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Berlin - 1926
Amidst the clatter and clang of the lab, Dr. Erich Budelmann tapped his pencil nervously on his desk as he scrutinized the device before him.
The air hung heavy with the smell of oil and hot metal in his small workshop at the Berlin Institute of Technology. He wiped his brow and took a deep breath, fully grasping the significance of the moment.
Years of obsession had led to this—long nights puzzling over circuit diagrams by dim lamp light, hands stained with machine oil and graphite.
His young daughters had scarcely seen him away from his workshop this past year, his wife begging him to rest through an endless parade of dinners left untouched.
But now, on the brink at last, he felt that familiar mix of excitement and fear well up inside him, the very same emotion that gripped him whenever a radical new idea was finally made flesh in metal and wire.
Gingerly, he flipped the switch on the device he had labored weeks to construct.
It was crude still, merely a printing apparatus connected by cables to a telephone receiver. As electricity hummed gently through its circuits, he tapped a brief message in Morse code—the very first characters transmitted purely as electronic signals through standard telephone lines.
Immensely simple, yet revolutionary.
The message tapped out with crisp finality—"Eureka!"
He watched expectantly as the printer chattered to life, transcribing those five letters in German as they emerged from the fluctuations of electric current.
Dr. Budelmann smiled proudly—his telex machine was alive!
No longer would communications be shackled by mere paper and ink. Distance and time were conquered.
A new electric age had begun.
The advent of the telex machine in 1926 marked a revolutionary advancement in global communication.
Invented in Germany by the pioneering physicist Dr. Erich Budelmann, this innovative technology enabled written messages to be rapidly transmitted across vast distances using existing telephone lines.
For the first time, people could reliably send time-sensitive information and correspondence electronically rather than relying on the vagaries of postal delivery.
Upon transmission, the classic telex machine would noisily spring to life—clacking, clicking and whirring as the spinning print head etched out letters onto paper.
This iconic cacophony became a familiar backdrop to office life for decades, the audible pulse of global business and diplomacy conducted securely through an ever-expanding web of teleprinters.
At the heart of Budelmann’s ingenious invention lay the conversion of written text into electrical impulses.
By encoding letters and numbers into signaling current, messages could suddenly transcend vast physical distances.
Rapidly, an intricate web of wires and switching stations transformed existing telephone networks into the nervous system of a mechanized global communications breakthrough.
Like ripples in a pond, the disruptive technology spread rapidly outwards from its German origin.
By the 1930s, teleprinters chatted away in major cities across Europe, North America, Asia and Africa.
The world watched in wonder as information circulated at unprecedented speed. Businesses, newspapers and governments marveled at this communications revolution that collapsed the constraints of time and space.
By the 1980s, over 3 million telex machines worldwide spun endlessly, facilitating the modern fast-paced exchange of commerce, news and state relations.
For the first half of the 20th century, no technology held more disruptive capacity to radically connect the planet.
The once limiting factor of geographic distance had been overcome through Budelmann’s ingenious electric telegraph. Messages darted instantly across continents along the invisible lines of communication that remade the modern world.
As telex networks proliferated, they began to reveal many eccentricities and vulnerabilities inherent in this disruptive new communications portal.
Telephone calls could be suddenly interrupted by the higher priority afforded to incoming telex messages transmitted across the same lines.
This unpredictability, while disruptive, underscored the telex’s status as the premiere rapid messaging system amongst businesses and governments.
The costs involved in operating the telex also produced some interesting innovations.
Teleprinter communications incurred charges based on the number of letters sent.
To economize on lengthy messages, users began encoding abbreviated forms and shorthand codes which then grew into a vocabulary all their own. “CUL8R” for “See you later,” and “HMU” for “Hit me up,” joined the telex lexicon.
For all its capacity to accelerate information exchange, the telex was not at all a secure channel. It was discovered that telex messages sent as electrical impulses across telephone wires could easily be intercepted by third parties.
Of grave concern to diplomats and spies alike, simple wire taps could compromise sensitive communications. Code words and encryption rapidly became standard practice to protect state and commercial secrets.
So while the telex transformed global connections, it was still rife with the idiosyncrasies of any new technology—interruptions, expenses, and vulnerabilities.
Yet around these limitations, ingenious users and operators adapted the machine’s capabilities to meet the unpredictable demands of a planet in communication.
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While most of the world rushed eagerly towards computerized modes of communication in the late 20th century, one nation bucked the trend considerably by holding steadfast to the aging telex technology.
In many countries, the telex networks had been dismantled by the 1990s as faster and more versatile systems like fax and email rendered Budelmann’s system obsolete.
Yet remarkably, Nigeria’s telex terminals would continue clattering for another 20 years.
Despite the meteoric rise of the internet and mobile phones, Nigerian businesses and government offices continued using teleprinters long after the machines had become antiquated relics everywhere else.
By 2013 when the plug was finally pulled, Nigeria stood as one of the last countries still operating a live telex network.
While the rest of the planet enthusiastically embraced new technologies, Nigeria’s loyalty to anachronistic telex meant critical business and diplomatic functions were still reliant on Dr. Budelmann’s decades old innovation, even as the 21st century was well underway.
The Nigerian telex network’s unlikely longevity underscored how uneven technological adoption and disruption had been between the Western world and developing nations.
But by 2013 in Nigeria, electronic mail had finally superseded the spinning wheels of Erich Budelmann’s once revolutionary apparatus.
The telex machine took its place as a museum piece just about everywhere in the world.
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