Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-12
BY LEMUEL F. PARTON.

NEW YORK.-There Is in Wall Street
divided opinion as to whether the shock
of the collapse in stock prices might
have been leSsened had the ticker been
able to keep up with the market. I'm
questionably, the tagging ticker has
caused disorder and confusion, and it
is agreed generally that controlling and
Stabiliztng forces might have been more
effective were 1t not for the swapping
OF the machinery and clerical staff Of
the exchange by the tidal wave of sales.
Regardless of past performances, the
traders now realize that their COM
municationS system was dangerously
near the breaking point and they still
are mystified as to how they were able
TO clear sales of three or four times
normal volume without hopeless con-
fusion and possibly disaster. Thus,
forewarned, the Stock Exchange is con-
centrating technicians and system ex-
pertS on getting ready for the peak Of
the next big cycle of large scale opera
tons, which they see now in its begin
ming.
The old-fashioned tickers have q
maximum capacity, under forced
draught, of 800 characters a minute.
New tickers, working on an entirely
different principle, now are grinding
500 characters a minute. on $500 ma
chimes installed in New York. In lab
oratory tests, crowded to the limit,
these machines have handled 900 char
acters to the minute. The old ma
chimes, complicated in transmission but
simple in reception, are "step-by-step"
control, with the wheel bearing the let
tiers having to make waste Jump, pos
sibly clear across the alphabet, to record
single letter or character. The new
machines are simple in transmission
but complicated in recording, and pro-
portionately faster. BY varying permu-
tations of eight electric impulses each
character is snapped out without waste
motion, with the tape issuing at dizzy
speed.
When the new system recently was
explained to Thomas A. Edison, he re-
marked that the exchange was in the
same vicious circle as a big city trying
to solve transportation problems. More
subways make more big buildings and
communications machinery brings in
more public, crowding the new speed
system as fast as its pace is increased.
u X 4 y
1t happens that Mr.. Edison got his
first laboratory out of the ticker-not
by playing it. but by repairing 1t and
later improving 1t. Coming to New
York in the early 70s, he viewed the
exchange ticker system with a friend,
having expressed interest in this then
novel machine. There were nice. com.
Portable piles of paper in the office, and
the ticker bosses told Mr.. Edison he
might sleep there few days II he
wanted to. He did so. spending his
waking hours studying the tickers. On
the third day the ticker system broke
down. There was CONSERVATION and q
futile search for experts. The young
Mr.. Edison, standing by. suggested that
he could fix it. They rushed him into
the Job.
"It's the transmitter spring" he said.
ut goes like this, instead of like that"
That was all The thing started
ticking again. They made Edison head
of the ticker department, During the
two years he installed the unison stop
and many other improvements. This
stop system functions in the dot one
occasionally sees on ticker tape. 1t
means that Edison found way to re-
set the tickers on the run, without send
ing around boys, as they used TO, When
Edison was preparing to leave, exchange
officials wanted to buy his interest in
the improvements in the machines,
which he had patented. He was hesi-
| tant as to what they were worth and
was offered $4,000, which he accepted.
He afterward said he had intended ask
ing for 81 900, but did not have SUM-
Gent courage, He took the $4,000 and