mcvey home

telegraphic codes and message practice

introduction

directory of scans and transcriptions of codes

by year of publication, points to my (uneven) discussions, and to location of digitized codes. divided by

telegraphic codes and

signal codes

recent developments (and news)

about (the directory of digitized codes, etc.)

grouped and/or extended discussions

A.B.C. Telegraphic Codes (seven editions 1873-1936)

A. C. Baldwin (1804-87) — pastor, telegraph lexicographer, poet

J. S. Buell (his code and prospectus, 1860)

Frederic George McCutcheon (his codes 1885-1908)

Mercuur and Kleine Mercuur codes (1891-1913)

Edmund Peycke (his codes 1900-1918)

William Shepard Wetmore (his codes 1873-1880)

the universal telegraphy of Escayrac de Lauture (1826-68)

The China Republican Telegraphic Code (1915) (preliminary, needs a lot of work)

catalogue codes

cotton codes

figure codes

government and colonial administration codes new / 3 October 2018

ice codes — International Code for Polar Ice (Kobenhavn 1937)

mining codes

observational codes (includes weather and astronomical)

police and forensic codes

railroad codes

religious /missionary codes

signal codes

a new and improved signal codes page is under development; refer to main directory of scanned telegraphic and signal codes first.

notes on all other scanned codes (see directory first)

condensers

used to convert figures (generated by figure codes) into secure artificial codewords

(connection with rotor-principle cipher machines)

specimen pages

descriptions, analysis and images of various codes (many unavailable online); provides overview

elementary signs

letters

pictures 1 (1910-24; include lead type)

pictures 2 (1920-30s; integrated phototelegraphic systems)

signs

margins

chess codes

A C Booth, Picture Telegraphy

telautography

other

resources (contemporary treatments, &c.)

telegraphic codes in literature (deleted once; gradually restoring and augmenting as of 4 sep 2016)

telegraphese and telegraphese — caveat emptor — .pdf

tweets — #codephrase



summary

Dictionaries of phrases and codewords or cipher components were commonly used in the age of telegraphy to compress messages and thereby economize on wire costs, and to achieve some secrecy for communications.

There were different kinds of codes, different arrangements of phrase matter, different means of assembling and dis-assembling messages. Typically, a sender would choose from the dictionary’s selections those phrases or expressions (about the quality of cotton, for example) that satisfied his intentions, and take the codewords associated with the selections. It is the coded message, packaged for transport, that would be processed and sent along its way by the telegraph or cable company. The recipient of the message would unpack its original meanings by looking the code words up in another copy of the same dictionary — they were listed in alphabetical order — or by following a sequence of other procedures to arrive at the meaning.

Thousands of codes were published or issued privately, but they are largely forgotten now. They present a finely-grained window into their respective domains and their time. And they provide instances of sometimes stunning visual, technical, lexicographic and unwitting poetic achievement.

A list of codes for which a digital scan is available can be found here. For a number of these codes, I provide some descriptive and analytical information, as well as images showing characteristic details (e.g., use of tables, phrase sequences, etc.).



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