Tag: telephony

On Telephones and Architecture

It may sound ridiculous to say that [Alexander Graham] Bell and his successors were the fathers of modern commercial architecture–of the skyscraper. But wait a minute. Take the Singer Building, the Flatiron Building, the Broad Exchange, the Trinity, or any of the giant office buildings. How many messages do you suppose go in and out of those buildings every day? Suppose there was no telephone and every message had to be carried by a personal messenger? How much room do you think the necessary elevators would leave for offices? Such structures would be an economic impossibility.

John J. Carty (—), first head of Bell Laboratories, 1908

 

Bob Frankston on Communications

Watched Triangulation 4: Bob Frankston by Leo Laporte and Tom Merritt from TWiT Network
Computer pioneer who helped create the first spreadsheet, Bob Frankston, is this week's guest.
On a recent episode of Leo Laporte and Tom Merrit’s show Triangulation, they interviewed Bob Frankston of VisiCalc fame. They gave a great discussion of the current state of broadband in the U.S. and how it might be much better.  They get just a bit technical in places, but it’s a fantastic and very accessible discussion of the topic of communications that every American should be aware of.