ISSUE 380|COMPUTERSHOPPER|OCTOBER 2019 109109
fortoday’s data communication came
not from these shores but on the other
side of the Atlantic. In modern terms,
this was amovefrom parallel to serial
communication –and hence the need
forjust asingle wire –which came
through Samuel Morse’s invention of
the code that bears his name.By1844,
Baltimore and Washington were linked
by the electric telegraph, by 1861
Morse Code signals were being
transmitted between the east and
west coasts of the USA, and in 1858
the first message was passed between
Europe and North America using the
Transatlantic Telegraph Cable.
The electrical telegraph wasn’t just a
breakthrough in electrical engineering;
Morse Code also represented amajor
step forward in the digital
representation of information. Like the
ASCII code that’s used today, Morse
Code encoded data using the
equivalent of binary 0s and 1s. However,
unlike ASCII, in which all letters are
represented by codes of the same
length, Morse used variable length
codes and, in so doing, introduced a
principle that would be used in data
compression. Much the same idea –of
using short codes forcommonly used
letters and long codes forthose less
frequently encountered –isused in
Huffmancoding,developedin1952,over
100 years after Morse’s innovation.
DATA INPUT
Today, many computing devices use a
touch screen forinput, but forserious
work, the keyboard holds sway, as it
has done fordecades. Before that, the
punch card was the de factomethod of
inputting software and data.
While the well-known Jacquard
Loom, which used punch cards to
define the weaving pattern, was
invented well before Victoria came to
the throne,the use of punch cards for
data storage and search was pioneered
in 1832 by the Russian inventor Semyon
Korsakov. Strictly speaking, therefore,
we can’t really call this aVictorian
milestone,but we’re sure you’ll forgive
his inclusion, especially since his
development appeared just five years
before the start of Victoria’s reign.
Firmly within our time period,
however,wecome to the Americans
Christopher Sholes and Carlos Glidden
who,in1878, invented the first
typewriter that would go on to be a
commercial success. It was
subsequently manufactured and
marketed by the sewing machine
company ERemington and Sons, and
was noteworthy as being the first
device to incorporateakeyboard
that we’d recognise as such today,
QWERTY layout and all.
COMPUTER PROGRAMMING
In 1812, the poet and politician Lord
Byron made his maiden speech in the
House of Lords, in support of the
Luddites and their opposition to
mechanisation. In hindsight, therefore,
the achievements of his daughter,
Augusta AdaKing, Countess of
Lovelace,provided something of a
dichotomy.Lovelace was introduced to
Charles Babbage at adinner party in
1833 and theycorresponded forseveral
years about his computing engines,
which we’ll look at in detail later.
As aresult of their shared interest,
Lovelace ended up translating into
English the paper,ASketch of the
Analytical Engine Invented by Charles
Babbage,which had been written by
the Italian mathematician Luigi
Menabrea. At Babbage’s request, she
expanded the article with extensive
notes of her own, earning herself
Babbage’s respect and the moniker
‘Enchantress of Numbers’.Perhaps Countess Lovelace’s
greatest achievement was an example
she provided in her notes to
Menabrea’s article,explaining how the
Analytical Engine could be used to
calculatethe sequence of numbers
known as the Bernoulli Numbers.
Notoriously difficult to calculate, with
each one taking farlonger to work out
than its predecessor –infact, Bernoulli
himself had only managed to calculate
the first 10 –this would be an ideal test
foracomputing device.Bearing more
than alittle similarity to modern-day
code,Lovelace’s instructions have been
described as an embryonic computer
program, earning her the title of the
world’s first computer programmer.THEANALYTICAL ENGINE
As we turn our attention to Babbage’s
Analytical Engine,we’re no longer
celebrating those Victorians who
paved the wayfor 20th century
developments. Instead, we’re lookingMISSING LINK 1: WIRELESS COMMUNICATION
Today’subiquitouscommunication,whichgoeshandinhandwithubiquitouscomputing,is
brought about by radio communication, and herein lies aproblem in theconcept of a19th-
century steampunk revolution. Guglielmo Marconi’s development of radio telegraphydidn’t
occuruntilthe last decade of the era, and thathistoric demonstration of atrans-Atlantic
transmission only took place in December 1901,almost ayear afterQueenVictoria’sdeath.
In passing, weshould point outthat althoughradio is now inseparable from electronics,
bizarrely,Marconi’s radio equipment didn’trely onelectronic circuitry,which bringsus
to anotherimportantmissinglink(see page 110).Instead,signalswere generatedfromahigh
voltage electrical spark, and received using alow-techpiece of equipmentcalledacoherer.
Irrespective of how Marconi’s equipment worked,the possibilityof awireless-fuelled
steampunkscenarioisn’t,perhaps,quiteasimpossibleasitmightseem.Thefactisthat
wireless communication, in the strictest sense of the phrase,actually predated radio.
Let’s not get bogged down in the physics, but there are vaguereportsof communication
without wires being demonstrated from around the 1830s, even though it didn’t involve
the generation of atrue radiatedsignal. Instead,the principles of capacitive and inductive
coupling wereresponsible,butthe snag is that, without veryhigh powerandhuge antennas,
the rangewouldbelimitedto afew hundred metres.
Whilearangemeasured in metres might notsoundalot,we shouldn’t losesight of the fact
thatour mobiledevices are oftencommunicatingviaWi-Fioverasimilardistanceand,intown⬆Enchantress
of Numbers
or the world’s
first computer
programmer,
AdaLovelace’s
contribution to
computing was
profoundGuglielmo Marconi’s contribution
might have been toolatetousherin
ubiquitous wireless communication
forreal-lifesteampunks,buthe’sstill
recognised as a19th-century pioneercentres, the distance to theclosest mobile basestationmight notbeagreat dealfurther.