2024-04-30

What is the ancestor of our SMS (text messages)?

The ancestor of SMS is obviously Morse code! And this extraordinary innovation is above all a love story!

Samuel Finley Breese Morse, better known as Samuel Morse, was an American painter, inventor of an electric telegraph and the alphabet which bear his name. He was born April 27, 1791 in Charlestown, Massachusetts and died April 2, 1872 in New York, he was 80 years old. This idea of sending messages at the speed of electricity came to him at the time of the death of his wife... He was traveling to Washington at the time, for a portrait of General La Fayette. Warned too late of his wife's condition, he was unable to return in time to say goodbye. He then promised himself to invent a way to transmit information more quickly than the transport or postal mail services of the time.

« What hath God wrought » was the first telegraphed message on May 24, 1844, sent by Samuel Morse from the Capitol to Washington, D.C., reaching the city of Baltimore, 400 miles to the north, via the nation's first long-distance telegraph line.

Morse code is the ancestor of our text messages (SMS), it is used all over the world but requires a good ear and a little learning. Every good radio amateur knows Morse code. This mode of communication can help in many situations and still remains the simplest and most universal way to communicate on long distances!