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Title: Printing Telegraphy... A New Era Begins
Author: Kleinschmidt, Edward Ernst
Language: English
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PRINTING TELEGRAPHY ...
A NEW ERA BEGINS
[Illustration: Autograph, Edward E. Kleinschmidt—1967]
_Edward E. Kleinschmidt
1967_
PREFACE
Having been associated with the printing telegraph for more than sixty
years, I have felt the urge to write a résumé of the problems and the
progress made during my time toward today’s wonderful achievements in
the art of telegraphic communications.
It is interesting to note that of all the old-time electric telegraph
systems, it appears that only those using the Morse dot-dash code
invented in 1837 and the permutation code devised by Gauss and Weber in
1833 (now known everywhere as the Baudot code) have survived today.
Samuel Morse’s code, which was modified somewhat in several letter code
compositions to facilitate its use anywhere in the world, has become an
audible, easily learned international language, loved by its users
everywhere. It will no doubt continue to be used for some time to come,
as long as we have our railroad telegraph operators, radio amateurs,
police CW systems, certain branches of the Armed Forces, and any others
who converse in dits and dahs.
The permutation code has taken hold firmly, too. Its use of five pulses
transmitted in varying combinations of on and off, or positive and
negative, conditions has wide application in today’s printed
communications systems. As in the Morse system, alphabets for the
five-unit permutation code system have been modified as to letter code
compositions for international correspondence. The permutation code uses
the powers of two in progressively selecting a letter printing position.
The binary code uses the same selective stops by yes or no designation
in a system of counting by the powers of two. It is used where larger
groups of yes or no positions are required, as in data processing and
computer systems.
This writing, then, is a bit of history that will put together the
constructive developments that brought about the present era of the
worldwide, telegraphically-transmitted printed word.
I wish to acknowledge with great appreciation the informative material
sent to me by my friends, both here and in foreign lands, who are
associated with the telegraph industry.
For assembling information we have gathered from various sources and for
the most helpful assistance given me in writing this story, I also want
to thank my secretary, Mrs. Doris Pompilio.
Edward E. Kleinschmidt
PRINTING TELEGRAPHY ...
A NEW ERA BEGINS
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
It is a major effort today to keep pace with the rapid advances in the
field of printed communications. Hardly a day passes that we do not read
of a new development in equipment that is more complex, farther
reaching, more rapid in operation....
This electrical, or electronic, transmission and interchange of the
printed word might be said to be an evolvement of the old printing
telegraph systems. Such systems, over the years, while not so rapidly as
today, were also improved upon, modified, speeded up, but could be used
only in the point-to-point transmission of messages.
While the railroads had been using the Morse code system (key and
sounder) satisfactorily, they would have preferred a system whereby a
printed record could be obtained. In the industrial world, too, there
was need for a businessman’s printing telegraph—a means to type out
messages, directly and interchangeably, to far-off associates. And there
was always that dream, starting with the earliest telegraph
experimenters, of being able to correspond instantly with one another
anywhere in the world. Indeed, the need for all this had been known for
many years, but not the way.
It was after the turn of the century that telegraph engineers began in
earnest to think about a system of telegraphy that would permit direct
intercommunication by the printed word, and direct circuit connection to
any outlying subscriber as in the telephone communication system.
Up until then, apparatus for transmitting telegrams, such as that of
Wheatstone & Cooke, Morse, Hughes, Barclay, etc., also the step-by-step
stock tickers and bulletin printers, used various types of
code-signaling devices in which the code varied in length as to the
transmission of more frequent or less frequent letters.
Now in order to provide a practical telegraph system permitting the
interconnection of apparatus throughout the world, the first basic
requisite is a standard signaling code; this code, moreover, must be of
such nature as to use the simplest form of electrical signaling (such as
make and break signals, or positive and negative signals), and the code
should be of equal length for all characters.
The permutation code, where combinations of five plus and minus pulses
will give thirty-two selective positions, was suggested as far back as
1833 by Gauss and Weber. Whitehouse, in 1854, and Barnett, in 1860,
experimented further, using the permutation code to operate a recording
mechanism. However, no practical means for actually printing letters and
figures was found until 1882 when Jean Maurice Emile Baudot designed a
multiplex system to permit the transmission of four messages in each
direction over a single line circuit. Later, Baudot designed a tape
printer in which the selecting and printing mechanisms comprised an
ingenious arrangement of cooperating parts, including a rotating
typewheel associated with a coded combiner wheel and five stationary
elements selectively movable to received code positions, each element
having an extending finger to be brought into contact with the periphery
of the coded combiner wheel upon the completion of a selective code
setting. When the code combination of the set fingers matched a code on
the wheel, a print roller was released to press the recording tape
against the typewheel and print the selected letter.
Although the Baudot Multiplex was used extensively in Europe, engineers
and inventors in the United States had not produced a practical 5-unit
permutation-code teleprinter system. They were constantly searching for
a unit code system requiring a minimum number of electrical impulses to
operate a telegraph printer. Various types of relay systems using
distinctive signal pulses were proposed. A three-unit-code system that
showed promise, and did not require synchronism, used four different
electrical pulse conditions: a high voltage positive or negative pulse,
and a low voltage positive or negative pulse. Records show that many
inventors played with this code and that John Burry, C. L. Krum, G. A.
Cardwell, and J. C. Barclay, among others, built operable equipment
using such a code arrangement. The following excerpt from Cardwell’s
patent No. 905,497 of December 1, 1908, may be of interest. It describes
the code arrangement of four different line conditions in three signal
groups to produce 36 different code combinations.
In order to energize the controller magnets in proper sequence to
position the type wheel for printing a desired letter, a predetermined
code or system of sending in the impulses is essential. In an
instrument constructed by me in accordance with the present invention
I have used the following:
1-2-1 letter space
1-2-3 carriage return
1-2-4 line space
1-3-1 type wheel shift
1-3-2 type wheel release
1-3-4 A
1-4-1 I
1-4-2 O
1-4-3 D
2-1-2 E
2-1-3 H
2-1-4 N
2-3-1 W
2-3-2 R
2-3-4 S
2-4-1 T
2-4-2 V
2-4-3 U
3-1-2 -
3-1-3 ,
3-1-4 ?
3-2-1 Y
3-2-3 C
3-2-4 F
3-4-1 G
3-4-2 Q
3-4-3 L
4-1-2 M
4-1-3 J
4-1-4 B
4-2-1 X
4-2-3 Z
4-2-4 .
4-3-1 K
4-3-2 P
4-3-4
The numerals in the above code or system indicate the sequence of the
impulses through the relay contacts 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Cardwell’s backers formed the American Telegraph Typewriter Company and
sold shares, claiming a great profitable future for their apparatus. A
few printers were built, but, on extended service tests, the
high-low-voltage feature proved to be impractical and the company
folded.
J. C. Barclay of the Western Union Telegraph Company designed printing
apparatus and perforated tape transmitting equipment for this type of
system, but, after limited use of the high-low-voltage principle, he
changed this feature to long and short pulses with discriminating
relays. With later improvements, this system was put into service on a
number of Western Union message circuits.
_Note:_ Today, in the 1960s, the techniques of frequency division and
electronics could be used for transmitting three different line
conditions from a group of four different frequencies. In such a
system, synchronism between send and receive terminals, or the
start-stop method to control correct timing, is not needed. The
transmission of any selected group of three, when received in
succession at a teleprinter, will cause printing of a letter when the
third receiving relay completes a circuit to the selected printing
magnet. Transistor circuits with associated control elements could
replace the relays.
Telegraph companies in the United States were mostly using the Morse and
increased its efficiency through development of quadruplex operation and
high-speed transmission systems. However, the quest for a more efficient
printing telegraph system persisted and various types were proposed and
tried. All made use of codes that were impractical for
intercommunicating systems and, while some were used in message service
by the telegraph companies, they did not appear to have any great
advantage over the Morse telegraph.
In 1911, Western Union began investigating systems used in Europe. The
first to be tested was the Creed, a system for transmitting and printing
Continental or Morse code signals at high speed. After observing several
other systems, the Murray Multiplex, an improved and modernized version
of the Baudot Multiplex, was found to show better operating features
and, due to the use of the five-unit permutation code, more efficient
use of telegraph lines.
By agreement with Donald Murray, and with his cooperation, the so-called
Western Union Multiplex was developed, using Murray’s phonic wheel drive
and synchronous correction. Western Union engineers designed tape
transmitters and an autocontrol device for transmitting service signals.
A keyboard-operated, five-unit-code, tape punch was supplied by the
Morkrum Company. A page printer, which was later converted to print on
gummed tape, was supplied by the Kleinschmidt Electric Company. The
Western Union Multiplex was effective in increasing operating efficiency
and came into extensive use throughout the system.
From that time on, development of the Baudot permutation-code printing
telegraph apparatus was furthered by various companies, such as Bell
Laboratories, Western Electric, the Morkrum Company, the Kleinschmidt
Electric Company, as well as the companies of J. E. Wright, L. M. Potts,
and others.
It appears that all of these inventors experimented with the idea of
operating all transmitting and receiving apparatus at identical speeds
to transmit a five-unit-code combination by first transmitting a pulse
to start both transmitter and the distant receiver at the same time.
Synchronous operation was obtained by electric motors equipped with
governors to maintain correct speed; some used tuning-fork-controlled
impulse motors. A system of five relays with progressive contact
arrangements to cause cascade operation was also used to provide correct
timing. Later, when correctly-timed, 60-cycle alternating current became
available (see page 27), synchronous motors did the job.
Teleprinter apparatus using this synchronous method worked very well for
point-to-point transmission as was used by the telegraph companies and
news-distributing organizations to carry local traffic. It did not,
however, solve the sought-for plan for a teleprinter intercommunicating
system. When attempts were made to connect printers at different distant
points in a telegraph intercommunicating circuit while using the
synchronous principle, false reception and printing errors would occur,
due to variation in line circuit conditions and to a variation of the
mechanical start operation at outlying teleprinters. This required
frequent overline adjustment to keep the connected apparatus in phase.
The following is an excerpt from a patent application of Dr. Louis M.
Potts (later to become research engineer for the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt
Corporation), filed June 17, 1909, giving his idea for achieving a
teleprinter intercommunicating system on the synchronous principle. Dr.
Potts was a very capable telegraph engineer. His early association was
with the telegraph system of the Rowland Telegraphic Company which had
limited use in the early 1900s.
In those synchronous telegraph systems wherein the sending and the
receiving commutator brushes constantly rotate, it is necessary to
adjust these brushes so that they will approximately simultaneously
engage corresponding segments. To effect this adjustment there is
usually provided a special device embodying an additional segment on
each commutator, and the adjustment consists in causing the brushes to
arrive approximately simultaneously on this segment at the two ends of
the line. Such adjustment is known as “finding the letter” and has to
be made every time synchronism has been interrupted. According to the
present invention, the necessity of providing additional means for
performing the so-called operation of “finding the letter” is rendered
unnecessary, since the transmitting and receiving commutator brushes
at the two ends of the line start up afresh as it were for each
signal.
In a later patent application, filed October 11, 1913, Dr. Potts stated:
This machine has also the advantage of being able to operate with a
very short code. In order to adapt it to Morse circuits, it should be
capable of operating with a code at least as short as the Morse code.
In the present machine, I preferably employ a five unit code which,
together with the starting impulse and the lag between signals, is
actually shorter than the Morse code. Counting the five code impulse
periods, the starting impulse period and the period of lag between
impulses, each signal in my case, may be considered in comparison with
the Morse code as being seven units long, whereas the Morse code is
8.5 units long. The average signal being shorter than the Morse, the
delicacy of adjustment will be less and the distance of operation
greater than a Morse telegraph for the same rate of transmission in
words per minute.
Dr. Potts, however, still depended on like synchronous operation at both
terminals, and dual start, so he did not have the answer after all!
John E. Wright, who in the 1890s designed and built step-by-step
printing apparatus, including the Wright-Negron bulletin printer, also
turned his thoughts toward the five-unit permutation code for printer
operation and built several variations using the synchronous principle.
The Superintendent of Telegraphs for the Delaware, Lackawanna and
Western Railroad thought well of Wright’s apparatus and placed some in
operation. But, here again, reliable operation could be maintained only
in point-to-point operation. As will be noted in Chapter 2, Mr. Wright’s
patents were purchased by the Kleinschmidt Electric Company in 1922.
A paper issued by Siemens-Halske of Germany in January of 1917[1] states
that the Siemens Pendel Telegraph “is among the forerunners of the
eventual worldwide start-stop system for intercommunication by the
printed word.” The following excerpt translated from that description
briefly explains the operation:
The Pendel Telegraph uses the five-unit permutation code to select
characters, and operates on a start-stop principle. It is intended for
station-to-station, one-way operation, the line current normally being
closed to the positive side of the line battery. Transmission is under
control of a keyboard with keys arranged as in a typewriter. Upon the
depression of a key, the line battery is reversed, thereby
transmitting a negative pulse to line which effects the start of both
transmitter and receiver at the same time. Thereafter,
five-code-combination pulses are transmitted, followed by positive
current to line, thus restoring the circuit system to a normally
closed line condition.
The name “Pendel Telegraph” would make one think that the timing of
the transmitter and receiver were under control of a swinging
pendulum. This is not the case. However, it does have a plan for
simulating the action of a pendulum by an arrangement of springs and
semi-rotating weights to effect synchronism for each printing cycle;
and energy is derived from a motor which intermittently winds a power
mainspring to an even tension. This arrangement is started in
operation at both terminals at the same time and provides isochronal
motion at both transmitter and receiver for each transmitted
character. Due to multiple operations of the springs and weights used
to provide synchronous action, the operating speed is limited to four
or five letters per second.
In England, too, there was work being done along these same lines. Mr.
H. H. Harrison, who is so well known for his contributions over the
years in the telegraph field, devised printer apparatus using the
five-unit code which is described in Herbert’s _Telegraphy_,[2] as
follows:
The instrument is provided with a Baudot 5-key keyboard, and has a
step-by-step distributor which is mounted inside the casing. The
standard Baudot alphabet is used, but each letter or character is
prefixed by a positive starting impulse. Every time a key is depressed
a universal bar is actuated which closes contacts giving the starting
impulse and the distributors at both ends of the line step through six
spaces. The combiner is of the electrical type invented by Baudot, and
is similar to that used in Siemens’ new automatic printing telegraph.
Five relays of the class used for telephone purposes are set at the
receiving end, according to whether some of the stepping impulses are
positive or negative. The distributor is a trunk hunting switch as
used in automatic telephony, and consists of a ratchet wheel and
stepping electromagnet. On the shaft of the ratchet wheel is fixed a
wiper which sweeps over a semi-circular bank of contacts in response
to the stepping impulses. Two-way working is secured by means of the
differential balance.
(The article ends with the statement that a typewriter keyboard is
being constructed to replace the five keys.)
It appears that all of these telegraph engineers and inventors
envisioned a start-stop system and experimented with the idea of
operating all transmitting and receiving apparatus at identical speeds
by inserting a start signal before each group of letter code signals, to
start both transmitter and distant receiver at the same time, and a stop
condition between code groups.
In the following chapters will be shown the contributions made by both
the Kleinschmidt and the Morkrum companies in the printing telegraph
field, and finally their joint efforts which were to lead up to the
establishment of that now worldwide intercommunicating system, the
TELEX.
CHAPTER 2
KLEINSCHMIDT
Edward E. Kleinschmidt’s first direct contact with telegraph apparatus
was during his employment as a young man, in 1893, by John E. Wright,
whose firm had developed and was then manufacturing printing telegraph
equipment known as the Wright-Negron bulletin printer for the Havas News
Agency in Paris. These printers operated on the step-by-step principle
at 30 words per minute. (To attest to their ruggedness, as late as 1951
some of these machines were reported to be still in use!)
Five years later, in 1898, Kleinschmidt started an experimental shop at
122 Fulton Street in New York City. A sign over the door read,
“Inventions Developed,” and he did experimental and developmental work
for various customers (individuals as well as companies—including
Western Union) on a time-and-material basis. In the beginning he had a
project of his own going—a facsimile telegraph system. He submitted the
system to Western Union in 1900 with the suggestion that it might be
valuable for customer services, since a customer could write his
telegram in longhand and insert the written message in the transmitting
unit for transmission in facsimile to the telegraph central. The idea,
however, was rejected. At that time the photoelectric cell for scanning
the written message and electronic means for amplifying signals had not
yet been developed; while the apparatus operated quite well over short
circuits, evidently the time had not arrived for commercial facsimile
telegraphy.
The first telegraph apparatus job for the shop was brought in by Dr.
George A. Cardwell, a dentist by profession. It was a partially
developed printing telegraph using a three-unit code made up of
combinations of plus-minus-high-and-low-voltage pulses (the code we have
already discussed). The work for Dr. Cardwell was carried on until 1903
when a working model was completed. It had a typewheel for printing and
stops arranged in a circle; magnets under control of relay selection
were used to set the stops according to the received code combinations.
This arrangement operated well, and on a test over a Western Union
circuit from New York to Baltimore it gave satisfactory results. As we
have seen, however, the code arrangement proved unsatisfactory for
general telegraphic use.
Many customers came to the experimental shop with every type of idea
imaginable; vacuum cleaners (The “Vacuna”), elevator signals, some early
designs for Elmer Sperry’s gyrocompass were only a few. Kleinschmidt
also set up a couple of side-line businesses, one for manufacturing
automatic fishing reels under the trade name “Kelso,” another, the
Aseptuloid Company, for making vaccination shields (some readers may
well remember their childhood vaccinations being protected by a bubble
of celluloid).
Another customer was George M. Seely, who later was instrumental in
bringing Kleinschmidt’s work to the attention of Charles B. Goodspeed
and W. S. Moore (they were to become his financial backers—see page 14).
Mr. Seely came to the shop in 1906 with a partially developed block
system for electric trolley car railways. His plan was to use special
devices attached to the trolley pole which would cooperate with
stationary electrical controls at certain fixed points along the road.
After working along these lines for awhile it became apparent that some
inventive work would be required on Kleinschmidt’s part. Seely, in
addition to time and material, then offered him a retainer for the
assignment of any resulting patents.
As plans and studies progressed, a number of railway signaling devices
were developed, tested, and patented. A major item was the development
of a telephone train dispatching system. A complete set of apparatus was
exhibited in operation at the American Association of Railroads
Communications Convention held in Los Angeles in 1910. The company name
given this venture was the “National Telephone Selector Company,”
located at 235 Greenwich Street, New York City. The telephone train
dispatching system was installed on the Long Branch Railroad with 30
stations connected with dispatcher headquarters at Red Bank, New Jersey.
Another installation was made on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in West
Virginia, connecting 38 stations with dispatcher headquarters at
Fairbanks, West Virginia.
Most of the patents assigned to Mr. Seely were eventually sold to the
Hall Signal Company.
Doing development work for others and assigning patents for a retainer
did not satisfy Kleinschmidt’s ambitions. His interests being mainly in
the telegraph, he set out to design and build a piece of apparatus that
the telegraph companies could use. A keyboard-operated perforator to
punch the Morse code in a tape for automatic transmission at high speed
looked like a promising subject, since the tape punches in use at that
time had a three-key arrangement—one each for dot, dash, and space.
Kleinschmidt’s first keyboard-operated, Morse-code perforator was
constructed in 1911 and exhibited to the Western Union Telegraph
Company. Mr. G. R. Benjamin, their chief engineer, and Mr. Emmett R.
Shute, a vice president, thought well of the machine and, after testing
it, gave Kleinschmidt an order for fifty. This order spelled success. To
celebrate the event, Kleinschmidt invited his brothers, Bernard, Fred
and William, and their families to a dinner party at a distinguished
restaurant. Soon thereafter (1913), the Kleinschmidt Electric Company
was organized, with the brothers as incorporating officers.
The Kleinschmidt Keyboard Perforator came into use by telegraph and
cable companies throughout the world where Morse, Wheatstone, or Cable
codes were used to transmit telegrams. It was also used with Western
Union’s Barclay system which had its own code. The device was later
manufactured by Teletype Corporation under the name “Teletype
Perforator” and used by the U. S. Government where it served its purpose
for high-speed Morse transmission during the war period (see figure 1).
In the years 1911 and 1912, the Western Union Telegraph Company, in
looking toward higher operating efficiency over their trunk circuits,
decided to test the Creed high-speed Morse and the Murray Multiplex, and
invited both companies to bring their apparatus to New York. It was on
this occasion that Kleinschmidt became acquainted with Mr. F. G. Creed,
who, upon observing the Kleinschmidt keyboard perforator at Western
Union, was impressed by its performance and said that there would be a
good market for it in England, especially as a keyboard punch for the
Creed high-speed Continental-Morse-code system. As a result of that
conference he asked for ten as a trial order. These perforators were
shipped to London in due time and gave satisfactory service. The British
Post Office Telegraph evidently had heard about this new perforator and
sent a letter to the Kleinschmidt company asking for a demonstration at
their London headquarters.
Now it happened at that time that Kleinschmidt was extremely busy with
the development of a five-unit-code typebar printer for the new
Multiplex—and this was urgent since the first model was to be put on
competitive test with a typewheel printer submitted by L. M. Potts and
the Western Electric typewheel printer which was then in use. Therefore,
he felt he should not lose a month or two in this developmental work for
a trip to London. So, his answer to this important invitation was that
he could not personally bring one of his perforators for exhibit but
that he would ask Mr. F. G. Creed to do so. Mr. Creed agreed and set up
a formal exhibit for the Post Office engineers; he consequently received
an order for twenty Kleinschmidt perforators. Further correspondence
with Creed resulted in an order for one hundred and a request that
Kleinschmidt come to London the next year (1914) to negotiate a contract
to supply his keyboard perforators for the Creed high-speed Morse and to
set up a sales agency with Creed for certain territories.
While in London in the summer of 1914, Kleinschmidt visited the Managing
Director of the Post Office Telegraph at his office to apologize for
having had Mr. Creed exhibit the Kleinschmidt perforator instead of
bringing it personally as had been requested. The Managing Director
replied that Mr. Creed had indeed given a very good operating exhibition
of the device and that an order for twenty had been placed with him.
“However,” he added, “you know, we sent you an official invitation and
expected your appearance with your machine!”
To continue: Upon observing the change in systems at Western Union
(switching from the Barclay to the Murray Multiplex), the Kleinschmidt
Electric Company, who had been experimenting in the development of a
telegraph typewriter, built a receiving teletypewriter for the
multiplex. It was a magnet-operated, five-unit-code typebar page
printer, using the Underwood typewriter mechanisms as a basis; and it
was completed in time for test and evaluation at Western Union in
competition with the typewheel printers of both L. M. Potts and Western
Electric.
The Western Electric machine was given the number 1A, Mr. Potts’s, 2A,
and the Kleinschmidt printer was 3A. The final outcome of the tests was
the selection of the Kleinschmidt model, and the company received an
order for five machines, to include a spare, to equip the New York
terminal of a New York-to-Boston, four-channel multiplex system. The
order was filled in a short time and the machines were put on test.
[Illustration: Fig. 1
Kleinschmidt Keyboard-Operated Morse-Code Perforator (_this machine
returned to author by a customer after being used thirty years!_)]
[Illustration: Fig. 2
3B Typebar Page Printer of Kleinschmidt Electric Company
_from Museum of Kleinschmidt Division of SCM Corporation_]
Kleinschmidt watched the operation of his machines in service almost
every day and was continually on the lookout for possible ways to
improve and simplify the apparatus. The tests ran through to completion
satisfactorily, and, upon submitting an improved design, numbered the
3B, the Kleinschmidt Electric Company received an order for one hundred
typebar page printers. The 3B thereafter became standard apparatus and
additional orders were placed as the multiplex system at Western Union
expanded (see figure 2).
Several years later, Western Union efficiency engineers found that, due
to circuit failures, certain parts of messages would have to be
repeated. Because this meant retyping the message, they felt, and for
other reasons as well, that printing the received messages on tape would
be more economical, since corrections could be inserted without
repeating the entire message. To meet this requirement, the typebar page
printer was redesigned for printing on tape. This was accomplished by
using the same selection controls and operating the typebars to print
downward on the tape instead of upward against the platen as in the page
printer. A tape gummer to attach the tape to a message blank was also
designed. The 21A, later No. 22, tape printer was ordered in quantity
thereafter.
Seeing the possibility of using their typebar page printer for
direct-line service, the Kleinschmidt company built a motor-driven
send-receive unit having a single contact transmitter which operated
under control of a code-perforated tape to transmit seven signals in
succession: one start, five code, and a stop signal. The receiving unit
had a seven-segment commutator, one segment for start, five for code,
and one for stop, and a rotating brush to pick up and transmit the
received code signals to the printing unit. This apparatus was installed
at the United Press for news distribution to their connected newspapers.
Another set was installed at the Louisville and Nashville Railroad for
station communications, and still another in New York City at the
Equitable Life Assurance Society between their downtown and uptown
offices. In connection with the latter installation, the Equitable
people asked permission to install the printing apparatus on the
telephone line and there was objection from the telephone company.
However, after some consideration they finally agreed that the apparatus
could be installed but warning that should it create interference with
the telephone line it would be removed immediately. As it turned out,
the printer operation over this telephone circuit did not create any
interference and the apparatus remained in service a long time (figure 3
).
[Illustration: Fig. 3
Kleinschmidt Electric Company
Teletypewriter Apparatus for Direct-Line Service]
The Kleinschmidt Electric Company now began to have financial
difficulties. Edward Kleinschmidt was borrowing wherever he could. There
was no large quantity production and evidently his charges for the
apparatus delivered were too low. At any rate, early in 1917, Mr. Seely
suggested that he get financial help to carry on and it was here that
the following gentlemen entered the picture: Charles B. Goodspeed of the
Buckeye Steel Casting Company; Paul M. Benedict, assistant to the
president of the C. B. & Q.; Edward Moore, son of Judge Moore of the
American Can Company; Eldon Bisbee, a New York lawyer; and one of Mr.
Bisbee’s clients, Albert Henry Wiggen, who was then president of the
Chase National Bank. With their financial backing, the company was able
to continue with further developmental work on simplified and more
efficient apparatus. Orders for various types of equipment for the
Western Union Multiplex and for the Morse code keyboard perforator came
along, but developmental costs were high and still more capital
investment was required; Kleinschmidt would then borrow from the Chase
Bank. Every so often at the Kleinschmidt company’s directors’ meetings,
Mr. Holly, cashier of the bank and also a director of the company, would
state that the Kleinschmidt loan “stood out like a lighthouse,” so a
vote for an additional stock issue was carried and the loan paid.
Along about 1919 the Kleinschmidt company had completed a satisfactory
keyboard-operated typebar teleprinter for intercommunication systems
(see figure 4). The Kleinschmidt Telegraph Typewriter, as it was called,
was installed at the New York City News, the Panama Canal, and at the
Brooklyn Union Gas Company (fig. 5).
In 1922, Edward Kleinschmidt, having learned that Mr. J. E. Wright had
discontinued further developments in the telegraph field, proposed the
purchase of his patents, stating that this acquisition would broaden the
Kleinschmidt company’s patent situation. The proposal was carried, and,
after negotiations, Mr. Wright’s patents were bought for 100 shares of
the Kleinschmidt Electric Company’s common stock.
In 1923, the Kleinschmidt Telegraph Typewriter was exhibited at the 20th
Annual Business Show in New York and created a great deal of interest.
In 1924, a complete telegraph system was engineered and set up for the
Mexican government. (An engineer from Western Union was borrowed to help
with this job.)
One day, in 1923, after some correspondence with Samuel Samuel & Co.,
Ltd., through whom the Kleinschmidt company received orders from Japan
for the Morse code keyboard perforator, the Japanese Telegraph
Administration sent one of their telegraph engineers, Mr. Y. Okomoto, to
the company’s headquarters to assist in working out a keyboard
arrangement of Japanese characters for a simplified alphabet consisting
of 88 characters which the Japanese Telegraph Administration had
devised. The five-unit code could not be used since only 64 selective
positions could be had. So the telegraph typewriter mechanisms were
changed to six-unit-code operation, which worked out very well. The
Kleinschmidt company, and later Morkrum-Kleinschmidt, received
continuing orders for the six-unit-code telegraph typewriters.
[Illustration: Fig. 4
Kleinschmidt Electric Company Telegraph Typewriter
(_keyboard-operated typebar teleprinter_)]
[Illustration: Fig. 5
Kleinschmidt Telegraph Typewriters
(_installation at Brooklyn Union Gas Co._)]
CHAPTER 3
KRUM AND MORTON
(MORKRUM)
Mark Morton, head of the Western Cold Storage Company in Chicago, and
cold-storage engineer Charles L. Krum, the vice president of the firm,
entered the telegraph field quite by accident. A young electrical
engineer named Frank Pearne, in 1902, had some ideas for a printing
telegraph machine and needed financial backing to carry on his
experiments. One of his contacts happened to be Joy Morton, the founder
of the Morton Salt Company. Joy Morton became interested enough to
become Pearne’s backer, and prevailed upon brother Mark to set up a
laboratory in the attic of the cold-storage plant for Pearne’s
experiments.
It seems that after a year or so, Pearne lost interest in his invention
and went into the teaching field. He proved to be a very successful
professor at Armour Tech where he remained until his death.[3] But
Pearne’s work was not in vain, for Charles L. Krum had become intensely
interested and carried on the work with further inventions of his own.
Indeed, he filed his first patent application on August 20, 1903, which
proposed the use of a code comprising four signals: a positive pulse or
a negative pulse of low voltage, and a positive or negative pulse of a
higher voltage. Four additional patents were filed, the last in 1906.
C. L. Krum then set about building a machine which was demonstrated in
1906 and looked promising enough to form a company to further develop
it. This company was made up of the Mortons (brothers Joy and Mark) and
the Krums (Charles L. and his son Howard who had just finished college).
The combination of their names, of course, resulted in “The Morkrum
Company,” which was incorporated in the State of Maine on October 7,
1907. The charter stockholders were Joy Morton, who shouldered the
greatest financial burden; Charles Krum; Joy Morton’s secretary, Daniel
Peterkin (he later became an officer of the Morkrum Company); Mark
Morton; and Sterling Morton (Joy’s son, of whom we shall be hearing more
later on). The working capital of the new company amounted to
$150,000.00.
Charles Krum’s son Howard, after graduation, joined with his father in
the developmental work of this new company and, due to his studies in
electrical engineering, was able to help his father considerably. His
first love and intended career was music, but he put this aside in favor
of his father’s telegraph printer. However, a tune on the piano which he
always kept in the laboratory would help him solve many a difficult
problem.
In 1908 the Krums developed and produced a working model of the
four-unit-code, plus-minus, high-low-voltage system, which was applied
to operate the mechanism of an Oliver typewriter. The system was then
given an operative test on the wires of the Chicago and Alton Railroad,
of which Joy Morton was a director.
As their research work progressed, Howard studied the various systems in
current use and, with his father, decided to abandon the plus-minus,
high-low-voltage system. They turned instead to a system using the
five-unit permutation code as employed by Baudot in his multiplex
telegraph in which synchronized terminal apparatus with periodic
correction was the controlling feature.
Their first joint patent describes a plan for accomplishing synchronized
reception with transmission using a system of five relays interconnected
to operate in successive cascade form; thus, when the relays at both
terminals are correctly timed for successive operation, they will
transmit and receive the five pulse combinations of the Baudot code. For
transmitting and receiving the code pulses, each of the five relays has
an additional contact. To start the relay cascade operation, a start
relay is added at both terminals and operated by a start pulse which
precedes each code transmission. It seemed natural for the Krums to turn
to a relay system at first, since, from his work with the
three-unit-code, high-low-voltage system, C. L. Krum was experienced
with the possibilities of relay operation.
The system of the relay chain in cascade operation was employed to
operate a page printer using the mechanisms of the Blickensdoerfer
typewriter which had a three-row typewheel. The Postal Telegraph Company
became interested and bought a number of these printers in 1910. This
was the first sale of Morkrum apparatus and provided enthusiasm for the
Krums for further research, which led to the substitution of a
governed-motor-driven brush distributor to replace the relay cascade
system. For this new plan the motor at the receiving printer operated at
a slightly higher speed and was held in continuously synchronous
operation with the transmitter by the periodic transmission of a
correcting pulse. The new code selecting and printer control system was
also adapted to operate the mechanism of the Blickensdoerfer typewheel
typewriter. The idea worked out better than the cascade relay system,
and a number of printers using this method were constructed and named
the “Morkrum Blue Code.” A few were put in service at the Postal
Telegraph Company.
The Associated Press (AP) became interested in the Morkrum “Blue Code”
printer system as a replacement for the low-speed Morse system which was
being used to transmit news items to newspapers in many cities. Here,
continuous transmission under control of a code-punched tape, as used in
the Morse code system, was a requirement, so Messrs. Krum set to work
and designed a keyboard-operated, five-unit, Baudot-code perforator and
an automatic punched-tape-controlled transmitter. This apparatus was
installed at the New York headquarters in 1915 and receiving printers
were gradually installed throughout the Associated Press system. The
following excerpt and picture (fig. 6) from Oliver Gramling’s book,
_AP—The Story of News_,[4] describes the introduction of the system to
the Associated Press:
The tide of news by telegraph had continued with the years. Facilities
had been improved, the Morse clicked into virtually every town in the
country, but the old method was the same. Day in and day out, sending
operators took dispatches, translated them into the dash-dot of code,
and the telegraph keys sent the signals on the circuits at a rate of
twenty-five to thirty-five words a minute. In member newspaper offices
along the line the Morse sounders clack-clacked busily and receiving
operators translated the code symbols back into words, copying the
stories in jerky spurts. The news of more than half a century had been
handled that way.
For some time, however, Charles L. Krum, a Chicago cold-storage
engineer, and his son Howard had been working to perfect an automatic
machine which would send the printed word by wire at greater speed
without the intermediary of code. They called their invention the
Morkrum Telegraph Printer—coining the word Morkrum by combining the
inventor’s name with the first syllable in the last name of Joy
Morton, a Chicago businessman who financed them.
[Illustration: Fig. 6
A SENDING OPERATOR SAT AT A KEYBOARD LIKE THAT OF A TYPEWRITER.
Reproduced from _AP—The Story of News_, by permission of Associated
Press.]
Several other automatic telegraphic devices were being promoted, but
(Kent) Cooper and engineers in the Traffic Department decided Krum’s
machine held the most promise for their purposes. Tests got under way.
In the Associated Press headquarters, which had been moved seven
blocks from the old Western Union building to 51 Chambers Street, a
sending operator sat at a keyboard similar to that of an ordinary
typewriter. As he struck the keys, copying the dispatches before him,
the machine perforated a paper tape with a series of holes, each
combination representing a letter. The tape fed into a box-like
transmitter which transformed the tape perforations into electrical
impulses and sent them along the wires into the receiving machines in
newspaper offices. These impulses actuated telegraph relays and set
the receiving Morkrum machines automatically reproducing the letters
which the sending operators were typing miles away.
The tests demonstrated that the Morkrum could transmit news hour after
hour at the rate of sixty words a minute and the copy was delivered
clean and uniform. Thus began the slow extension of Morkrum
transmission to the whole leased wire system, replacing the “brass
pounding” Morse keys. It was a transition that required years and
until it was completed both Morse and Morkrum worked side by side in
many places.
An interesting story appeared recently in “The AP World,”[5] giving some
recollections of AP’s first field maintenance man, Royal (Roy) Bailey,
then aged 71 and living in retirement in California. He still remembers
the AP’s first printing telegraph machines, the article says; in fact,
he helped make them, for he was a mechanic in the Morkrum Company’s
factory in Chicago. When the Morkrum Company shipped the first machines
to AP headquarters, Bailey went along with the machines to install and
maintain them, although he remained on the Morkrum Company’s payroll. He
eventually installed AP printers all over New York City and Connecticut,
in Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, and in Chicago, St.
Louis and Kansas City. He recalls that Morse telegraphers “used to groan
when they first saw him.” The early teleprinters were hard to keep
synchronized, Bailey further recalls, and copy boys had to check the
speed frequently by sighting the striped motor flywheel through a tuning
fork. (Many of those copy boys, he says, including Mickey Burt and Henry
Elling, became AP engineers.)
As the experimental and developmental work continued at the Morkrum
plant, Howard Krum studied all types of start-stop systems and found
that synchronous control was the basis of all systems. After
experimenting with various ideas his thoughts turned to a plan to make
the start of the receiving unit somewhat independent of the transmitting
unit start, thus avoiding irregularities then present in transmitter
start devices. This idea led to the construction of a permutation-code,
start-stop system, using segmented commutators with rotating brush
distributors at both transmitting and receiving units and a start magnet
for each to control start-stop operation.
In this system the transmitter start magnet, when energized, releases
the transmitting brush, which immediately contacts the first segment to
transmit a start pulse to operate the receiver start magnet; the
five-unit-code signal combination follows and both transmitting and
receiving units are stopped. The apparatus was applied to control the
selecting and printing mechanism of the Blickensdoerfer typewheel
typewriter and named the “Morkrum Green Code.” This improved apparatus
soon replaced the Blue Code printer at Associated Press and other
installations (see figs. 7 and 7A).
In this connection the following additional comments of Mr. Bailey may
be of interest:[6]
In 1919 I installed the New York-Washington circuit, with drops at
Philadelphia and Baltimore. This was a new type of printer using what
we called the Green Code. This was considered an improvement over the
old Blue Code, which meant a rearrangement of the receiving mechanism,
but still the machines made use of a typewheel....
Our biggest job of all came in 1923 when we changed over all the old
Blue Code typewheel printers in the New York area to the new style L.
C. Smith typebar printers using Green Code. (Morkrum bought L. C.
Smith typewriters and added new machinery to them. Those printers
became the famous Model 12.)
As we have seen, a number of inventors had patented ways and means to
adopt the five-unit code for operating a telegraph printer system by the
transmission of a start pulse to start both transmitting apparatus and
the distant receiving apparatus at the same time, followed by
transmission of a selected code and a stop pulse. To achieve successful
operation, very close speed adjustment was required. At first, this was
achieved by the use of governed motors and, later, when accurately
timed, 60-cycle alternating current became available, the problem of
synchronous operation of send and receive stations was solved by the use
of synchronous motors.
[Illustration: Fig. 7
Morkrum Company’s Blue Code Typewheel Page Printer
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
[Illustration: Fig. 7A
Morkrum Company’s Green Code Typewheel Page Printer
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
Telegraph printer systems of this type were used by telegraph companies
for city-to-city transmission of telegrams and by news-gathering and
-distributing organizations to transmit the news from headquarters to
newspapers in different cities. While start-stop systems of this type
were used successfully on press circuits and on telegraph message
station-to-station circuitry, trouble was experienced when a number of
printer send-receive units were set up in an intercommunicating system.
Here it was found that the receiver start was not always in time with
the transmitter start, due to varying line circuit conditions and a
variation in the start release mechanism at connected stations.
It seems odd that synchronous systems, where both transmitter and
receiver were started at the same time (requiring both transmitter and
receiver to maintain synchronism), held the field for so long a time,
thus limiting telegraph transmission to one-way operation.
It evidently took a mind not bound or hampered by the standard and
accepted way of operating synchronous systems to discard such old ideas
and to set forth boldly on a new pattern which, in reality, differed but
slightly from the then-established synchronous systems, and to sow the
seed for starting further developments leading to the present telegraph
typewriter, TWX, and TELEX intercommunicating systems. Such a man was
Howard L. Krum, who, in further thinking on the subject, came upon the
almost simple idea of having the transmitter start the receiver rather
than having them both start at the same time. This arrangement required
higher speed operation of the receiver and therefore the receiving code
pulse positions were spread over a shorter area, which meant
progressively decreasing the angular division of the receiving members.
Then, to set the received start pulse in the most favorable position
with relation to the following code signal reception, an orientation
adjustment of the receiver start position was provided.
(Note: On June 20, 1961, Kleinschmidt wrote to Howard Krum—then in
retirement in California—giving a short description of the Morkrum
Company activities, including the wording of the above last two
paragraphs, and asking him to write the Morkrum story. Howard Krum
replied on July 3, 1961, indicating his approval and saying that he
would be glad to put together some notes for Kleinschmidt. It was quite
a shock, therefore, when a letter was received from Howard Krum’s son,
Charles, in September of 1961, telling of his father’s sudden serious
illness. Then, regretfully, it was not long afterwards that word was
received of Howard Krum’s death on November 13, 1961.)
[Illustration: Fig. 8
Morkrum Company No. 12 Typebar Page Printer
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
Howard Krum’s improved method for operating start-stop, permutation-code
telegraph systems was first applied to the Morkrum Green Code apparatus
to control the selecting and printing operations of the Blickensdoerfer
typewheel typewriter.
At this time the Kleinschmidt company and other manufacturers were
starting to produce permutation-code, start-stop telegraph printers
using typebar printing like the more modern typewriters which began
rapidly to replace the Blickensdoerfer, the Hammond, and the other
typewheel printing typewriters. Observing this situation, the Morkrum
Company started intensive development work to produce the No. 12 typebar
page printer, using the typebars and operating mechanism of the L. C.
Smith typewriter and platen of a Woodstock typewriter (fig. 8).
Further developments produced the Morkrum No. 11 tape printer which used
the Baudot combiner method for selecting and printing characters under
control of start-stop, send-receive devices. The No. 11 was a small,
compact tape printer operating at fifty words per minute. Quite a number
were put into service at hotels and elsewhere for local message service
(fig. 9).
[Illustration: Fig. 9
Morkrum Company No. 11 Tape Printer
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
The new No. 12 typebar page printer found numerous applications. It
replaced the Green Code and the earlier Blue Code wherever used. The new
No. 12 was installed at Western Union, on some railroads, and in the
Chicago Police telegraph system. The No. 12s were also installed by
Postal Telegraph on intercity circuits and used as receiving units for
the Postal Multiplex. The Postal Multiplex had been designed by Morkrum
and Postal engineers with the consultant assistance of Donald Murray who
was a friendly associate and had a license agreement with the Morkrum
Company covering some of his patents. A few No. 12 Morkrums were shipped
abroad for use with the Murray Multiplex; the British Post Office
Telegraph and the Australian Telegraph Administration were customers.
Late in 1924 the Morkrum Company and the Kleinschmidt Electric Company
joined to form the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corporation. A story telling of
the union of these two companies was published by _Fortune_ magazine in
March of 1932.[7]
Before going to that story, it may be of interest to describe an
important event concerning the change in the supply of electric power
from direct current to 60-cycle alternating current and the final timing
to exactly 60 cycles per second of all A.C. power supplies so that our
electric clocks may be connected to an A.C. outlet and give correct
time.
The advent of correctly timed, 60-cycle A.C. electric power, available
throughout the nation, was a great boon to the designers of printing
telegraph apparatus and some types of facsimile telegraph and picture
transmitting systems. In prior years, overline synchronization of send
and receive apparatus was always a problem and never perfect. Today,
synchronizing apparatus between terminals becomes the simple matter of
providing 60-cycle A.C. synchronous motors. Just plug into a power
outlet and you have “sync”!
Henry Ellis Warren, a clock maker, noting the change in electric power
service from direct current to 60-cycle alternating current, set about
to build a motor to operate at 60-cycle speed but found that the
60-cycle frequency did not always hold to form, and when applied to
running a clock, did not hold correct time.
The following excerpt, from _The Romance of Time_,[8] tells of Warren’s
activities which led to synchronizing 60-cycle alternating current to
exact time:
_Synchronous Electric Time_
One of the most important of all contributions to horology is the work
of an American who has earned the title, “Father of Electric Time.”
Henry Ellis Warren was graduated from Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in 1894. In 1907 he married and settled in Ashland,
Massachusetts. Here it was that he began to work out his idea for
electrically operated timepieces.
His first product was an ingenious battery-operated clock. In 1914 he
organized the Warren Clock Company and set up production in a barn on
his farm. Yet he knew the battery clock was not his goal, for direct
current offered no means of accurate regulation. Direct current flows
constantly in one direction only, like water down a river or like the
passage of time. On the other hand, alternating current changes
direction regularly, like the oscillation of the balance wheel in a
watch. But instead of the usual five times a second of the balance
wheel, most alternating current completes its trip forward and
backward sixty times a second. Obviously, a clock “geared” to such a
frequency would run as reliably as the current.
In 1916, after several years of extensive experimentation, Warren
developed a motor which would start by itself, run on alternating
current, and carry without difficulty the load of reduction gears
driving the clock hands. It could also handle the cams and contacts of
an alarm clock or set in motion a striking or chiming mechanism.
Then came the test. He plugged the clock into the power socket. It
commenced to run. Weeks of observation and checking showed an
irregular error of as much as ten to fifteen minutes a day.
Convinced that his clock was right, Warren discovered that the
alternating current frequency delivered to his barn factory was off
half a cycle per second—59½ and not 60 cycles. This slight deflection
would produce that much time loss in a 24-hour run. When he informed
the electric company of this error, he was met at first with polite
disbelief. Yet he showed such a comprehensive knowledge of the subject
that the company began to recheck their standards.
Warren built several more synchronous clocks and a master regulator of
his own design for power-station use. On one dial of his master clock
there were two hands, black and gold. The black hand was connected to
an accurately adjusted pendulum clock, beating seconds. The gold hand
was driven by the gear train of one of his electric clocks. As long as
the two hands revolved together, the current cycles were exactly 60
per second. Set up in a power station, this allowed the operator to
adjust the turbine generators as needed to keep the two hands of the
master clock together. Thus all other properly set electric clocks on
the same system would keep the same time automatically.
The Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Boston tried out the
master clock on October 23, 1916. Since then this regulation has
continued.
Other power companies adopted Warren’s master clock. Today virtually
all alternating current furnished in America is similarly checked.
Practical electric time is available at the light socket almost
everywhere. But there are additional benefits.
Standardizing the frequency expanded the market for current to run the
increasing number of clocks in use. Yet, from the consumer’s point of
view, each clock draws little current, costing but a few pennies a
month. Uniform frequency also gave more even speeds in motor-driven
machinery, with a resultant improvement in product. It made easier the
joining of one power station to another. Synchronous motors used in
certain meters and recorders produced better, more accurate records at
lower cost.
The Warren enterprise expanded rapidly. The battery clock was
discontinued. The red barn was no longer large enough, and new space
was acquired. The trade mark “Telechron,” meaning “time from a
distance” (from two Greek words), was used to identify all products of
the company. The firm name was changed to stress the name Telechron,
and in 1952 a merger was made with the General Electric Company.
Plants are now operated in Worcester as well as in Ashland,
Massachusetts.
And now back to the telegraph field....
CHAPTER 4
Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corporation
(later renamed “Teletype Corporation”)
During and after the first world war, both the Morkrum Company and the
Kleinschmidt Electric Company were progressively developing and
producing telegraph apparatus and bringing out new and improved
operating devices to a point where conflicting patents were at issue.
This meant infringement litigation which might destroy both companies.
Neither company could obtain orders in sufficient quantity to make the
manufacturing of apparatus profitable, and, with costly development work
at hand, more capital investment was a continuous requirement.
The following excerpts from the March 1932 issue of _Fortune_[9] tells
of the final joining of the two companies.
The Morkrum Co. had no profits to show for its efforts, and one can be
fairly safe in assuming that no other maker of telegraph printers made
profits. There were competitors, of course. Even the first telegraph
invented by Samuel Morse had a printer, but it printed in dots and
dashes instead of in letters of the English alphabet. That original
Morse printer was abandoned as far back as 1844 because a man who
could be trained to read dots and dashes could just as easily be
trained to listen to them. The problem of getting a printer to print
the alphabet was faced by inventors more than half a century ago, and
it was not really a difficult problem. The difficulty was to invent a
printer that was not too complicated and delicate to be reliable, that
was simple enough to be manufactured for a few hundred instead of a
few thousand dollars.
This difficulty occupied many minds other than the Morton-Krum
intelligences. The most noteworthy of Morkrum Co.’s rivals in
printer-making was Edward Kleinschmidt, an inventor who had all the
inventor’s legendary devotion to his task and to nothing else. His
creations included a vaccination shield, an automatic fishing reel,
and the perfection of the Wheatstone perforator. He had been tinkering
with a telegraph printer in one form and another since the beginning
of the century. In 1917 his project was revamped. It had the financial
backing of Charles B. Goodspeed, of the Buckeye Steel Casting Co.;
Paul M. Benedict, assistant to the president of the C. B. & Q.; Edward
Moore, son of Judge Moore of American Can fame; Eldon Bisbee, a New
York lawyer; and one of Mr. Bisbee’s legal clients, Albert Henry
Wiggin, then president of the Chase National Bank. It was Mr.
Goodspeed, a quiet, retiring gentleman, who supplied most of the
corporate (as distinct from inventive) energy of the Kleinschmidt
Electric Co....
In the years from 1917 to 1924 the Kleinschmidt and the Morkrum
companies became the leading makers of telegraph printers, but they
did not have an easy row to hoe. Their only possible customers were
the two great telegraph companies, the Telephone company, the
railroads, and an occasional outside business such as a press
association. The competition was disheartening, and it became keener
with the elevation of Sterling, son of Joy Morton, to the presidency
of the Morkrum Co., an elevation that was mainly a War-time accident,
for Sterling Morton had resigned from his father’s company to enlist
in the Army, had been rejected because of a small steel plate in his
anatomy, and had chosen the Morkrum Co. as an alternative. Engineering
progress was made, sometimes under ludicrous circumstances.
There was one occasion when Sterling Morton, about to sail for Europe,
heard that the Kleinschmidt Co. was about to bring out a simplex
printer. Up to that time both companies had been making printers for
use with multiplex machines. Mr. Morton was afraid that Mr.
Kleinschmidt was about to anticipate him in the simplex development
which was the forerunner of the present teletypewriter. This was a
contingency which Mr. Morton could not well permit. On the spur of the
moment, he called on Howard Krum, who happened to be in New York. They
bought a drawing board, hired a room at the Princeton Club, and worked
for twenty-four hours trying to design such a machine. Completely
baffled by one small detail, they gave up and took a bus for Coney
Island. On the way, Howard Krum doubled up in sudden ecstacy and
inspiration. They rushed from the bus at Coney Island, entered a soda
fountain, and on the spot designed the machine on the back of an
envelope. This simplex machine of the Morkrum Co. and the one
developed by Kleinschmidt at the same time are the machines which make
Teletype commercially important, the substance of the business today.
But engineering progress was not business progress. Both companies
from the standpoint of profits were failures. Their few customers
played them off against each other. In despair, they were both willing
to sell out. At one point Mr. Goodspeed offered the Kleinschmidt
company to Mr. Newcomb Carlton of Western Union for $412,000, the
amount invested in it. Mr. Morton sold his company in all but fact to
Mr. Charles G. du Bois, then president of Western Electric, but Mr. du
Bois went off to Europe, and his substitute refused to see any merit
in the deal. So it fell through. Unable to sell themselves to their
customers, they tried selling themselves to each other. In 1923
Messrs. Goodspeed and Morton came to terms. The Morkrum Co. signed the
agreement and, everything arranged, Mr. Goodspeed went off to bicycle
with his wife in South Africa—whereupon his company suddenly changed
its mind.
That was the situation of these two unfortunate companies in 1924 when
Mr. Morton started a suit for patent infringement against his rivals.
A counter suit was promptly filed. Mr. Goodspeed was quite right when
he said the suits would ruin both—there was every prospect that by the
time the courts had settled things, the patents would have been in
such a snarl that neither could do anything. The suit, in fact, was
Sterling Morton’s way of bringing matters to a head. So, figuratively
speaking, on the courthouse steps they merged.
The terms of the merger as embodied in the six-line agreement (it was
later made over into a twenty-five-page legal document which concluded
by saying that in case of dispute the six-line agreement should be the
final authority) were these: each of the old companies received a half
interest in the common stock (10,000 shares) of the new company;
15,000 shares (callable at 105) of the new company’s preferred stock
should be divided according to the assets of the old companies.
Actually, 13,979 shares of preferred were issued, the majority going
to the Morkrum group.
And so it was that the agreement to join both companies under the name
Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corporation was consummated and chartered in the
State of Delaware on December 29, 1924, with Sterling Morton as
President, Howard L. Krum as Vice President in charge of manufacturing,
and Edward E. Kleinschmidt as Vice President in charge of development,
patents and foreign sales.
One of the first decisions to make was whether the Kleinschmidt plant in
Long Island City or the Morkrum plant in Chicago would be the
headquarters for the new company. The Kleinschmidt company was on a
27,000-foot leased floor in a building which R. H. Macy Company had just
purchased to use for a warehouse, and negotiations had been going on for
some time for the purchase of the Kleinschmidt lease—the sum of
$25,000.00 having been offered. When the union of the two companies was
decided upon, an agreement to vacate on the terms offered was signed,
and the Kleinschmidt firm moved to the Morkrum-owned plant in Chicago.
[Illustration: Fig. 10
Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corporation No. 14 Start-Stop Typebar Tape Printer
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
Bringing together the engineering talent and patents of the two
companies had an immediate effect toward further progress. The first
thing the new company set out to do, through consolidation of their past
efforts, was to perfect a satisfactory start-stop-operated tape printer
for the Western Union Telegraph Company to use for circuit extension to
customers who were extensively using the telegraph for immediate,
written communication. (This was to speed up telegraphic communication
and eliminate the need for messenger service which had been the custom.)
The Morkrum company had submitted their start-stop-operated Baudot tape
printer, and the Kleinschmidt company had proposed the Western Union No.
22 tape printer in a redesign to start-stop operation. Now, the new
company was able to combine both plans and as a result came up with
their first development, a typebar, start-stop-operated, tape printer,
the No. 14 (see figure 10). In the final design, Howard Krum and his
production engineers took a large part. After tests and evaluation,
Western Union’s first order was for 10,000 machines at $317.00 each.
This amounted to a total of $3,170,000.00. No such quantity had ever
been heard of before!
It is quite evident that while the two companies were separated, each
coming up with improved and new designs of telegraph apparatus, there
was a lack of decision by telegraph companies as to which type of
apparatus to adopt in expanding their operations, and therefore they did
not buy in quantity. The largest previous order to the Kleinschmidt
Electric Company was for 800 No. 22 typebar tape printers for the
Western Union Multiplex.
At Morkrum-Kleinschmidt more space was needed. The corner property on
Wrightwood Avenue adjoining the Morkrum plant was purchased, and a
four-story building was erected.
The design of a telegraph typewriter that would be more efficient and
require a minimum of maintenance service was the most important project,
and Morkrum-Kleinschmidt was working with Bell Laboratories engineers
endeavoring to meet all the requirements of the Bell Telephone system. A
typebar printer with a stationary printing platen and moving typebar
printing unit was specified. These requirements were finally met with
the design of the No. 15 page printer to operate at 60 words per minute,
and manufacture of this apparatus was started in 1927 (see figure 11).
The No. 15 page printer became the standard for nationwide
intercommunicating telegraph service for many years.
In 1926, soon after the No. 14 tape printer was put into service,
Morkrum-Kleinschmidt received a request from the police department of
Berlin, Germany, for detailed information, stating that they were
interested in the purchase of about sixty No. 14 printers. The letter
asked if Morkrum-Kleinschmidt was represented by an agent in Germany
whom they could contact. At an executive meeting, Mr. Morton and Mr.
Krum asked Mr. Kleinschmidt to take care of this matter since his
company, before joining them, had sold apparatus in some foreign
countries. After further correspondence with the Berlin police
officials, Kleinschmidt decided personally to take a No. 14 printer to
Germany and arrange for a representative there. After visiting and
conferring with several companies experienced in the telegraph and
associated apparatus field, a satisfactory arrangement was consummated
with the C. Lorenz Company, on October 25, 1926, for the manufacture and
sale of Morkrum-Kleinschmidt equipment in Germany, on a
royalty-licensing basis. At that time the Lorenz company manufactured
telegraph and telephone equipment and railway signaling apparatus. Their
engineering department was under the supervision of Dr. Gerhard Grimsen
who took the matter in hand for further exploitation toward an
intercommunicating printing telegraph system, using the No. 15 page
teletypewriter. Siemens & Halske, the principal manufacturers of
telegraph equipment in Germany, were also licensed by the
Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corporation, on June 1, 1929, with the consent of
the Lorenz company.
[Illustration: Fig. 11
Morkrum-Kleinschmidt No. 15 Page Printer
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
(As may be seen in the following chapter, it was these licensing
arrangements which led to the establishment of the TELEX
intercommunicating teleprinter system in Europe.)
In early 1927 the well-known newspaper publisher, Mr. Frank E. Gannett,
came to Morkrum-Kleinschmidt, bringing his company’s engineer, Mr.
Walter Morey, who had heard of various attempts to operate a typesetting
machine, such as Linotype or Intertype, directly from the telegraph. Mr.
Gannett said, “We have telegraph typewriters in our news rooms that
record the news as transmitted from the Associated Press and the United
Press, and that is fine. Now, why not go a step further and operate our
typesetting machines directly from the telegraph circuit? If you can
develop such a device, I will help finance the project.”
Indeed, after some study of the matter, the possibility of devising such
a system seemed entirely feasible and the development of suitable
apparatus was turned over to the research and development department. A
workable plan was soon put together and a separate company, the
Teletypesetter Company, was organized, with Mr. Gannett joining
financially. Edward Kleinschmidt was elected president. Development
proceeded and a complete set of apparatus was set up and publicly
demonstrated for the first time on December 6, 1928, at one of Mr.
Gannett’s newspapers, _The Times Union_ of Rochester, New York.
Teletypesetter equipment was subsequently manufactured for several
installations. After the Western Electric Company purchased the Teletype
Corporation in 1930, the Teletypesetter Company was sold to the
Fairchild Company. Teletypesetter equipment is now in universal use by
most newspapers and the larger printing companies.
During the period that the United States’ business cycle was on a
continuous upswing (during the late 1920s), securities sales on the New
York Stock Exchange were going to constantly higher volume, and the old
step-by-step stock ticker did not, by large margins, keep pace in
recording stock share transactions. There was a cry for a higher speed
stock ticker; in fact, the Stock Exchange officials told
Morkrum-Kleinschmidt that they would be happy to convert the entire
system if they could get higher speed.
An adaptation of the five-unit-code, start-stop system seemed the
solution and the Research and Development department set out to develop
suitable apparatus. Several ideas were studied and, because of the
frequent changes from letters to figures, requiring printing in separate
rows on the tape, a six-unit code was adapted instead in which
combinations for a figure included the sixth selecting pulse to operate
the figures print hammer and block the letters print hammer.
[Illustration: Fig. 12
Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corporation Stock Ticker
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
The Morkrum-Kleinschmidt company was soon able to show the Stock
Exchange people a stock ticker operating on a telegraph system that
worked at twice the speed of the step-by-step-operated tickers then in
use. A speed of 500 printing operations per minute could be obtained,
thus attaining a one-hundred-percent increase in the transmitting and
recording of stock quotations on the tape (see figure 12). The Stock
Exchange ticker service company ordered 15,000 of these high-speed
tickers and the Western Union Telegraph Company also ordered a quantity
for their national stock quotations distributing systems.
As business of the combined Morkrum and Kleinschmidt companies went
along, it was thought that the name “Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corporation”
was a pretty big mouthful and that a simpler name more characteristic of
its products would be better. The name “Teletype” was suggested, and in
the year 1928 the name change to “Teletype Corporation” was made. The
exact origin of the word “teletype” is not known but it is no doubt one
of the abbreviated forms of the words “telegraph typewriter” which were
used over the years. In literature, in the early 1900s, we find that the
word “teletype,” in speaking of printing telegraph equipment, and other
shortened forms, such as “telewriter” and “teletyper,” were used
interchangeably.
Kleinschmidt’s son, Edward F., who studied electrical engineering at
Steven’s Institute and at Northwestern University, was employed as
development engineer by the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt company where he
assisted in the design of projects at hand, and, during 1929, produced a
system and apparatus for transmitting and recording printed characters
by the successive transmission of dots arranged in a pattern to form
letters. While this system required a higher signaling frequency, it was
thought to be superior to permutation-code transmission over radio
circuits where electrostatic interference is experienced, since, in the
dot pattern transmission, electrostatic interference up to a degree will
not change the readability of a transmitted letter.
The system was in test operation to prove its efficiency over radio
circuits where considerable static interference was experienced. Upon
hearing of this new telegraph for the radio, Mr. R. Stanley Dollar
became interested in the use of this communicating system for his
steamship line. There was considerable correspondence in this matter
during mid-1930, just prior to the sale of Teletype; however, neither
AT&T nor Western Electric was interested in further promoting this new
radio telegraph, so the matter was dropped.
Business activities of Teletype Corporation were now growing rapidly and
with good profit. The capital structure of 10,000 shares was wholly
inadequate, so by a 15-to-1 stock dividend the capital structure was
raised to 150,000 shares, and dividends on an annual basis of $12.00
were paid.
The successful development of apparatus for different applications
useful in the telegraph field was largely due to the close cooperation
between the research-development and the manufacturing departments of
the organization. Howard Krum had expert engineers and designers in his
department, Kleinschmidt brought his leading engineers and designers
from the Long Island City plant, and there was a definite spirit of
cooperation all around.
To quote again from the _Fortune_ magazine story:[10]
As the years up to 1925, when the Kleinschmidt-Morkrum merger took
place, were wanderings in a profitless desert, so the years from 1925
to 1930 found the teletype in a land of milk and honey. Mr. Morton,
however, was inclined to think that a company which had only two or
three major customers is not strongly placed. Furthermore (and by the
spring of 1930), at least one of those customers was actively in the
market as a Teletype purchaser. This buyer was Colonel Sosthenes Behn,
whose International Telephone & Telegraph Co. includes Postal
Telegraph at home in addition to many communication and manufacturing
companies abroad. With Colonel Behn wanting to buy and Mr. Morton
wanting to sell, negotiations rapidly proceeded to a point at which
Mr. Morton, at least, thought the deal was almost concluded. But while
Mr. Morton and the Colonel were discussing the prospective
acquisition, into the Colonel’s office walked a man who has no other
place in this story except that he happened to interrupt at this
moment. As this gentleman was introduced, he asked whether Mr. Morton
were related to Joy or Paul Morton. When Mr. Morton admitted that they
were his father and uncle, the man turned to Colonel Behn and said in
jest: “Better watch your step. That’s a smart family.” Only Colonel
Behn knows whether he gave that remark any weight, but the point is
that the negotiations suddenly collapsed, and that the visitor’s
remark about the smart family still lives vividly in Mr. Morton’s
memory.
This setback was not a setback at all to such a negotiator as Mr.
Morton. Two months later, in May, 1930, you find him walking into the
office of Clarence G. Stoll, vice president of Western Electric, A. T.
& T.’s manufacturing subsidiary. This time there had been no
preliminaries. Mr. Stoll rose from his desk and said: “Good morning.
What can I do for you?”
“Do you want to buy Teletype?”
“Is it for sale?”
“Yes, at a price.”
“All right. Let’s get down to business.”
They got down to business on the spot, and they remained at it for
three solid days in Mr. Stoll’s office. The agreement as reached
called for A. T. & T. to pay off the preferred stock of Teletype,
13,979 shares callable at 105, and to give one share of A. T. & T. in
exchange for each common share of Teletype. The A. T. & T. shares were
worth about $200, so the price came to upwards of $30,000,000—plus, of
course, the $1,467,795 for retiring the Teletype preferred.
It should be noted here that this deal to take over Teletype on a
share-for-share basis was exclusive of foreign patent rights but did
include patent rights in Canada and Mexico.
The sale to Western Electric was closed on September 30, 1930. Mr. Stoll
of that company was made president. Howard Krum continued on as vice
president and was a leader in developing a number of commendable
devices, including a system for transmitting messages in scrambled,
untranslatable code form and receiving such scrambled code in perfect
message form. Mr. Morton was retained as consultant. Edward Kleinschmidt
made an arrangement to do development work for the new organization in a
laboratory of his own, assigning all inventions to the Teletype
Corporation (see page 50).
After Kleinschmidt left Teletype, his assistant, Albert H. Reiber,
carried on as head of Research and Development for a short while before
his untimely death. In the meantime, Walter J. Zenner had advanced and,
in 1935, became Department Chief and later Vice President in Charge of
Research and Development. Under Zenner’s direction a number of new
devices in the teleprinter field were developed, including
ultra-high-speed tape-perforating and tape-controlled transmitting
devices, as well as a high-speed stock ticker operating at 900
characters per minute (introduced in 1964) to replace the earlier
Morkrum-Kleinschmidt ticker which operated at 500 characters per minute.
Some 94 patents were issued in his name, which have contributed greatly
to the growth of the Teletype Corporation.[11]
On May 15, 1940, Howard Krum and Edward E. Kleinschmidt were both
honored by The Franklin Institute and awarded the John Price Wetherill
Medal, each one “For his Part in the Development of a Successful
Electrically Operated Duplicate Typewriting Machine Now Known as the
Teletypewriter,” (Quoted from the medal certificate.)
[Illustration: Teletype Corporation’s new Model 33 Automatic
Send-Receive Set
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
Howard Krum later also received an award as Modern Pioneer from the
National Manufacturers Association. Edward E. Kleinschmidt, on April 19,
1958, was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering at the
Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.
To continue: After the sale of patent rights in Canada, Mexico, and the
United States to Western Electric, there remained the European and other
foreign patent rights still with the original Morkrum and Kleinschmidt
investors. The International Telephone and Telegraph Company wanted
these rights, and, after negotiations in New York, a price was set for
their purchase through the Creed Company in London, then owned by IT&T.
Edward Kleinschmidt was sent to London in 1930 to close the deal. Some
changes to the sales contract were requested by Creed which kept the
cables busy by Kleinschmidt in asking for approval from A. T. & T. and
Western Electric lawyers. Finally, upon all-around approval, the
contract was signed at the previously-agreed-to price of one and a
quarter million dollars.
CHAPTER 5
Teletypewriter Intercommunication Expands
_TELEX_
As a result of the acquisition of patents of the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt
Company by the Lorenz company, Siemens & Halske, and, later, the Creed
company in England, all of which we have discussed briefly,
teletypewriter intercommunicating expanded rapidly. In just a short
time, through the cooperation of these companies, it spread over all of
Europe and was named TELEX (_TEL_eprinter _EX_change Service).
Dr. Gerhard Grimsen of the Lorenz company, in a letter to Edward E.
Kleinschmidt, dated July 11, 1962, states, in part (slightly edited):
The story of printing telegraph apparatus using an equal length code
in the Lorenz Co. commences in 1927 with the acquisition of the most
important patents of the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Co.
Before then, the Lorenz people were busy in manufacturing Morse
apparatus and delivering exchange tickers which used the Hughes code.
The transmitter had a piano keyboard, the receiver was a page printer
with a moving type wheel.... The biggest network of this kind was
installed in the Berlin Police service (with one transmitter and about
300 receivers). The connections between the headquarters and the
substations were built by using guttapercha cable lines owned by the
police administration. This broadcasting network was erected around
1907. By 1927 the cables had aged, by normal corrosion, to such a
degree that instead of 110-volt double current transmitting voltage,
little by little, up to 220 volts was necessary for a fairly
satisfying operation. Also, the maintenance of the apparatus became
more costly.
This was the situation when some communication experts of the police
and the post administration made the first studies about the newest
telegraph technique in the U. S. A.... They found that the start-stop,
five-unit tape printer, the Model 14, developed and manufactured by
the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt company, would be the best instrument to
replace the old ones in the police service as well as in the telegraph
business of the German post administration.
Of special importance to the police service was the fact that by
introducing this apparatus, it was not necessary to build a new
network because now it became possible to rent normal telephone lines
using single current, 40-milliampere, 60-volt current only.
Siemens and Halske engineers, in 1925, had designed a teleprinter using
the five-unit-code, start-stop principle. This was manufactured and
improvements added, including the new start-stop method developed by
Morkrum-Kleinschmidt. The Creed company, which had started manufacture
of start-stop teleprinters before 1930, having purchased several Morkrum
printers before the consolidation of that company with the Kleinschmidt
company, also designed a teleprinter for the new five-unit-code,
start-stop system.
In another write-up, Dr. Grimsen states that after the Siemens company
came into the picture, a fully automatic teleprinter network was started
in 1933 with a trial installation between Berlin and Hamburg for about
forty private subscribers. The results were so encouraging that the
German Reichspost continued the work, and five years later the TELEX
system contained about 10,000 subscribers.
TELEX service was introduced in Great Britain in 1932 and was worked
over the telephone network, using a single-tone voice frequency carrier
signal which was keyed on and off by the teleprinter transmitter. (From
Freebody’s _Telegraphy_.)[12]
Interconnection for TELEX service was made by dialing a subscriber as in
telephone operation. TELEX directories then, as now, gave the call
numbers of subscribers. Types of answerback devices were designed in
both England and Germany which finally developed into an arrangement
whereby the calling subscriber would, after dialing a number, press a
special key, the shifted D key—named the “Who-Are-You?” button—which
would cause the transmission of a signal code automatically to activate
the called teletypewriter mechanism into transmitting its TELEX number.
Further apparatus, a device to punch the code in a tape and a
punched-tape-controlled transmitter, was soon added.
The Siemens company also developed and built completely automatic
switching equipment for the TELEX system which is used by many telegraph
administrations.
Through the cooperation of the companies who were manufacturing
teleprinters and associated equipment, the many problems that appeared
were eventually solved to improve the apparatus and bring the TELEX
system to eventual perfection for worldwide telegraph communications.
(At the time of this writing, according to statistics, there are nearly
1,000,000 TELEX subscribers throughout the world.)
One of the problems faced in setting up such a worldwide system was that
of standardizing the code and operating speed. At the time of
Kleinschmidt’s stay in London in 1930 to close negotiations with Creed
for the sale of Morkrum-Kleinschmidt’s foreign rights, he met Mr. Martin
Feuerhahn of the German Telegraph Administration who at that time was in
conference with Creed and representatives from the British Telegraph
Administration as to standardizing on an alphabet and telegraph code for
international communications. Mr. Feuerhahn argued for the adoption of
the American Murray alphabet and code, stating that he already had the
approval and consent of the French, Italian, and Belgian telegraph
administrations.
Mr. Feuerhahn and Kleinschmidt spent some hours together. After their
return to their respective countries, Kleinschmidt received a letter
from Mr. Feuerhahn referring to their talks and stating that he had been
in correspondence with Mr. Benjamin of Western Union and Mr. Parker of
Bell Laboratories with regard to code and other pertinent matters of
standardization so that an International Teleprinter Exchange could be
extended into the United States. Another letter dated October 10, 1931,
reviewed the aforementioned standardization search.
The Murray alphabet and 7½-unit code were soon adopted and are still in
use today in TELEX.
In later years, an association, the Consultative Committee on
International Telegraph (CCIT—now the CCITT to include the telephone),
was formed and met regularly to discuss problems and to set operating
regulations for the TELEX apparatus in an intercommunicating system. The
CCITT at this writing is still meeting regularly on worldwide
standardization in both telegraph and telephone communications.
_TELEX IN THE UNITED STATES AND TWX_
In the United States, in November 1931, the Bell Telephone Companies
announced an intercommunicating teletypewriter service, called TWX for
short (_T_eletype_W_riter e_X_change), by which interconnections could
be made by a switchboard operator as in telephone service. One of their
first advertisements named it a “Telephone Typewriter Service, a service
that typewrites by wire, a method of inter-office communication that has
the quickness of the telephone, the flexibility of conversation, the
accuracy of the typewriter, the authority of the printed word, the
permanency of print.”[13] Tape-punching and tape-controlled transmitting
apparatus was provided. This service allowed subscribers to carry on a
typewritten conversation at a charge less than the cost of a telephone
call, whether to local or to distant areas. The maximum speed of this
equipment was limited to sixty words per minute.
[Illustration: Telephone Typewriter Service (early TWX apparatus)
_reproduced by permission of American telephone & Telegraph Co._]
There are approximately 54,000 subscribers to TWX at this writing, and
the TWX directory gets fatter with each new issue. In 1962 all TWX
machines were converted to direct dialing operation, making the service
easier to use. Instead of going through “Operator” by manually typing
out the call letters of the party being called, one now merely depresses
the Originate button, listens for the dial tone, and then dials the TWX
number of the party wanted.
RCA Communications, Inc., was the first to extend international TELEX
service to Bell System teletypewriter subscribers (1955), enabling them
to make and receive overseas calls on their domestic TWX machines.[14]
As stated, the TWX machines were geared for 60-words-per-minute
operation, whereas the TELEX system operated at 66 words per minute. It
was therefore necessary for R.C.A. to use conversion apparatus to an
error-detecting code for overseas radio transmission. This code was a
seven-unit code, using three marking and four spacing elements, giving
35 usable combinations. By using a special printer, when a faulty
combination was received, a special error symbol was printed.
Western Union, in May of 1958, introduced TELEX service between New York
City and various Canadian points. By 1962 the service had been extended
to 67 United States cities, and at this writing they expect to serve 180
United States cities with an anticipated subscriber capacity of many
thousands.[15]
In addition to domestic service between U. S. cities, subscribers can
dial automatic teleprinter connections to Canada and Mexico. Also, they
can obtain direct TELEX connections to other parts of the world through
the overseas facilities of RCAC (Radio Corporation of America
Communications), AC&R (American Cable and Radio), and WUI (Western Union
International). The operating speed of 66 words per minute and also the
teleprinter keyboard in the U. S. TELEX network conform to international
standards of the CCITT. This provides complete operating compatibility
with other TELEX systems throughout the world without the need for speed
and keyboard translators.[15]
SOME OF TODAY’S TELEX APPARATUS
[Illustration: The SAGEM Electronic Teleprinter used in TELEX
_Picture by courtesy of Société d’Applications Générales d’Electricité
et de Mécanique_]
[Illustration: Western Union TELEX
_Picture through courtesy of Western Union Telegraph Co._]
[Illustration: General Post Office TELEX Installation
_by courtesy of H. M. Postmaster-General_]
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
[Illustration: Standard Elektrik Lorenz TELEX Apparatus
_reproduced by permission of Standard Elektrik Lorenz_]
[Illustration: Siemens & Halske TELEX Apparatus
_Picture by courtesy of Siemens & Halske_]
CHAPTER 6
KLEINSCHMIDT LABORATORIES
As we have seen, Edward Kleinschmidt, upon resigning from Teletype
Corporation as vice president when it was taken over by Western
Electric, had agreed to do development work for them, working
independently but assigning any inventions to the new Teletype
Corporation.
And so it was that Kleinschmidt Laboratories came into existence.
Incorporated on March 21, 1931, under Delaware laws, for the immediate
purpose of doing research and development work for Teletype, the
principals of the new company were Edward E. as president, and his two
sons, Edward F. as vice president and Bernard L. as secretary.
Kleinschmidt had earlier proposed a comprehensive and completely
automatic printing telegraph switching system in which messages are
automatically routed from the subscriber printer through telegraph
centrals of the addressee printer under control of address tape
perforations. Under his development contract with Teletype he continued
work on the system. Message storage in perforated tape was provided for
at all central switching points, and an answerback arrangement was
included in the system by the automatic return transmission of the
addressee’s number to the sender.
As the research and development work for Teletype continued, the
switching system was completed, and various other devices of more or
less importance were developed, with patents assigned to the Teletype
Corporation. In late 1934 the contract with Teletype expired.
At that time, son Bernard was operating a printing plant in rather close
quarters in Highland Park, Illinois. The operations of the Laboratories
had been carried on in rented quarters at the Merchandise Mart in
Chicago. Seeing that there would be no work for Teletype, it was decided
to set up working quarters in Highland Park where the family lived.
Since rented space was not available, a building was constructed on
Lincolnwood Road in the Braeside section of Highland Park to house both
the B. L. Kleinschmidt Printing Company and the machinery and other
equipment of the Laboratories. The Laboratories, now inactive, became a
personal holding company with 2300 shares to cover a book value of
approximately $230,000.00 (Kleinschmidt having distributed the major
portion of these shares to his children and grandchildren).
Son Edward F. turned his thoughts to other fields and carried on
experimental work in the new building in devices not connected with the
telegraph. Son Bernard was involved in his printing business. Their
father’s thoughts lay dormant for a long time, but still there was the
urge to continue with the telegraph, and a plan for operating a
five-unit-code selecting mechanism, operating on a progressive stop
principle to position a typewheel or to select a typebar for printing on
tape or page, was worked out.
When models of this new plan were completed and operating successfully,
Edward E. Kleinschmidt immediately thought of Teletype Corporation and
brought the apparatus to their attention, submitting models and patent
applications for their evaluation. After numerous conferences and
correspondence, however, his offer for the sale of patent rights and
models was rejected. Discouraged, he left the completed models at the
Highland Park lab and moved to Florida.
During the second world war, son Bernard abandoned his printing
establishment and started a tool and die shop, using the machinery and
facilities of the Laboratories as well as space occupied by his printing
shop. The B. L. Kleinschmidt Company was kept busy building tools, dies,
and special devices for the war effort.
Through Bernard’s associations he learned that the United States Signal
Corps needed a light-weight, transportable teleprinter for tactical
field use, and he asked his father if he could show the progressive stop
printer to the Signal Corps at their Chicago headquarters. His father,
in Miami at that time, gave his approval. Two days later, the telephone
rang in Miami and it was Bernard saying, “Dad, they are interested and
want you to bring the printer model to Army Headquarters in Washington.”
Nothing could have pleased his father more!
In February of 1944, Edward E. Kleinschmidt demonstrated a working model
of his teleprinter in Washington at the office of the Chief Signal
Officer. Officials of the Signal Corps were greatly interested in the
unit, not only because of its extreme lightness and small bulk, but
because of the representations that the basic design features of this
tape printer, exclusive of the printing mechanism, could be incorporated
in a page-type printer which could be constructed with a total weight of
approximately thirty pounds. The machine was subsequently informally
tested at the Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories and found to have
excellent margins when working without an intermediate relay on very low
line current, a highly desirable feature in a piece of tactical
teletypewriter equipment.
The exhibit at Headquarters was successful, and after operative tests at
the Signal Corps’ Coles Signal Laboratories in Red Bank, New Jersey,
where approval for further studies was given, the Kleinschmidt
organization was asked to prepare plans toward a tactical light-weight
printer for field use.
It should be pointed out that teletypewriters at that time were heavy,
cumbersome, and intended for use only at telegraph offices or at other
plant or office fixed installations.
The plans for a light-weight page printer were submitted to the Signal
Corps as requested and were well received by their engineers. These
engineers then wrote up specifications detailing their requirements for
a rugged, light-weight portable set for hand-carrying through jungles
and swamps, and operable under severe climatic conditions; the
specifications were submitted to the Teletype Corporation, the Western
Union Telegraph Company, and to the Kleinschmidt organization. Western
Union did not take on the development job, but Teletype and Kleinschmidt
accepted. A contract for the development of a teletypewriter according
to Signal Corps specifications was closed with both companies in 1945.
The Kleinschmidt Laboratories were not in active operation at this time,
so the first development contract was closed with the B. L. Kleinschmidt
Company which was fully equipped to carry on the work. Expert tool and
model makers were in his employ, some of whom turned out to do well at
the drawing board and were of great help in working out mechanical
functions. As a matter of fact, five or six of Bernard’s employees are
still with the Kleinschmidt Division of SCM Corporation at this writing,
some having attained supervisory positions.
Edward F. joined his father in further engineering and development work,
and models of a typebar page printer and a typewheel page printer to
operate at 60 words per minute were built. Upon evaluation by the Signal
Corps and Army engineers, a printer with a higher operating speed, up to
100 words per minute, was demanded. This new requirement meant a
complete redesign of apparatus, but it was successfully carried through
and experimental models were submitted by both companies. Thereupon both
Kleinschmidt and Teletype were asked to build ten printers for field
tests. This was done, and after extensive field testing, the
Kleinschmidt-designed, keyboard-operated, 100-words-per-minute typebar
page printer was accepted, and, by order of the then Secretary of War,
it was made the standard for the Military, effective on January 1, 1949.
(This printer was later to be known as the TT-4 tactical page printer,
the principal component of Teletypewriter Set AN/PGC-1.) (See fig. 13.)
An announcement from the Department of the Army, in a document released
for publication on February 13, 1949,[16] read as follows:
_Portable Teletypewriter Developed by Signal Corps_
Portable teletypewriter equipment so light that a parachutist can
carry it on a jump from an airplane has been developed and adopted by
the Army, promising a major advancement in military communications,
the Signal Corps announced today.
Weighing but 45 pounds, compared with current field equipment that
weighs 225 pounds, the new portable teletypewriter is but one-fourth
the size of the old, has 300 fewer parts, is considerably stronger and
consequently requires far less maintenance. The new equipment is
capable of transmitting and receiving messages 66 per cent faster than
existing types and will operate on both wire and radio circuits. It is
waterproof and should it be used in amphibious operations, could be
floated onto a beach.
The development is the fruition of a 20-year-old project that did not
get under way in earnest, however, until World War II was nearly over.
Because of its light weight, the new teletypewriter can be used much
closer to the front lines than has been the case. During World War II,
teletyped messages could go only as far forward as a division
headquarters. How much farther forward the new equipment can be used,
will be determined in forthcoming field tests.
The portable teletypewriter was developed by the Signal Corps
Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, through a
research and development contract with Kleinschmidt Laboratories,
Incorporated, of Highland Park, Illinois.
There are three components to a complete field unit: the
teletypewriter itself, weighing 45 pounds; a power unit, and a case of
accessories. The three together weigh 116 pounds. All units are
waterproof, both to permit flotation in amphibious activities and to
provide complete protection from weather. One man can carry the
teletypewriter itself, while two men can carry all three units.
The field teletypewriter in current use weighs 225 pounds and—if a
vehicle is not available—requires four men to carry it. With power
unit and accessories, present field equipment totals more than 400
pounds and requires seven men to carry it.
While development work for the Signal Corps was progressing, Bernard
kept busy managing general operations and Edward F. took hold in the
general design and devised important features that were patented in his
name.
Bernard died in March, 1948. However, development work went along with
the B. L. Kleinschmidt facilities until 1949, when a production order
for 2,000 teleprinters, conforming to the now approved Kleinschmidt
design, was to be placed. Now that Bernard was no longer there to take
over business details, and as a certain amount of basic capital was
needed to operate a production establishment, arrangements were made to
transfer Bernard’s equipment to Kleinschmidt Laboratories which
thereafter closed a contract to manufacture the required quantity of
teleprinters now designated as the TT-4 telegraph typewriter.
Kleinschmidt senior, now seventy-four, was not eager to take over the
management of production activities, and while manufacturers in the
office equipment and radio field were ready and anxious to take on the
manufacture of these new teleprinters, he sought to keep the future of
this new development with the Kleinschmidt Laboratories—now owned by all
members of his family. His son-in-law, Emerson E. (Bud) Mead, was
operating a manufacturing plant, producing electrical control devices
quite successfully, so, “Why not ask Bud, then Secretary of Kleinschmidt
Laboratories, to take over? He could no doubt sell the Mead company at a
profit.” Bud did find a buyer for his company and he was then made vice
president of Kleinschmidt Laboratories; later, when Edward E.
Kleinschmidt turned over full management to him, Mead became executive
vice president.
The immediate problem at the Laboratories was to find manufacturing
space. The first thought was to rent, but then there would be no room to
expand should larger orders follow, and this could be expected since
Kleinschmidt teleprinter apparatus was now made standard equipment for
all U.S. Armed Services. Upon further investigation, Bud Mead found a
plot in Deerfield, Illinois, facing County Line Road, consisting of
thirteen acres, which could be purchased at a reasonable price. This
area would give plenty of building room and space for parking cars.
Kleinschmidt Laboratories’ first building, 200 × 150 feet, was soon
erected.
[Illustration: Fig. 13
Kleinschmidt Laboratories, Inc. Portable TT-4 Tactical Page Printer]
[Illustration: Fig. 14
Kleinschmidt Laboratories, Inc. AN/FGC-20 Fixed-Station Teletypewriter Set]
Preliminary work toward manufacturing, drawings, ordering of production
machinery, special tools, standard parts, and other items was carried on
at the Braeside laboratory.
The efforts of all of the people of the Kleinschmidt organization,
working with great enthusiasm and wonderful cooperation, sometimes
around the clock, were rewarded when on April 17, 1950, preproduction
samples of light-weight teletypewriter sets were delivered on schedule
to the Signal Corps in Fort Monmouth for approval and acceptance.
Immediately upon receipt of their approval, production began on the
contract awarded in June of 1949.
Kleinschmidt Laboratories subsequently received contracts and built
thousands of their teleprinters, including the filling of orders for the
AN/FGC-20 fixed station teleprinters (see fig. 14).
Later, the Laboratories, together with the Automatic Electric Company,
then of Chicago, now of Northlake, Ill., designed and built switching
apparatus and set up high-speed, 100-words-per-minute, automatic
teleprinter switching centers for the Military. These systems had trunk
switching controls located at key distributing points in the United
States and abroad, interconnected by microwave circuitry.
As further orders for teleprinters and associated equipment came along,
manufacturing facilities were expanded into more building area;
additions to the first unit brought that building to 200 × 500 feet.
Another building, 250 × 350 feet, of special design to house belt-line
apparatus assembly and parts storage, also testing, inspection, and
shipping, was erected in 1958.
In August, 1956, Kleinschmidt Laboratories merged with Smith-Corona
Inc., on an exchange-of-shares basis, which eventually gave Kleinschmidt
Laboratories’ shareholders 60 shares of Smith-Corona (later Smith-Corona
Marchant Inc., and then SCM Corporation) stock for one share of
Kleinschmidt Laboratories’. Bud Mead was elected a director and a member
of the executive committee. Later, he became vice president of
operations. When Smith-Corona merged with Marchant Calculators, Inc.
(June, 1958), he was made executive vice president; then, in October of
1960, he was named president of Smith-Corona Marchant Inc. (now known as
SCM Corporation).
Kleinschmidt, as a Division of SCM Corporation, continues to supply the
Military and also commercial users with teleprinter equipment. The
conclusion of this chapter tells briefly the direction the Kleinschmidt
Division is going in the printed communications field.
Before the Kleinschmidt 100-words-per-minute teleprinter was put into
service on intercommunicating circuits, the operating speed on standard
circuits had been limited to 60 words per minute. Noting this important
change in operating speed, other manufacturers had to redesign their
teleprinter equipment to meet the new 100-words-per-minute speed.
Teletype Corporation came up with a new design, the No. 28, in which all
the type pallets are moveably mounted in a rectangular box that is
positioned to move a selected type pallet into printing position by a
system of levers operated in aggregate motions under control of the code
selecting mechanisms (fig. 15). When so positioned, a print hammer
strikes the type pallet to print the character.
Creed, in England, later brought out a new design, their No. 75, using a
segmented typewheel having four rows of type faces. The typewheel is set
in the selected printing position by a lever and linkage system
operating in aggregate motion under control of the code selecting
mechanism. To print the selected character, the typewheel is struck
against the printing paper (fig. 16).
Siemens and Halske, in Germany, produced their No. 100, a redesign of
the No. 15 Teletype, using lighter and faster moving parts for operation
at 100 words per minute. Among other improved features were a type bar
shift to replace the platen shift for printing letters or figures, and a
two-color ribbon which is automatically shifted to print in red or black
to distinguish between sent and received messages—a feature of
convenience in TELEX communication. The Siemens No. 100 was designed
especially for the TELEX system, operating at 66 words per minute, where
it is used extensively (fig. 17).
[Illustration: Fig. 15
Teletype Corporation Model 28 100-words-per-minute Teletypewriter
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
[Illustration: Fig. 16
Creed & Company Ltd. Model 75 Teleprinter with attachments
_Picture by courtesy of Creed & Co. Ltd._]
[Illustration: Fig. 17
Siemens & Halske Model 100 Teleprinter
_Picture by courtesy of Siemens & Halske_]
The Kleinschmidt printer, designed to operate at 100 to 150 words a
minute, employs a new method for operating a typebar printing mechanism,
comprising a type basket movable across the printed page and carrying
the required set of type bars. Each type bar has a connected push rod
extending to the rear of the type basket and is made operative to cause
printing when a rotating finger, selectively positioned by a coded stop
cage, is struck against the push rod. To meet the requirements of the
Military for a teleprinter operable in any angular position, the letter
spacing and carriage return with deceleration to the stop position is
under positive control of the motor drive.
[Illustration: Kleinschmidt Division of SCM Corporation AN/FGC-25
Send-Receive Fixed-Station Teletypewriter Set (used by the
Military)]
In 1948, scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories, engaged in
semiconductor research, announced the birth of their famous brainchild,
the transistor. Now the little transistor and his friends, the diode and
advanced techniques in electromagnetic inductive devices, have gradually
taken over in the communications field, permitting startling speed
increases and changes in equipment design.
In the 100-words-per-minute teletypewriters, the permutation code
equivalent of the character to be transmitted or received was at some
point “set up” mechanically by positioning levers or vanes. The inertial
properties of these mechanical parts placed low-level limitations on the
operating set-up speed. By using the binary code and electronic
switching circuits, the set-up time has been reduced from milliseconds
to microseconds, making higher speeds more easily obtainable. Also,
electronic approaches to printing on page or tape have contributed to
the speed-up of telegraph receiving devices. Now, both tape and page
devices are available at operating speeds up to 10,000 words per minute.
Thanks to the Bell System, also, is the development of Data-Phone
service, started in 1958. Data-Phone makes use of all the telephone
switching devices and repeating apparatus so that any type of
communicating system using frequencies within the voice range may be
used. For such systems the telephone company will install equipment to
separate the different types of electrical transmission to prevent
interference. Because Data-Phone enables not only the sound of the human
voice to be sent over a telephone circuit, but information from a
teletypewriter or business machine as well, this new use for the
telephone system has expanded its service to many types of business
communications. At this writing, the Bell System advertises, “Data-Phone
‘talks’ 16 times faster than people talk. It can send punched card or
taped data anywhere—at speeds up to 2500 words per minute.”
While these advances have been taking place, the transistor and its
companions have made a similar impact in the field of data processing.
The rapid evolution of computers and other high-speed switching devices
has generated a need for higher speed equipment to supply input and
output requirements. The changeover to electronics has realized
minification, lighter weight, reduction of mechanical parts with a
corresponding reduction in maintenance, quieter operation, and greater
adaptability to code and language conversion.
KLEINSCHMIDT DIVISION OF SCM CORPORATION
At the Kleinschmidt Division where Mr. Emilio J. Cadamagnani, Executive
Vice President, is in charge, their engineering department, under the
supervision of Mr. Robert L. Kearney, is keeping up with the change from
electromechanically- to electronically-controlled devices. Their new
Model 311 Electronic Data Printer shown here is an example. Operating at
speeds from 60 to 400 words per minute and capable of receiving 5-, 6-,
7-, or 8-level code information in either serial or parallel form, it is
designed for use in high-speed communications or data processing
systems.
Also illustrated is still another new Kleinschmidt device, the Model 321
Automatic Data Set, which includes not only a page printer with keyboard
but a tape perforator and a tape reader, all compactly mounted in a
console.
Both the Model 311 and Model 321 are compatible with existing data
modems, conventional printing telegraph equipment, electronic computers,
and data processing equipment. This compatibility permits their use in
on-line or off-line communications and data-handling applications.
More exciting devices may be anticipated in the rapidly moving field of
printed communications.
[Illustration: Kleinschmidt Division of SCM Corporation
Model 311 Electronic Data Printer]
[Illustration: Kleinschmidt Division of SCM Corporation
Model 321 Automatic Data Set]
Footnotes
[1]_Der Pendel-Telegraph von Siemens & Halske_, by E. Ehrhardt, 6 Jan.
1917.
[2]_Telegraphy, A Detailed Exposition of the Telegraph System of the
British Post Office_, by T. E. Herbert, Fourth Edition (with
Addendum), Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., London, 1920.
[3]“Teletype’s Salty Past,” _The AP World_, Autumn 1962, p. 29.
[4]_AP, The Story of News_, by Oliver Gramling, illustrated by Henry C.
Barrow, Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., New York-Toronto, 1940.
[5]“Some Recollections of AP’s First Field Maintenance Man,” _The AP
World_, Autumn 1962, p. 28.
[6]“Some Recollections of AP’s First Field Maintenance Man,” _The AP
World_, Autumn 1962, p. 28.
[7]See page 30.
[8]_The Romance of Time_, by Brooks Palmer for The Clock Manufacturers
Association of America, Inc., New Haven, Conn., 1954 (copies may be
purchased from American Clock & Watch Museum, Inc., 100 Maple
Street, Bristol, Conn.).
[9]“$30,000,000 Worth of Teletype,” _Fortune_, March 1932.
[10]“$30,000,000 Worth of Teletype,” _Fortune_, March 1932.
[11]“Walter J. Zenner Retires,” _Teletype News_, February 1964.
[12]_Telegraphy_, by J. W. Freebody, Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd.,
London, 1958.
[13]From brochure published by American Telephone and Telegraph Company,
1-9-28.
[14]“Communications from Morse to Satellites,” by George A. Shaw, RCA
Communications, Inc., _Wire and Radio Communications_, Sept. 1962.
[15]“Telex in the U.S.A.,” _Communications & Electronics_, Sept. 1962.
[16]National Military Establishment, Dept. of the Army, Wash. 25, D.C.,
for release Sunday, Feb. 13, 1949.
Transcriber’s Notes
—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.
—Corrected a few palpable typographical errors.
—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.
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