Communication technology may sound like a modern advancement, right? Contrary to whatever many people believe, communication technologies have been around a very, very long time. Well before electronic communication came around in fact.
You may think something along the lines of Morse code as an early digital technology? Try again.... perhaps a few thousand years before Samuel Morse sent the first famous Morse code telegraph ‘What hath god wrought’ digital communication was everywhere.
Digits were a very early form of digital communication. Civilisation used their digits, (fingers) as a simple technology to communicate numbers and small mathematical problems. Before people developed the word ‘five’ or symbol 5 they would use five fingers to digitally convey the intended message. You would recognise this finger-reckoning arithmetic if you have ever tried to buy yourself lunch in a country with a different national language to that of your own. In Saudi Arabia a sandwich on a menu might cost خمسة دولارات, which quite frankly means nothing to me. But a gesture of 5 fingers would break down the language barrier, and communicate the price of that item to me. No need to go hungry thanks to your own personal digits.
In the same way that fingers were used to communicate a message, the world around was once a common tool. As someone could communicate ‘five’ with their hands, five pebbles, sticks, lines in the sand... any number of objects could digitally convey and intended message.
The Greek and Arabic nations were pioneers in early mathematical communication technologies, and advanced from fingers and objects to the counting boards and The Abacus. Instead of using whatever happened to be at hand to communicate, tools were created for the sole purpose of counting. These tools were especially useful for trading goods between two parties. A buyer and seller could calculate and communicate prices clearly, helping to minimize any confusion, especially when dealing with more complicated sums – The very early origins of a cash register.
And what about the native American Indians? They too made use of digital technology, as well as utilising their own physical digits for simple mathematic communication, they are known for their use of digital smoke signals to communicate a message long distance. Smoke signals were simple messages sent, not in giant words written in the sky as Disney may have you believe, but in a digital code. Messages were secret, there was no one standardized code common to all tribes. Two friendly tribes may have set up a communication system that only the agreed parties would be able to translate. If we want to think of this in modern times, imagine you and your best mate live 5km’s from each other. I’m not at all condoning urban fires here, but you could potentially set up a similar system...
One puff of smoke could mean ‘Come over, bring food’, two puffs could mean ‘Come over, bring beer’ and three puffs ‘SEND HELP MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE!’
Far too much trouble for anyone to bother with today, besides cub scouts and Bear Grylls, but would have been very useful to warn a nearby tribe of a pending invasion much faster than a man on his horse ever could. Who knows, it might be useful next time I lose my mobile phone.
Sticks, Abacus and a roaring fire... and I didn’t even begin to talk about the use of flags, drums, and trumpets... the list goes on. If we look back to Marshall McLuhan definition of technology ‘and extension of ourselves’ we can see these are clearly all communication technology, and technically they are indeed digital. They may not be exactly what I counted as Digital communication technology before today, but I guess it just goes to show exactly how far and fast technology has come.
History of the abacus- http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/history.html
Maths - http://www.everythingmath.net/mathematics-history.php
Arabic Maths -http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/HistTopics/Arabic_mathematics.html
Smoke signals - http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/native/sign/smoke-signal.htm
Translator - http://translate.google.com.au/translate_t?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&q=five+dollars&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sl=en&tl=ar&sa=X&ei=gElzTKiJBIbQuAOvhJnADg&ved=0CBcQrgYwAA#\
Morse Code - http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventors/ig/Samuel-Morse---Patent/First-Telegraph-Message.htm\
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