About this episode

This episode features a conversation with James Wades about Morse code and its historical significance in communication technology.

Episode 61: What Is Morse Code? – features James Wades, President of the Morse Telegraph Club and Advisor on Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, exploring the language of dots and dashes. Episode Summary: This episode features a conversation with James, an expert in telegraphy and historical communication infrastructure. Listen as James breaks down what Morse code really is, how telegraphy shows up in early commercial and hidden industrial systems, why efficiency and rhythm patterns matter, how the technology evolved into the internet, and what separates American Morse code from International Morse code. In this episode we discuss: 00:36 – Introducing James Wades 01:30 – How James Wades became interested in Morse code 01:57 – Distinguishing American Morse code from International Morse code 02:57 – The common myth of telegraph obsolescence and overlapping infrastructure technologies 03:36 – The ubiquity and scale of early telegraphy infrastructure 05:12 – The evolution of the technology, commercial advantages, and automatic switching 09:36 – How automatic telegraph routing and switching evolved into the Internet 11:24 – Public interactions with the telegraph and its invisible commercial…

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