TY  - BOOK
AU  - Standage,Tom
TI  - The Victorian internet: the remarkable story of the telegraph and the nineteenth centuryʾs on-line pioneers 
SN  - 0425171698 (pbk.: alk.paper)
AV  - TK 5115 S785v 1999
PY  - 1998///
CY  - New York
PB  - Walker and Co.
KW  - Telegraph
KW  - History
KW  - Telégrafo
KW  - Historia
N1  - Includes bibliographical references (p. [214]-217) and index; The mother of all networks
Strange, fierce fire
Electric skeptics
The thrill electric
Wiring the world
Steam-powered messages
Codes, hackers, and cheats
Love over the wires
War and peace in the global village
Information overload
Decline and fall
The legacy of the telegraph
N2  - A colorful tale of scientific discovery and technological cunning, The Victorian Internet tells the story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it. By 1865 telegraph cables spanned continents and oceans, revolutionizing the ways countries dealt with one another. The telegraph gave rise to creative business practices and new forms of crime. Romances blossomed over the wires. Secret codes were devised by some users, and cracked by others. The benefits of the network were relentlessly hyped by its advocates and dismissed by its skeptics. And attitudes toward everything from news gathering to war had to be completely rethought." "The telegraph unleashed the greatest revolution in communications since the development of the printing press. Its saga offers many parallels to that of the Internet in our own time--and is a fascinating episode in the history of technology. Book jacket
ER  -