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Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1991 20:33:50 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator <telecom> To: telecom Subject: History of Morkrum Company - Ancestor of Teletype Corporation

[Moderator's Note: Attached is a very interesting piece I received which is too large for a regular issue of the Digest. I thought it was fascinating and hope you feel the same way. PAT]

From: Jim Haynes haynes@cats.UCSC.EDU Subject: History of Morkrum Company - Ancestor of Teletype Corporation Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz

	A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MORKRUM COMPANY
                          Howard L. Krum
    	 	      circa 1925

		       ABSTRACT
This is a first-hand report of Teletype's early years.  Although the

original manuscript was found unsigned and undated, it has been positively identified as the work of Mr. Howard L. Krum, son of Mr. Charles L. Krum, a co-founder of the original Morkrum Company. The date of writing seems to have been somewhere between 1925 and 1928.

The fame of Howard Krum does not depend on his illustrious

parentage. His own contributions to the printing telegraph art, among them the invention of _stop-start synchronization_, were of lasting importance.

		     -----
In the year 1902, Mr. Joy Morton, nationally known as the founder

and head of the Morton Salt Company, became interested in the possibility of developing a printing telegraph system. He called Mr. Charles L. Krum, who was at that time Mechanical Engineer of the Western Cold Storage Company, into consultation on the matter. While cold storage seems rather a far cry from printing telegraph development, Mr. Krum had had considerable experience on the design of intricate mechanisms, including adding machines.

Inventors had been working on the development of printing telegraph

for forty years prior to this time but had not succeeded in producing apparatus which was simple and practical enough to find any market or any considerable use by the communication systems in the United States. As is the case with most others who started work on printing telegraph, Mr. Krum was fascinated with the possibilities of this development, and Mr. Morton agreed to go ahead with the proposition and finance it. How important this decision was did not become apparent for many years, as certainly no one realized the vast sums of money and the years of hard work which would have to be expended before satisfactory printing telegraph apparatus would be produced and widespread use made of it.

In 1906, Mr. Howard Krum received his degree in electrical

engineering and immediately started work with his father on this problem. The combination of the electrical engineer and the mechanical engineer proved to be a happy one and experiments were diligently prosecuted for a couple of years, until in 1908 a system was developed which looked good enough to try on an actual telegraph line. The first trial of this system was made on the lines of the Chicago & Alton Railroad. While operation was secured and the results were sufficiently satisfactory to cause the inventors to feel quite jubilant, still they were hard-headed enough to see the weak points of this system in the state of development in which it was at that time. The experience acquired in this actual line test of the apparatus was made the basis for further research, and after two more years of work, the start-stop printing telegraph system which has become the basis for all successful single channel printer systems of the present day, was born. The apparatus which embodied the start-stop system at that time bore little resemblance to the present apparatus but the principles of operation were there and the working out of them was sufficiently satisfactory to justify a commercial installation.

In their pursuit of a satisfactory system of transmission, the

mechanism for recording the signals was not neglected. Several different kinds of commercial typewriters were modified to perform the duty of recording the received signals, but strange as it may seem, it was found that commercial typewriters were not satisfactory for the rigorous job of recording telegraph signals. It was therefore found necessary to design a typewriter especially for this work.

These first tests also pointed out the advantages and superiority of

mechanical over electrical operation, with a result that all functions outside of the bare selection are now performed mechanically by the Teletype in its present form.

Having finally produced a system and apparatus which they felt

certain was commercially practical, the inventors were then faced with the necessity for finding a communication company who would permit the installation of this apparatus in regular commercial operation. The Postal Telegraph Company proved to be the most receptive and a commit- tee headed by Mr. Minor M. Davis, at that time Electrical Engineer for the Postal Telegraph Company, visited Chicago to investigate this new Morkrum system. It is interesting to note that Mr. Davis, who had years of experience in the telegraph business and who had seen many attempts at the development of a successful printing telegraph system, was not so much concerned in the actual functioning of the recording apparatus but was more concerned in learning if the basis of the system, that is, the line signal, was of a type which would function on ordinary telegraph lines in good weather and bad. After a thorough investigation of the system, he became convinced that the start-stop line signal devised by the Krums would meet the rigorous service requirements, and the committee decided to permit an actual commercial installation on the Postal lines between New York and Boston. This installation was made in the summer of 1910.

After years of work, the inventors felt that they had finally

reached their goal. The apparatus was packed and shipped and Mr. Howard Krum went to Boston to supervise the installation at that end of the circuit and Mr. Charles Krum went to New York to take care of the operations at that end. However, the difficulties were not yet over, for when the apparatus arrived at its destination it was found that due to rough handling the delicate instruments were so badly damaged that instead of proceeding with the installation they had to spend months of work to get the machines back in shape for operation. Finally the day came when everything was in readiness and the two sets, one at New York and one at Boston, were hooked together by a telegraph wire and the first commercial message was transmitted by the Morkrum system.

From the start good results were obtained, but as operation

continued the inventors realized more and more that the operating requirements for commercial telegraph service were terribly exacting. The percentage of accuracy required was much higher than with any other form of mechanism; it must work twenty-four hours a day; it must operate on good telegraph wires and on telegraph wires whose quality was impaired by rain and other adverse weather conditions. The apparatus was too delicate to function over long periods of time without the necessity of close supervision. However, as in the case of the earlier installation, the inventors profited by their experience and went steadily along perfecting their apparatus, making changes here and there to improve its accuracy [and] to make it sturdier and simpler. Further Postal Telegraph lines were equipped and an installation was made on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad between Chicago and Galesburg, Illinois.

However, in spite of the fact that these circuits gave good service, the growth of the business was very slow. Telegraph companies and the railroads seemed loath to adopt the new system. Possibly this slow growth in the early days of the Morkrum system was due to the fact that the telegraph companies and the railroads could easily secure good Morse operators at low wages. Therefore, they were loath to abandon Morse operation, concerning which they were thoroughly familiar, and to replace it with machine telegraphy which would force them to go to school all over again.

However, the telegraph business continued to grow and good Morse

operators became harder to secure, wages increased, and above all, the Morkrum system steadily improved and finally installations of the system were made by the Western Union Telegraph Company, and the Canadian Pacific and Great Northwestern Telegraph companies in Canada. Due to increased business, Morkrum Company were able to enlarge their plant facilities, to engage expert assistants and to steadily improve their product.

In 1917, Mr. Sterling Morton, son of Mr. Joy Morton, who had had

wide experience with the Morton Salt Company, became president of the Morkrum Company. Mr. Morton brought to the Morkrum Company not only his great organizing and executive ability, but also an unusual talent for machine design work. The page printer and the Simplex tape printer, which are the most widely used units at the present time, are the joint work of Mr. Morton and Mr. Howard Krum.

Up to this time, the laboratory and manufacturing work had been

carried on in an old building near the business district. A careful survey of the employees showed that the majority of them lived on the north side of Chicago and this study determined the location of the present factory. In 1918, the factory was moved to the first unit of the present building, which is entirely fireproof and is considered one of the finest factory buildings in Chicago. Since that time, a total of six units have been built and a seventh is just being started. [1]

As the demand for printing telegraph apparatus grew, the standards

were steadily raised and apparatus which was thought quite wonderful a few years previous became obsolete and was replaced with newer types having greater margins of operation, higher speeds, and which were much simpler to maintain. Installations were made in new fields and each new field offered new and more difficult problems.

In 1914, Mr. Kent Cooper, who was then head of the Traffic

Department of the Associated Press, became convinced that the method of delivering copy to the New York newspapers by messenger boy was decidedly unsatisfactory and asked the Morkrum Company if they could make an installation of their apparatus by which one operator in the Associated Press could transmit the press matter simultaneously to all of the newspapers in New York City. A simple problem in the light of our present-day knowledge, but at that time it was an undertaking which offered many problems as yet unsolved. However, it was undertaken; the problem was studied, suitable apparatus was designed and within a year all of the newspapers in New York City and nearby towns, as well as in Philadelphia, were receiving their press matter simultaneously from a transmitting set controlled by a single operator in the Associated Press office in New York City.

From this small beginning in the service of the Associated Press, the use of printing telegraphs has spread until over 800 newspapers belonging to the Associated Press receive their news dispatches by these machines, and some of the wire circuits of which this matter is transmitted involve as much as 4,000 miles of wire. The other press associations are using the apparatus to much the same extent.

Up to 1917, the Morkrum Company had devoted all their efforts to the

design of single channel printing telegraph systems and had developed both direct keyboard and tape transmission, but at this time the Postal Telegraph Company asked the Morkrum Company to develop a Multiplex system to meet the requirements on their heavy trunk lines. This development was undertaken and in less than a year a satisfactory Multiplex system had been designed, manufactured and installed on the Postal Company's line and proved so valuable that its use was extended to all their main trunk lines.

As the use of printing telegraph became more general, needs

developed for different types of apparatus to meet different classes of service, and the Morkrum Company attacked these problems and devel- oped different types of apparatus until at present there are available both direct keyboard and perforated tape transmission systems, printing either on tape printers or page printers, operated either single channel or Multiplex, using either five-unit or six-unit code, the latter being especially valuable for stock quotation work.

The use of the apparatus in the telegraph companies continued to

grow until at the present time fully 80% of all commercial telegrams are handled by printing telegraph. As the use of the machines grew, the requirements became more and more rigid and these were met by intensive research and development work which has never ceased. Printers are operating today under service conditions which would not have been considered possible even two or three years back. The latest development, the so-called "Typebar Tape Teletype" has proven so simple and reliable that it bids fair to drive Morse operation even from the way wires.

Always on the alert for new fields for its equipment, the Morkrum

Company several years ago became convinced that its apparatus could render valuable service for the communication needs of business houses, factories, hotels, etc. To sell this idea required a lot of time and much hard work, and the first few installations proved that this service was much more exacting that the use of the machines in regular telegraph offices where expert maintenance was instantly available, The experience gained in these early commercial install- ations paid big dividends, in that it resulted in such marked improvement in the apparatus that the use has grown so that today there is scarcely a city or town in the United States where this apparatus is not used for some communication need outside of its primary field – that of telegraphic message traffic.

The development of an organization that could satisfactorily handle

the complex problems of developing and manufacturing a printing telegraph system has been quite as remarkable as the development of the apparatus itself; in fact, the successful culmination of the work would not have been possible had it not been for the splendid loyalty and intelligent work of the whole organization. This is particularly true in the case of the many men who had courage enough to stick to the proposition through the many years that it took before practical commercial results were obtained. The Morkrum Company is particularly proud of the fact that the outstanding men in the organization have developed in their own organization. It is a fixed policy of the company to develop its own men for important positions wherever possible.

Mr. Howard Krum met Mr. J. O. Carr, who is now head of the Sales

Engineering Department, in Boston in 1910 and engaged him for testing and engineering work. About the same time, Mr. G. Heding, who is now Factory Manager, came to the company as a tool maker. During their long years of service these two men have filled practically every position of importance in the organization and much credit is due them for their part in the final success of the work. We believe there are few companies where such a large proportion of the men in supervisory positions have grown up with the company and developed as the company has developed and there are certainly few companies where there is a greater spirit of loyalty and co-operation.

Just a word about the manufacture of this apparatus.  The requirements

which printing telegraph apparatus must meet are extremely severe. This is readily understood when it seen that when a printer is opera- ting at the rate of 60 words per minute it is printing six characters per second. The printing of a character requires at least four successive operations of the various portions of the machine; in other words, many of these mechanisms have less than a twenty-fourth of a second in which to do their job. Coupled with this is the fact that the control of this rapidly moving mechanism is by means of a current of electricity so weak that it would hardly cause the smallest electric light globe to even glow.

Knowing this, it is easy to understand that continuous work and

research must be carried on to secure proper alloys and devise the proper methods of heat treating and hardening to permit all of the parts of the machine to function properly.

Another requirement which is successfully met by Morkrum apparatus

is absolute interchangeability of parts. This has been secured by the work of a force of highly trained designers and engineers and by the policy of the company of unhesitatingly securing the finest machine tool equipment available to permit parts to be made with the highest degree of accuracy. The present plant of the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corporation [2] at Chicago contains about 135,000 square feet of floor space devoted solely to the manufacture of this type of apparatus, filled wit the best machine tool equipment that can be purchased and manned by a force of highly trained employees, many of whom have been in the service of the company for a great many years.

                -----

[1] This would be the building at 1400 Wrightwood Ave., in Chicago which was occupied by Teletype until early in the 1960s, when the R&D portion of the complex at 5555 Touhy Ave., Skokie, was completed. I hear it has now been remodeled into luxury apartments.

[2] E. E. Kleinschmidt had a competing printing telegraph company in the 1905-1920 time frame. His company eventually merged with the Morkrum company because of the dominance of the Krum patent on start-stop operation. In the 1950s Mr. Kleinschmidt got back into the business with his own company, located in Deerfield, IL.

haynes@cats.ucsc.edu haynes@ucsccats.bitnet

  1. —————–

From: Jim Haynes haynes@cats.UCSC.EDU Subject: History of Teletypewriter Development Date: 17 Nov 91 08:34:46 GMT Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz

Here's another one (and that exhausts my supply). These two came into my hands as Monographs when I was working for Teletype in 1963-1966. The main reason I typed them in is to get them into the telecom archive since they contain information that isn't readily available so far as I know.

            HISTORY OF TELETYPEWRITER DEVELOPMENT
		 R. A. Nelson
	     K. M. Lovitt, Editor

October 1963 Teletype Corporation

					5555 West Touhy Avenue
					Skokie, Illinois
  1. —–
	      ABSTRACT
The success of the modern teletypewriter began with Howard L. Krum's

conception of the start-stop method of synchronization for permutation code telegraph systems. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief historical account of events which led to that achievement and of those which ensued.

Four areas of development will be covered:
(1) The contributions of Sterling Morton, Charles L. Krum and
    Howard L. Krum.
(2) The contributions of E. E. Kleinschmidt.
(3) The contributions of AT&T and Western Electric.
(4) The contributions of L. M. Potts
  1. —-
   _HISTORY OF TELETYPEWRITER DEVELOPMENT_
Area I.  In 1902 a young electrical engineer named Frank Pearne

solicited financial support from Joy Morton, head of the Morton Salt interests. Pearne had been experimenting with a printing telegraph system and needed sponsorship to continue his work. Morton discussed the matter with his friend, Charles L. Krum, a distinguished mechanical engineer and vice president of the Western Cold Storage Company (which was operated by Joy's brother, Mark Morton). The verdict for Pearne was favorable, and he was given laboratory space in the attic of the Western Cold Storage Company.

After about a year of unsuccessful experimenting, Pearne lost

interest and decided to enter the teaching field. Charles Krum continued the work and by 1906 had developed a promising model. In that year his son, Howard, a newly graduated electrical engineer, plunged into the work alongside his father. The fruit of these early efforts was a typebar page printer (Patent No. 888,335; filed August 22, 1903; issued May 19, 1908) and a typewheel printing telegraph machine (Patent No. 862,402; filed August 6, 1904; issued August 6, 1907). Neither of these machines used a permutation code.

They experimented with transmitters as well, applications filed in

1904 and 1906 maturing into Patents No. 929,602 and No. 929,603. These patents covered modes of transmission which depended both on alternation of polarity and change in current level.

By 1908 the Krums were able to test an experimental printer on an

actual telegraph line. The typing portion of this machine was a modified Oliver typewriter mounted on a desk with the necessary relays, contacts, magnets, and interconnecting wires (Patent No. 1,137,146; filed February 4, 1909; issued April 27, 1915). As a result of the successful test of this printer, Charles and Howard Krum continued their experiments with a view to developing a direct keyboard typewheel printer.

They sought most of all to discover a way of synchronizing

transmitting and receiving units so that they would stay "in step." It was Howard Krum who worked out the start-stop method of synchronization (Patent No. 1,286,351; filed May 31, 1910; issued December 3, 1918). This achievement, which more than anything else put printing telegraphy on a practical basis, was first embodied (for commercial purposes) in the "Green Code" Printer, a typewheel page printer (Patent No. 1,232,045; filed November 28, 1909;issued July 3, 1917).

The transmitters first used by the Krums were of the continuously-

moving-tape variety. (A stepped tape feed, they maintained, would have reduced transmission speed.) In order to permit sequential sensing, the rows of code holes were arranged in a slightly oblique pattern (with respect to tape edges). This method of transmission is more fully elaborated in Krum Patents No. 1,326,456, No. 1,360,231, and No. 1,366,812.

Keyboard-controlled cam-type start-stop permutation code transmitters 

were developed by Charles and Howard Krum in about 1919. Such a device is the transmitter component of the Morkrum 11-Type tape printer (Krum Patent No. 1,635,486). This kind of transmitter employs a single contact to open or close the signal line.

In about 1924 the Morkrum Company introduced the No. 12-Type tape

printer (H. L. Krum Patent No. 1,665,594). On December 23, 1924, Howard Krum and Sterling Morton (son of Joy Morton) filed an application on the 14-Type type-bar tape printer which matured into Patent No. 1,745,633. [1]

Area II.  It appears that the early efforts of E. E. Kleinschmidt

were directed toward development of facsimile printing apparatus and automatic Morse code equipment. He patented first a Morse keyboard transmitter (Patent No. 964,372; filed February 7, 1095; issued January 11, 1910) and later a Morse keyboard perforator (Patents No. 1,045,855, No. 1,085,984, and No. 1,085,985). (The latter became known as the Wheatstone Perforator.)

In 1916 Kleinschmidt filed an application for a type-bar page

printer (Patent No. 1,448,750 issued March 20, 1923). This printer utilized Baudot code but was not start-stop. It was intended for use on multiplex circuits, and its printing was controlled from a local segment on a receiving distributor of the sunflower type. Later, around 1919, Kleinschmidt appeared to be concerned chiefly with development of multiplex transmitters for use with this printer (Kleinschmidt Patent No. 1,460,357).

It seems that Kleinschmidt first became interested in modern

start-stop permutation code telegraph systems when H. L. Krum's basic start-stop patent was issued in December 1918. Shortly after that Kleinschmidt filed an application entitled "Method of and Apparatus for Operating Printing Telegraphs" (Patent No. 1,463,136; filed May 1, 1919; issued July 24, 1923). The system described therein employed the start-stop principle with a modified version of his earlier multiplex distributor. That patent, accordingly, was dominated by the Krum start-stop patent. The conflict of patent rights between the Morkrum Company and the Kleinschmidt Electric Company eventually led to a merger of the two interests.

Shortly after the new Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corporation (later called

the Teletype Corporation) had been established, Sterling Morton, Howard Krum, and E. E. Kleinschmidt filed an application covering the commercial form of the well-known 15-Type page printer (Patent No. 1,9904,164). [2]

Area III.  Teletype entered the Bell System in 1930.  From this

point on, advances in the Teletype product can be considered the result of the pooled efforts of the AT&T Company, the Western Electric Company, and the Teletype Corporation. Teletype Corporation, of course, holder of the basic patents and expert in the art, was the chief contributor.

Although it appears from the report of R. E. Pierce, dated December

24, 1934, that the Bell System was active in the development of telegraph printers and transmitters as early as the year 1909, a review of the patents issued to Bell reveals no significant contribution to modern teletypewriter development (using start-stop permutation code) until the introduction in 1920 of the 10-A teletypewriter (Pfannenstiehl Patents No. 1,374,606, No. 1,399,933, No. 1,426,768, No. 1,623,809, and No. 1,661,012).

The 10-A teletypewriter was the first embodiment of such basic

design features of the 15-Type printer as stationary platen, moving type basket, and selector vane assembly, but the majority of improvements incorporated in the 15-Type were proprietary to the Teletype Corporation.

Area IV.  The earliest contribution of Dr. L. M. Potts to the

start-stop method of synchronization appears to have been set forth in a patent application filed November 18, 1911, covering a reed-type start-stop selector (Patent No. 1,151,216).

In 1914, Dr. Potts filed an application for a single magnet page

printer which used an eight-unit code (Patent No. 1,229,202; issued June 5, 1917).

In 1915, Dr. Potts filed an application covering another single

magnet page printer, this one using the start-stop permutation code (Patent No. 1,370,669; assigned to AT&T March 8, 1921).

Potts Patents No. 1,517,381 and No. 1,570,923 were also assigned to

AT&T.

  1. ———

[1] For anyone who is old enough to have seen a Western Union Telegram where the typing is on narrow gum-backed tape that is moistened and stuck to a telegram blank, this is the machine that produces that kind of printing. The same mechanism is the basis of a typing reperforator, a machine which punches received signals into a tape for retransmission and also types on the tape so an operator can read it.

[2] This is the machine used until the 1960s or so by the news wire services. Some radio stations still use a recording of the sound of one of these machines as background during news broadcasts.

haynes@cats.ucsc.edu haynes@cats.bitnet

[Moderator's Note: Thank you for two very excellent articles this weekend on the history of Teletype and its predecessor companies. Jim's earlier article on the history of the Morkrum Company was distributed as a special mailing sent out between issues 936-937 on Saturday evening. Watch for your copy to arrive if it hasn't yet.

But I am curious about something not mentioned in either article. Did the Bell System buy out Morkrum and change the name to Teletype in 1930 or did Teletype start and later buy out Morkrum? How did that transition occur? I love these history articles because so much telecom history happened right here in Chicago – the Chicago I like to remember from years ago. PAT]

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