical 'pulses', that became known as dots and dashes, Morse was in a position transmit a message from an operator at one finish, and have it received via electrical current at the other. It was indented on to a special tape and also the receiver was able to decipher or 'decode' these indents. Eventually, trained operators were able to decipher the length of the dots or dashes directly by the sound and tape was now not necessary. Sounds simple now, however as far as communications strategies went in the 19th Century, it had been ground-breaking. Semaphore Flags The observe of using flags, referred to as semaphores, for a communications strategy began in the 1800s after they were employed in the maritime world to convey data over medium length distances at sea. Although there are variations on the theme, primarily every letter of the alphabet is represented by the bearer holding two flags (one in every hand) in unique positions. The system continues to be employed in some kind these days in many industries and, whereas the instruments might be totally different (some use paddles, some lighted wands and a few clean hands), the concept is that the same.
