created 2025-05-10, & modified, =this.modified
tags:y2025communicationtechnology
rel: Sensorama Computers As Theater by Brenda Laurel
In 1895 Ernest A. Hummel electronically transmitted scanned shellac on metal foil pictures over dedicated circuits between the NY Herald and four other newspapers.
The device was called the Telediagraph. It was similar to to a fax machine that could send hand drawn images over telegraph wire.
The looked like this
This developed in an experimental way for several decades until in 1929 Vladimir Zworykin, the pivotal television system inventor, came up with a system that could scan and transmit in under a minute, enabling wide- spread adoption within the newspaper industry—which repurposed the already robust voice telephone system to carry the new “Wirephoto” data.
