Curated Exhibit Project - Maddie M.
Evolution of Digital Communication
Enabled by the Internet
Enabled by the Internet
The exhibit is organized chronologically by the date of the artifacts' invention. The purpose of this exhibit is to explore the evolution of digital communication and its significance in history because of the direct changes in the materiality, functionality, and intentionality that were crucial in staying up to date with our constantly advancing society.
Artifact Descriptions: Name of Artifact, Date of Artifact's Creation, Purpose.
Artifact 1 - The Picturephone, 1964, early equivalent to facetiming.
First on display at the 1964 World's Fair, the Picturephone swept the nation into the use of new technology that was never seen before. The functionality of this artifact was that you could talk to a person in a different area while also seeing them on the small TV-like screen. In terms of materiality, you would have to pick up the phone connected to the monitor in order to hear them and for them to hear you. Calls on this device could usually only last about three minutes and cost an equivalent back then to about sixteen dollars. Pictured above we can see the device being used in New York in 1965 by a member of an orphan choir singing to a member at the White House. The intentionality of this device was to make it easier to communicate with people over long distances (Darlin, 2014).
Artifact 2 - ARPANET, 1969, first internet network.
The ARPANET, Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, was established in 1969. The intentionality of the ARPANET was that it was the first wide-area network that could connect multiple devices. It is considered to be the beginning of the modern internet that connects all of our devices today. It worked by using innovative technology to send and receive data with a build-in error correction, which was new in its time. It connected computers through satellite links. When it was first introduced, ARPANET was rarely used because it was such a foreign and new technology (Navarria, 2016).
Artifact 3 - The Picturephone Mod II, 1970, early equivalent to facetiming.
The Picturephone Mod II was introduced in the 1970s, after the initial introduction of the Picturephone Mod I. The functionality of this artifact was that it offered a full-motion black and white picture with a higher resolution than the Mod I. The intentionality of this artifact was to improve the quality of the Mod I picturephone. By improving the software and external factors of this device, it became the early version of video conferencing and benefitted many in its time. Another unique aspect of this artifact was that it included anti-crash software which protected the lengths that people could video call for (Edwards, 2022).
Artifact 4 - SNDMSG, 1971, early email program.
SNDMSG was an early form of an email program that allowed users to send and receive single messages at a time. It is considered to be the first form of a real networked email program. The message "command is used by a display station user to send an immediate message from his display station to one or more message queues... The message can be sent to the system operator, to other display station users, to a user's message queue, all currently active users' message queues, or to the system history log, QHST. The sender can require a reply from the message receiver. The primary users of this command are displayed station users and the system operator" (IBM, n.d.). Although there were many benefits to this program, there were also many restrictions which were normal because it was still a new program. There were limits on word count and types of messages sent.
Artifact 5 - The "@" symbol, 1971, established the first email program to ARPANET and identification of email addresses.
In 1971, Ray Tomlinson decided to create his own networked messaging program. He is the person behind the creation of the famous "@" symbol which comes before our email addresses. According to Ray Tomlinson himself, "I saw an opportunity to extend that to users on other computers because now we had a network connection that we could use to transfer the mailbox information from one machine to the other. I put that together in late 1971. I combined the SNDMSG program we had, which was used within a single computer, and a little experimental file-transfer program I had made. ARPANET was very young and looking for problems it could solve. I had an experimental file-transfer protocol, but the real one was still in the works. I didn’t want to wait for that, so I wrote a simple little one for my own use and glued that onto the SNDMSG program so I could send the mailbox file to another computer, where the receiver’s mailbox was. That was the first networked email in some sense (Hicks, 2012).
Artifact 6 - The Queen's first email, 1976, Queen Elizabeth's first email message sent on ARPANET.
This artifact is of the first-ever royal-sent email over ARPANET. It was sent by Queen Elizabeth in March of 1976 when she went to visit the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment which was an early telecommunications research center in England during an engagement at a military base. The materiality of this artifact is that the message consisted of an email account, a computer, ARPANET, and a signature. The intentionality of this artifact is that it shows how people have continued to embrace new technologies throughout history.
Artifact 7 - The Videophone, 1992, early version of facetime/video calling.
This artifact is the Videophone, produced by AT&T in 1992. Benj Edwards (2022), the videophone sent jerky, slightly off-sync color video at ten frames per second over regular phone lines, which, compared to previous technologies for video conferencing and video messaging, was a large step in the history of digital communication enabled by the internet. The cost of the phone was a little bit more than $1500 dollars in 1992, which was expensive to many. Businesses mostly purchased these phones as opposed to regular individuals because of the cost.
Artifact 8 - Skype, 2003, videoconferencing and voice calls.
This artifact was introduced as a software client in 2003 and included voice, video, and instant messaging capabilities. Britannica (2020) describes how the Luxembourg-based company had approximately 50 million registered users just 2 years after its initial launch. The functionality of this artifact is that it operates by converting analog sounds of the human voice into digital information which is then transmitted over the internet, and translated back to the receiver's end. This artifact is significant because it marked a revolutionary point in digital communication by creating a clear, updated form of video and audio communication over the internet.
Artifact 9 - Facetime, 2010, video conferencing, video calls, audio calls.
Facetime was introduced by the company Apple in 2010. This application provided the same benefits as Skype did, which is stated in the previous artifact. Facetime allows for users to make audio and video calls, the only downside is that the devices are required to be Apple products in order to use this communication technology. Since its creation, Facetime has developed to the point where multiple people can join the facetime call, video effects are available, and even movies can be watched over a call with multiple people (Owen, n.d.).
Zoom was introduced in 2011 and within five months, it already had over one million different people. Zoom is a video conferencing telecommunications software that allows people to communicate over distances rather. As time has gone on, the functionality of Zoom has expanded from video conferencing to having business portfolios for its users, Zoom for mobile phones, and Zoom Events (Kent, 2022).
References
Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia (2020, November 19). Skype. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/technology/Skype
Darlin, D. (2014, June 26). How the future looked in 1964: The picturephone. The New York Times. Retrieved March 11, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/upshot/how-the-future-looked-in-1964-the-picturephone.html
Edwards, B. (2022, March 12). History of video calls: From fantasy to flops to Facetime. PC World. Retrieved March 11, 2022, from https://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/slideshow/350404/history-video-calls-from-fantasy-flops-facetime/
Hicks, J. (2012, May 2). Ray Tomlinson, the inventor of email: 'I see email being used, by and large, exactly the way I envisioned'. The Verge. Retrieved March 11, 2022, from https://www.theverge.com/2012/5/2/2991486/ray-tomlinson-email-inventor-interview-i-see-email-being-used
IBM. (n.d.). Send message (SNDMSG). Retrieved March 12, 2022, from https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.2?topic=ssw_ibm_i_72%2Fcl%2Fsndmsg.htm
Kent, D. (2022, February 28). The history of Eric Yuan's zoom. News about Slack, Microsoft Teams, Webex & Team Collaboration. Retrieved March 12, 2022, from https://dispatch.m.io/eric-yuan-zoom/
Left, S. (2002, March 13). Email timeline. The Guardian. Retrieved March 11, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2002/mar/13/internetnews
Navarria, G. (2022, March 10). How the internet was born: From the ARPANET to the internet. The Conversation. Retrieved March 11, 2022, from https://theconversation.com/how-the-internet-was-born-from-the-arpanet-to-the-internet-68072
Owen, M. (n.d.). FaceTime: SharePlay, features, compatibility. AppleInsider. Retrieved March 11, 2022, from https://appleinsider.com/inside/facetime
Skype. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2022, from https://www.skype.com/en/
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