From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: "How the World Was One", by Arthur C. Clarke (a review)
Date: 23 Nov 92 04:00:00 GMT
Organization: TELECOM Digest
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 869, Message 2 of 8

In another item which I expect Pat will run in the same Digest
as this one, I gave several quotes from Arthur C. Clarke's latest
book.  Here's the full description ...

  "How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village", 1992 Bantam
  hardcover, approx 300 pages.  US price $22.50.  ISBN 0-553-07440-7.

I think this book will be of considerable interest to many Telecom
readers, although those who are voracious Clarke fans may find that
they've read considerable parts of it before.

The book contains five main parts.  The first and longest one tells
about the early history of submarine telegraph cables, culminating
with the tribulation-filled laying of the first successful cable
across the Atlantic; and the second part rapidly takes the story
forward to transoceanic telephony and radio.

Most of this material was taken from Clarke's 1958 book "Voice Across
the Sea", but I had not read that one, and I found it fascinating.

Perhaps the most interesting thing was the many kinds of technical
difficulties encountered in the early days.  Cables were too light,
too heavy, too short; they broke, they leaked; they even sabotaged
themselves (no, I won't explain that one!).  And then there were
people problems -- wrong assumptions about technology went untested
until after they had been embedded in thousands of miles of cable.

On one of the cable-laying attempts, two ships started out in the
middle of the ocean and sailed in opposite directions with the two
ends of the cable, each paying it out as it went.  Their only
communication with each other was by telegraph through the cable
itself.  At one point the connection broke and the ships returned to
their starting point -- and each hailed the other with "How did the
cable break?"  Something had happened on the seabed, and they never
did find out what.

Then when the first cable was finally laid and the technology finally
tested, it hardly worked: after 12 days of trying to adjust the
instruments, the operators still needed over 16 hours to transmit a
99-word official telegram.  Depending just how they timed their
Morse-like code, I figure that the transmission rate must have been
somewhere between .05 and .1 baud!

The remaining three parts of the book do not really tell a continuous
story as do the first two; there are many distinct essays and speeches
and even a few pieces of fiction.  I had read several of the pieces
before, and some of them overlap to some extent.  So for these reasons
I didn't enjoy the second half of the book as much as the first; but I
still found it well worth reading.

The third part deals with Clarke's own involvement in the early
development of communication satellites.  As most of you will know, he
invented the idea of using the geostationary orbit for comsats --
though it didn't occur to him then that they might be unmanned!  This
part puts the idea in context of what he was doing at the time and of
what had already been invented by others, and includes the short story
"I Remember Babylon" where he anticipated some less savory uses to
which comsats might be put.

The fourth part concerns the impact of comsats as it has turned out in
fact, and Clarke's thoughts on where how they should develop in the
future; and the short fifth part is about the renaissance of submarine
cables with the appearance of fiber optics.

The thesis of the book is simple, and one with which most of us on
Usenet will agree.  I know *I* do.  Better communication unites
societies, reduces ignorance, and generally benefits everyone; and it
is, accordingly, something on which the expenditure of time and money
is well worthwhile.


Mark Brader		 "... There are three kinds of death in this world.
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto	      There's heart death, there's brain death, and
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com      there's being off the network."  -- Guy Almes