FROM THE TELEGRAPH TO THE TELEX:
A HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY, EARLY NETWORKS AND ISSUES
IN FRANCE IN THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES
by PATRICE A. CARRE
Patrice A. CARRÉ is an historian specializing in communications and information technologies. He directs the Historical Collection of France Telecom at the Centre National d'Etudes des Télécommunications (CNET). He is the author and co-author of numerous books and articles on the history of telecommunications: L'histoire des télécommunications en France; and Le télex: quarante ans d'innovation, among others. In addition to an historical approach of the conditions in which innovation occurs, his work also provides socio-cultural analysis of technical phenomena. In collaboration with A Beltran, he has published La Fée et la Servante, and co-edited, with J. de Noblet, a special issue of Culture Technique (no. 24) dealing with the techniques and uses of communication. At present, his research concentrates on Europe (telecommunications, audiovisual, and the consumer society).
An attempt to trace a history of the telex service in France would appear at first sight to be a relatively secondary and, on balance, quite simple undertaking. Confined to well- defined sectors, telex seems a marginal tool. Easily situated chronologically, the service has definite beginnings (origins) and, if not an end, at least something resembling a culminating point with the telltale signs of a slow decline and impending demise. But the history of telex is more complex than may at first appear. Although, by and large, it followed the same pace as the growth of telecommunications in France,1 it had a relatively separate development subject to different tensions and patterns. A closer examination of this development must focus on the conjunction of network history and business corporation history.
What is meant by telex? Is it a network? In ordinary language, the word telex designates a document. A telex message that has "just come in" announcing this or that event is of the nature of a despatch, instant news belonging to the realm of event reporting. As such, it is an important element in the history of the press.2 In the history of communication techniques, the word telex also designates a terminal. For the less technically inclined, "a telex" is a kind of oversized typewriter known (more or less) to be linked - connected - to other machines to form a network of machines used to communicate text.
The word "telex" is a contraction of te/eprinting and exchange. Telex is, thus, a service enabling subscribers to send each other written messages by means of teleprinters. And telex is also an exchange-based switched network, with teleprinters communicating over this independent network, the telex network, as distinguished, both physically and operationally, from telephone networks. What characterizes basically a telecommunications network is the concept of possible connections between a large number of terminals.
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