What's the Web made of?

This is a rough draft -

What exactly is the web made of? It's a conglomeration of all electronic technology that has been produced in the past 150 years or so. I want to take a look at each individual technological item and the protocols for using them, then I will relate those protocols as they converge and meet upon the Internet.


Telegraph messages were transmitted in digital code - a series of short and long clicks. This was the first electric communications device and use of digital code for language.

Western Union built its first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861, mainly along railroad rights-of-way, further strengthening the East-West connection.

The original Morse telegraph printed code on tape. However, in the United States the operation developed into sending by key and receiving by ear. A trained Morse operator could transmit 40 to 50 words per minute. The message was probably read aloud by the messenger when delivered. In 1900, Canadian, Fredick Creed invented a way to convert Morse code to text called the Creed Telegraph System. Automatic transmission, introduced in 1914, handled more than twice that number.
The privacy of telegraph messaging regular mail system.

The Internet would be nowhere without the telephone.

It's television!!!

(Don't forget that)

Try finding something good on television. Then there are the censors, you know. They have to get their word in. I was just searching for the Communist party of Cuba in google. Wikipoopia had an article and included a direct link to the officail website of the Communist Party of Cuba. Did that link ever open? No. So much for free speech and diversity on the web.

Also, it is important to realize the natural theatrical effects that can be had from the Internet. posters in the dramatic mode have been systematically driven off the web. Well, we will just have to wait for the technocrats and "educators" to fall flat on their asses and come running to the artists and poets to bail them out.

Add a big ass computer

The operator could set up a "conference call" upon request, connecting multiple phone lines into one call. This service was seldom used for personal use, except as a novelty. I remember we did one of these with some friend when i was a wee smigeon of a curmudgeon.

An Internet discussion forum is like a conference call.

Caller I.D. led to IP checking. Probably a bad idea.

This was originally made availabe to allow people to dodge a call. If the mortgage company was calling to repossess your car, you could just not "be there". The IP number of every poster on the web is registered at some stage of the communication. Is this an ethical practice?

Phone booth cramming. The idea was to cram as many people as possible into a phone booth. That is the social web today.










VW cramming - Same thing ten years after.

phone sex moderators party line 1st telephone call 1st conference call 1st televised broadcast 1st Caller ID IP checking phone booth cramming