Chapter 274 Chap's "Telegram"

"Mr. Burns, Betty, I need you to detail such a feasible plan for me."

In the lord's office, Paul was talking to a picture hanging on the wall. Also sitting in the room were Guy Burns, Betty Dias, Ladi Setia and others.

The content of the picture hanging on the wall is of a stone tower, which looks like a guard tower, but what is strange is that there is a strange device standing on the top of the tower.

That one is a wooden frame, with two bent "arms" extending out of the wooden frame.

Guy Burns asked with great interest: "What novel invention is this of yours?"

"Oh! This is an amazing thing, or an amazing system."

"I call it - [Emergency Reporting Station], or [Rocker Arm Signaling System], used to transmit emergency information."

"Lord Earl, if I guess correctly, you are trying to use the two [arms] on the wooden frame to make different shapes to convey different messages."

"Aha! Burns, you are really my soulmate! Yes, this invention was inspired by beacon fire, but as you know, the amount of information that beacon fire can convey is too limited, so I thought of the semaphore and added a little After improvement, it looks like this. You see, each shape represents a letter or a number, and then combined they form a complete sentence or a complete paragraph.”

Paul introduced his "invention" without a blush or a heartbeat: "We build such emergency reporting stations at certain distances, called [base stations], where specialized personnel are stationed waiting to receive signals from other emergency reporting battles. . Starting from the first station, the information is passed from station to station like a baton until it reaches the final station.”

"In the past, due to the limited vision of human eyes, it was a bit unrealistic to build such a system, but with telescopes, it is completely feasible. We only need to build a few emergency reporting stations to cause long-term Information transmission over distance.”

Burns marveled: "This is really an amazing invention."

Did Paul invent this? Of course not. The real inventor of this [optical telegraph] was the Frenchman Claude Chap.

In northern France in 1791, Claude Chape and his brothers designed a "telegraph" system for optically transmitting information over long distances. It took them 4 minutes to successfully transmit a sentence 16 kilometers away, which was faster than what was used at the time. The stagecoaches and ships are much faster.

This is a system that relies entirely on manual operation. The signalman stationed inside moves the indicating arm according to specific rules. Every time the indicating arm of the signal tower moves into a shape, it means that a signal has been sent. Different signal stations play Just pick up the dragon and the message will be passed on.

Compared with a real telegraph, the efficiency of information transmission is very "touching". A skilled operator can output up to 3 signals per minute. According to statistics, a complete message at that time consisted of an average of 36 signals, which meant that even if the best operators were used throughout the system, the system could only deliver 0.083 messages per minute. If it is windy or rainy or the operator is in a bad mood, whether the message can be sent out depends on luck.

However, even with this alarming signaling system, the information transmission efficiency was enough to beat the human flesh transmission of the same era.

It developed into an industry and served government enterprises during peacetime. By 1840, France had built a 5,000-kilometer communication network and 356 base stations. A total of thousands of such "telegraph" towers were built across Europe, which can be regarded as the first generation of information highways. .

In Alexandre Dumas's novel "The Count of Monte Cristo", the count bribed the telegraph operator to send out wrong messages, causing Danglars to lose money in speculation, and then withdrew all the money he had deposited in Danglars' bank. I couldn't pay and ended up going bankrupt.

Paul was very fortunate that the language system in this world was an alphabetic script similar to Latin. If it were like cuneiform, it would be really urgent.

"Burns, I need you to set up an operating device so that the operator can easily swing the rocker arm into different shapes."

Burns stood up and bowed to Paul: "I am honored to be a part of your great invention."

"Haha, it's our great invention."

Paul corrected him with a smile, and then he turned to Betty, the education director: "As for you, the master of linguistics, I need you to design a coding system-what shapes represent what letters or numbers. Ladi, you are also a knowledgeable scholar. Hope you can help."

Ladi nodded and responded: "Yes, Lord Grayman!"

Betty pursed her lips and said nothing. With her appearance, she looked quite different now.

Her reaction made Paul feel strange. He didn't seem to offend her much recently.

Now that business is more important, Paul continued to give instructions: "There are also some very important aspects, such as how to judge the start and end of a piece of information, and how to verify the integrity of a piece of information. The other is [congestion control]. To use an analogy, when an intersection There are carriages coming from different directions, so we should do whatever we can to make them pass smoothly."

"In addition, we call ordinary codes [Mingwen], which can be used to transmit some non -sensitive information that does not involve confidential, but sensitive information should be used for two codes on the basis of bright text, or encryption. The enemy's spy does not have to do anything. Every day, you can explore what confidential information we pass at the squatting point near our base station.

Seeing that Miss Director still did not respond, Paul said in doubt:

"Uh ... I said Betty, Bernus is mainly responsible for the design of the operation of the device. His focus is still on the development of new texture machines, so the overall construction of the system I want you to be responsible. How long does it take to go from Fulan Port to Lake Town to Butuya? "

There is no mistake, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one 619, one book, one, one, one, one, one, one, a book!

Betty, or Irene, the brows finally moved. After thinking about it, I answered: "This requires experiments. Master Earl must first determine the best distance between the two [base stations] through experiments, and then determine the quantity. Select the number, choose Route, estimated costs ... In addition, it also includes the training of personnel, it also takes time. "

"I immediately greeted the Ford's General Manager and regarded the construction of the urgent reporting system as the first priority of expenditure!"

After the Yanmin riot a few days ago, Paul felt that the current news was too slow. After the rocker's signal system is completed, Huxin Town can relatively timely perceive the wind and grass that occurs in the territory, and the command issued by the lord's house can be quickly issued to the place.

The transmission method of information is related to whether a regime can effectively control the territory under its governance.

"I urgently hope to build a whole system that runs through Alida, Bayerdin and Elden in half a year."

Irene picked his eyebrows and said, "I will work hard at this purpose, but Lord Earl, provided that the affairs officers of the government office will not regard my female leader. Can't do it. "

ha! Paul knew why the education supervisor had a small temper, and her feelings were the emergency meeting held after the riots did not notify her to participate.