GPTSheildTechnology Archive
7-step trail

From writing to instant communication

Seven steps in the shrinking of the distance between sender and receiver, from the clay tablet to the cell phone.

Suggested order

The trail begins with writing, which separates the message from the person who produced it. Paper and printing made records cheaper and more numerous. With the telegraph, the message no longer depended on physical transport; the telephone and radio brought the voice; mobile phones carried communication to the person rather than the place.

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  1. Writing as a Technology of Record-Keeping and Administration

    Writing arose independently in more than one region, often tied to administration. See its materials, scribes, the alphabet, and the limits of ancient literacy.

    6 min read · Communication

  2. The Path of Paper as an Information Medium

    Paper emerged in China and spread across Asia, the Islamic world and Europe, cutting the cost of writing and preparing the ground for printing.

    6 min read · Communication

  3. The Printing Press and Large-Scale Reproduction

    Movable type had Asian antecedents; in Mainz, Gutenberg's workshop combined a type mold, alloy, ink and press into a system for producing books.

    7 min read · Communication

  4. The Telegraph and the Beginning of Electrical Communication

    Developed by many inventors in the 1830s and 1840s, the electric telegraph made information travel faster than trains and ships and reshaped railways, the press, and markets.

    6 min read · Communication

  5. The Evolution of the Telephone

    The telephone grew out of collective and contested research on sending the voice over wires, and evolved from manual switchboards to global digital networks.

    6 min read · Communication

  6. Radio and Wireless Transmission

    How the theory of electromagnetic waves became ship-to-shore wireless telegraphy and then broadcasting, with patent disputes, the vacuum tube, FM, and spectrum regulation.

    7 min read · Communication

  7. The Evolution of Mobile Phones

    The mobile phone grew from three ideas: divide territory into cells, reuse frequencies, and shrink the handset, a path that ran from car radios to smartphones.

    6 min read · Communication

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