PRINTING TELEGRAPHY ...
A NEW ERA BEGINS

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.

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).

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.

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.