Dial telegraphy – yet another 19th century freshness. When you move the needle, the movements are sent wirelessly to the recipient, and reproduces the same movement.There is an online version and also check the releated mystery machine Spiritoscope.
Tag Archives: 1800s
Patchwork quilt design produced in the 1870s by Unknown
Colonial blanket. National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) Smithsonian Institution, 19th century.
Update, 2024: American Indian Magazine describes this is a Salish blanket from ca 1860, woven with goat and sheep wool.
A more stylish interface for Morse Code: printing telegraphs! Each key represents a letter, and there is a shift key for capitalization.
This is Hughes telegraph (1866), which was the first telegraph that printed text on paper. Printing telegraphs were available earlier than that, often used for the stock market. Don’t fight the tape!
West African textiles from the 19th Century (Karun Collection)
When Nietzsche started going blind, he needed some help. Luckily, the first commercial typewriter had just been developed in Denmark: the Hansen Writing Ball (1870). Nietzsche once said that our writing tools are also working on our thoughts. So naturally, he wrote some leet poetry:
The Writing Ball is a thing just like me: of iron
And yet easy to twist, especially on journeys.
Patience and tact one must richly possess
And fine little fingers to use us.
If you really want to get down n’ dirty with this, check out the book about the restoration of Nietzsche’s text ballz.
ASCII ad in Providence Journal, 1862. More 1800’s ASCII ads here.
