From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Telecom Quotations
Date: 23 Nov 92 02:48:00 GMT
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 869, Message 1 of 8

I have one more quote, from the same book.

> In one of Arthur C. Clarke's novels there's a beautiful throwaway
> line ...

Found it.  I'll give the context where I found it, because I think
it's interesting too.  He quoted himself in a short 1988 speech, which
he then printed in his new book "How the World was One".  He first
talked about how the British post office, by converting to a flat-rate
system for domestic mail, was able to adopt in 1840 a postage rate of
only 1d, with immeasurable benefit to commerce and society.  Then:

   I'm sure you'll see what I'm driving at, and because I can never
   resist an opportunity for a commercial, I'd like to end by reading
   to you a paragraph from my *latest* last book:
   
      "...In the beginning, the Earth had possessed the single
      super-continent of Pangea [sic], which over the aeons had
      split asunder.  So had the human species, into innumerable
      tribes and nations; now it was merging together, as the old
      linguistic and cultural divisions began to blur....  With the
      historic abolition of long-distance charges on December 31,
      2000, every telephone call became a local one, and the human
      race greeted the new millennium by transforming itself into
      one huge, gossiping family."
                              ("2061: Odyssey Three", Chapter 3)

Here are a few more quotes from "How the World was One".  Clarke
prints in the book a speech he gave at the United Nations on World
Telecommunications Day, May 17, 1983.  It begins:

   There is always something new to be learned from the past,
   and I would like to open with two anecdotes from the early
   days of the telephone.  They illustrate perfectly how
   difficult -- if not impossible -- it is to anticipate the
   social impact of a truly revolutionary invention.

   Though the first story is now rather famous -- and I must
   apologize to those of you who've heard if before -- I hope
   it's unfamiliar to most of you. ...

   When news of Alexander Graham Bell's invention reached the
   United Kingdom, the chief engineer of the British Post Office
   failed to be impressed.  "The Americans," he said loftily,
   have need of the telephone -- but we do not.  We have plenty
   of messenger boys..."

   The second story I heard only quite recently, and in some
   ways it's even more instructive.  In contrast to the British
   engineer, the mayor of a certain American city was wildly
   enthusiastic.  He thought that the telephone was a marvelous
   device and ventured this stunning prediction:  "I can see the
   time," he said solemnly, "*when every city will have one*."

And from his speech on the occasion of the Intelsat agreement:

   For today, gentleman, whether you intend it or not -- whether
   you wish it or not -- you have signed far more than yet another
   intergovernmental agreement.

   You have just signed the first draft of the Articles of
   Federation of the United States of Earth.

Then there's this one; this isn't Clarke writing, but an electric
engineer named W. E. Ayrton.

   There is no doubt that the day will come, maybe when you and I
   are forgotten, when copper wires, gutta-percha coverings, and
   iron sheathings will be relegated to the Museum of Antiquities.
   Then, when a person wants to telegraph to a friend, he knows
   not where, he will call an electromagnetic voice, which will
   be heard loud by him who has the electromagnetic ear, but will
   be silent to everyone else.  He will call "Where are you?"
   and the reply will come, "I am at the bottom of the coal-mine"
   or "Crossing the Andes" or "In the middle of the Pacific";
   or perhaps no reply will come at all, and he may then conclude
   that his friend is dead.

Mr. Ayrton said this at a lecture at the Imperial Institute ... in
*1897*.


Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com