Samuel Morse. However, maybe we should call it Vail code after Alfred Vail, who may be its real inventor. Haven’t heard of him? You aren’t alone. Yet he was behind the first telegraph key and ...

He developed Morse code as a rival to Cook and Wheatstone’s telegraph. It was simple and cheap and became popular quickly. In the 1850s Morse’s single wire cable system was working all over ...

Morse’s original plan for code was based on how semaphore systems worked. Messages would appear in a dictionary, and each message would be assigned a number. The telegraph produced an inked line ...