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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Either everyone, and welcome to text Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Volcon, and today we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about a cool piece of historic technology

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Speaker 1: that to this very day, at least as of the

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Speaker 1: recording of this podcast, is still working in a certain

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Speaker 1: form in some places. In some places, yeah, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about that. This was actually Lauren's suggestion. We were looking

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Speaker 1: at different fire prevention type technologies. Well, we had gotten

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Speaker 1: a reader request, a listener request, because this is an

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Speaker 1: audio podcast and I and I do not have the

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Speaker 1: request open in front of me, so I apologize to

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Speaker 1: the nice human person who sent this in. UM, someone

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Speaker 1: requested that we do uh episode about fire alarms, And

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Speaker 1: in initial research, I there's so much that that is

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Speaker 1: commercial out there that's immediately available and uh, and we

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Speaker 1: were kind of running up to a deadline. But I

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Speaker 1: realized that, um, that the original fire alarm system a

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Speaker 1: telegraph system in Boston in the eighteen hundreds, eighteen fifty. Fascinating. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this this turned out to be an amazing topic. So

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Speaker 1: we decided to tackle this system that was installed in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two. We're not there yet, by the way,

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Speaker 1: not at all. We're gonna we're gonna work our way

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Speaker 1: up to eighteen fifty two. But it was installed in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two and it's still working today. Now. We'll

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Speaker 1: address that in greater detail as the episode goes on. So,

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Speaker 1: but it's still really kind of remarkable to think of this,

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Speaker 1: this system that's over a hundred fifty years old still running.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about what necessitated it now. Really to

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Speaker 1: think about it is to talk about the rise of

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Speaker 1: the construction of cities, which often ended up being rapid

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Speaker 1: and unplanned and made a material that we will generously

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Speaker 1: called flammable. Right there, there wasn't so many steel beams

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Speaker 1: and concrete being used, and even say even even brick

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Speaker 1: houses would have wooden window frames or door frames or

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Speaker 1: flooring or whatever, and if a fire got hot enough,

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Speaker 1: it could actually cause those materials to burst into flame,

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Speaker 1: even if they didn't have direct contact with the flames themselves.

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Speaker 1: It would create what is really called a firestorm, where

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Speaker 1: the fire gets so hot it starts to be able

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Speaker 1: to it just sort of balloons out of control. And uh,

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Speaker 1: an early example of this one that was absolutely devastating.

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Speaker 1: We have to look back all the way to sixteen

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Speaker 1: sixty six the Great Fire of London. Now, this affected

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Speaker 1: the city of London, which is a square mile. That's

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Speaker 1: tiny compared to metropolitan London, right, but this fire devastated

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Speaker 1: that part of London and stretched a little bit beyond

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Speaker 1: those borders, depending upon you know which side you're talking about,

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Speaker 1: destroying more than ten thousand houses in the process. And

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Speaker 1: it's it was an enormously devastating fire. And so that

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Speaker 1: was an example of something that really showed that there

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Speaker 1: was a need now that we had these cities that

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Speaker 1: were really densely populated with lots and lots of houses

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Speaker 1: that are built incredibly close together, some of them so

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Speaker 1: close that even in an alleyway, the the upper stories

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Speaker 1: would be in contact with each other. So you might

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Speaker 1: have enough room at the at the ground level to

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Speaker 1: walk through, but if you were to look up, you

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Speaker 1: wouldn't see sky. Wow, that's kind of terrifying. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: is a little creepy, you know. It's almost like every

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Speaker 1: alleyway is really just becomes a tunnel because these these

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Speaker 1: upper stories of these buildings are Yeah, so before in Boston,

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Speaker 1: here's how a typical fire would be reported. Uh so,

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Speaker 1: so someone would be assigned the task in in a

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Speaker 1: particular neighbor hood or area of town that if if

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Speaker 1: fire broke out, they would um go run to the

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Speaker 1: nearest church and and ring the church bells. And you

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Speaker 1: had people also who would carry wooden rattles and rattle

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Speaker 1: them or just holler. Yeah, so Boston ended up having

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Speaker 1: this this real problem. I mean they called it hallooing

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Speaker 1: a fire because really you're just kind of hooting and

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Speaker 1: hollering trying to get people's attention. But that's not terribly precise.

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Speaker 1: In fact, it could be very confusing. If anyone has

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Speaker 1: ever been in a large city and heard a noise,

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Speaker 1: it could be really hard to detect where that noise

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Speaker 1: is coming from, let alone a precise location. It's hard

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Speaker 1: just to even figure out the general direction sometimes just

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Speaker 1: the way sound travels and bounces around. Sure, and the

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Speaker 1: speed of response is so important in these kind of things,

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Speaker 1: especially back in in those days, when containing a fire

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Speaker 1: would absolutely I mean not that that's not true these days,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, it could spread so quickly. I mean they

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Speaker 1: you know, every the basic building materials that were a

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Speaker 1: lot of these buildings were made of were very flammable.

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Speaker 1: There wasn't a lot of flame retardant type material being

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Speaker 1: mixed in at that time, so you had a serious

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Speaker 1: need to have a quick response. And unfortunately what was

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Speaker 1: happening was that fire engines would leave the fire station

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Speaker 1: with no way of knowing where the actual fire was,

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Speaker 1: and so they essentially go off in all different directions

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Speaker 1: trying to find the fire. It was really only if

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Speaker 1: a fire had gotten so huge as you could see it, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and by then getting it under control is even more difficult.

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Speaker 1: So at the time you would have a fire foreman

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Speaker 1: who would actually shout directions through a trumpet, like a

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Speaker 1: speaking trumpet, all right, like a cheerleaders, Yeah, megaphone, any

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Speaker 1: other than cheerleaders, that's right. Uh. And so one of

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Speaker 1: the awards that would be given away to firefighters for

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Speaker 1: distinguished service was a silver trumpet that was kind of saying,

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Speaker 1: in the execution of your duty, you have done amazing service.

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Speaker 1: And keep in mind that a lot of these firefighters

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Speaker 1: were volunteer firefighters. This was not the necessarily, not in

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Speaker 1: Boston anyway. It's not necessarily the era of private firefighting companies,

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Speaker 1: which were also a thing. To the point where there

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Speaker 1: were companies that would compete with one another or turn

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Speaker 1: away service based on Yeah, they'd show up and to

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Speaker 1: be like, we'll put out that fire, but first you

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Speaker 1: gotta pay us. Not the most altruistic of firefighting efforts.

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Speaker 1: But in this case we're talking about citizens of volunteers. Really,

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Speaker 1: but that was before eighty five. Now, in eighteen forty four,

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Speaker 1: a certain inventor created something that would change the world. Actually,

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Speaker 1: let me take this back just a tiny bit, because

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Speaker 1: you were you were about to talk about Samuel Morris.

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Speaker 1: I am, but you you you have something to to interject.

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Speaker 1: I do have something to interject. The thing is that

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Speaker 1: that Samuel Morris was not the inventor of the telegraph.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't even the sole inventor of Morse code. UM.

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Speaker 1: The first known telegraph line was erected in eighteen thirty

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Speaker 1: seven by Charles Whitstone and William Cook in the UK.

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Speaker 1: UM this was a line between Euston and Camden Town

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Speaker 1: on the London and Burningham Railway. And uh it was

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Speaker 1: this complex five line, five needles system that would point

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Speaker 1: to different letters on a grid by reversing the direction

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Speaker 1: of the current flowing through these five wires and um

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Speaker 1: it was it was pretty unwieldy, those those you know,

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Speaker 1: having five wires per terminal was really expensive and really complex,

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Speaker 1: especially for eighteen thirty seven. But these those two gentlemen

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Speaker 1: had been kind of independently working through the concepts that

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Speaker 1: Michael Fairday were talking was talking about and in creating

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Speaker 1: this telegraph technology. Samuel Morse was the first one to

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Speaker 1: complete a line here in the States. That line opened

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Speaker 1: up between d C and Baltimore in um. The first

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Speaker 1: message he sent in his early version of Morse code

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Speaker 1: was what hath god wrocked? Yeah? And um, yeah, that

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Speaker 1: that's a famous message. That boy little apocalyptic there in

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Speaker 1: a way. But yeah, so you might be wondering, how

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Speaker 1: do does this system actually work? And it's it's pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: So uh so we you know what we've talked about

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Speaker 1: circuits quite a bit on this podcast. But a circuit,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's essentially a pathway that electricity can take. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you have what is called an open circuit, that

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Speaker 1: means that electricity can't pass all the way through the circuit,

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Speaker 1: there's something there's a gap there, so it can no

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Speaker 1: longer travel and continue its path. A closed circuit means

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Speaker 1: that it's completely closed and yeah, and an electricity can

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Speaker 1: go all the way through the pathway. So if you

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Speaker 1: were to have an open circuit, a telegraph line that's

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Speaker 1: an open circuit, and you had a switch, in this

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Speaker 1: case a telegraph key that when you press the SWI

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Speaker 1: which it closes the circuit so that electricity can flow through.

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Speaker 1: On the other end of that circuit is a receiving

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Speaker 1: station that when it receives this an electro magnet activates

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Speaker 1: because we know, you know, when you have electricity going

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Speaker 1: through an electromagnet, it creates a magnetic force. The magnetic

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Speaker 1: force pulls on one end of a lever. The other

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Speaker 1: end of the lever is attached to a pen that

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Speaker 1: comes into contact with a rolling piece of paper, and

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Speaker 1: so as you hold down the key, the pen stays

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Speaker 1: in contact with the paper because electricity is flowing through

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Speaker 1: and it's activated that electro magnetic coil. When you let

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Speaker 1: go of the key, electricity stops flowing the magnetic coil

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Speaker 1: let's go, and the pen the lever drops, lifting the

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Speaker 1: pen off the paper or removing the paper from the pen.

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Speaker 1: It all depends on the actual implementation of this technology

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Speaker 1: because there were different models of telegraph machines. So by

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Speaker 1: doing a series of taps, you can create dots and

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Speaker 1: dashes on the paper as the pen moves on and

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Speaker 1: off of it. That and earn would be interpreted as

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Speaker 1: Morse code, So you would have a certain series of

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Speaker 1: dots and dashes representing each letter of the alphabet. Also numbers,

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Uh. So that was your your

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Speaker 1: basic telegraph station. You had the sending and the receiving

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Speaker 1: and then you might have another circuit that is on

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Speaker 1: the receiving end where they can send messages back right,

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Speaker 1: and and that specific battery switch electromagnet rig was Morse's invention.

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Speaker 1: There we go, and that would become really important in

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Speaker 1: what we're about to discuss the idea of using this

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Speaker 1: in a way beyond sending a message and making it

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Speaker 1: an actual alert system. So that comes up to eighteen

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Speaker 1: forty four. Morse has has completed this and demonstrated it

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Speaker 1: and it's shown to be an effective means of communication.

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Speaker 1: That was, yeah, it was. It was really popular in

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Speaker 1: in the news and you know, ever, it was what

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Speaker 1: everyone was talking about in scientific circles because finally you

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Speaker 1: could get news from from one city to another city

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Speaker 1: in right faster than any other means of transportation at

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Speaker 1: that time. So eighteen forty five, a year after Morse

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Speaker 1: has really has really broken this open in the US,

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Speaker 1: a mandate. Dr William F. Channing, a native of Boston

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Speaker 1: and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and of

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Speaker 1: Harvard with a medical degree, published an article in the

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Speaker 1: Boston Daily Advertiser, and it was all about creating a

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Speaker 1: telegraph based fire alarm system for Boston. It was it

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Speaker 1: was an article that was saying, hey, this dude, Morse

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Speaker 1: has this pretty cool thing. We can use that thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And and the problems that we have right now in

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Speaker 1: Boston mainly that by the time an alarm gets to

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Speaker 1: a fire station, it's almost too late, and the fire

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Speaker 1: station doesn't even really know where the fire is. This

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Speaker 1: solves both of those problems because the communication is immediate,

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Speaker 1: and because of the way we can design this, it

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Speaker 1: can be precise so that every single alarm station that

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Speaker 1: we erect that's part of the system will have its

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Speaker 1: own unique identifier, so that way we know where the

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Speaker 1: fire is, not just that it's happened, but where it is.

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Speaker 1: And that way we have much faster response time. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So he he was recommending not only the the application

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Speaker 1: of this technology, but an organization system built around it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: He had an entire infrastructure that he proposed, and this

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Speaker 1: is what eventually gets put in place in Boston more

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Speaker 1: or less. I mean, it's almost exactly what he had proposed,

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Speaker 1: although it did have to go through some refining and

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Speaker 1: tweaking because this was a brand new system. No one

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Speaker 1: had tried it before. And of course, as anyone who

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Speaker 1: has worked with any type of technology knows, bugs will

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Speaker 1: pop up. As you know, you'll you'll think, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: based upon electronic principles, that should work perfectly, perfectly, and

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna figure this. Oh, this switch was turned in

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Speaker 1: open form, it should be closed. But so so he

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Speaker 1: joined up with an electrical engineer, Um, Moses chief Farmer. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Moses chief Farmer. Interesting guy. He had worked in a

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Speaker 1: civil engineers office for a while. He was also a

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Speaker 1: school principal for a while. Uh, and he had an

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Speaker 1: affinity for machines. In fact, the first machine he had

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Speaker 1: built that I could find anyway. He may have worked

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Speaker 1: on other ones before this, but he created a machine

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Speaker 1: that could print paper window shades. Uh. And then he

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Speaker 1: when Morse really got the telegraph going, he became interested

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Speaker 1: in telegraph machines, began to work on them, and eventually

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Speaker 1: was put in charge of the telegraph line between Boston

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Speaker 1: and Newberryport, Massachusetts in eighteen forty eight, and actually got

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Speaker 1: to the point where he had sort of a managerial position.

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Speaker 1: He would help open new telegraph offices in the area

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Speaker 1: and make sure that the connections were there and every

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Speaker 1: thing along those lines. He and Dr Channing kind of

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Speaker 1: put their heads together and came up with this this

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Speaker 1: UH proposal. And now in eighteen forty eight, Farmer actually

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Speaker 1: invented an electric striking apparatus for the fire Alarm service

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Speaker 1: because part of this overall infrastructure they were talking about

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Speaker 1: was not just something that would notify the fire stations

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Speaker 1: that there was a fire, but also have an alarm

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Speaker 1: system to alert the citizens that a fire was in

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Speaker 1: the area. Yeah. Yeah, something that would simultaneously alert UM

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Speaker 1: all the other like like you know, from a grand

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Speaker 1: central station, it would alert all of the stations along

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Speaker 1: with the citizenship, right exactly. So this way, if you've

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Speaker 1: ever lived in a place that has UH an orchestrated

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Speaker 1: alarm system, something like in here in Atlanta, we talked

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Speaker 1: about tornado alarms that if you hear the tornado sirens

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Speaker 1: go off, you know there's a tornado in the area. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The this is sort of a similar thing. The bells

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Speaker 1: would ring uh to alert citizens. And ideally, in the

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Speaker 1: actual proposal, they had talked about connecting all the church

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Speaker 1: bells in Boston to this system, so that they would

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Speaker 1: all ring simultaneously and simultaneously in a pattern that would

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Speaker 1: identify the location of the fire. So, in other words,

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Speaker 1: once you knew what the different patterns were, you would

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Speaker 1: know where the fire was no matter where you were

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Speaker 1: in the city of Boston, by the sound of the

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Speaker 1: bells ringing. As it turns out, getting all the bells

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Speaker 1: in the city to ring simultaneously is somewhat of a

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Speaker 1: non trivial problem. That's complex, yeah, trying to get I mean,

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Speaker 1: you're talking about physical circuits here. These are physical wires,

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Speaker 1: like over over the air wires. I mean, these are

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Speaker 1: wires that are above ground, uh, you know, held up

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Speaker 1: on rooftops of houses, supported by glass insulators. You know.

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Speaker 1: They and in fact, there's actually some discrepancy about whether

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Speaker 1: or not the original wires were all yeah, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean because at the time the the insulation um insulation

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Speaker 1: technology was was glass tar pitch. Yeah, there are no

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Speaker 1: plastics there were there were no plastics. UM. They started

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Speaker 1: getting into UM two ceramics and stuff like that a

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Speaker 1: little bit later, but that wouldn't be for another couple

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Speaker 1: of decades, I don't think now. And Channing's writing he

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Speaker 1: refers to it as being insulated, and then other writings

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Speaker 1: referred to them being not insulated. So here's the thing,

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Speaker 1: because we're talking about historical documents and historical uh events,

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Speaker 1: and this is a time where this is before the

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Speaker 1: digital age. Clearly we're talking to eighteen fifties. The records

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Speaker 1: are UH sparse, and not all of them are not

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Speaker 1: all of them agree with one another. We we we

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Speaker 1: depend on correspondence and patents and stuff like that, Saper articles.

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Speaker 1: I have a whole new respect for Holly and Tracy

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Speaker 1: over at us plug. We need to we need to

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Speaker 1: have a little bell sound every time we plug one

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Speaker 1: of our our sister podcasts UM. But they do amazing work.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, when this really opens up your eyes to

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Speaker 1: how complex it becomes. So we've got Farmer and we've

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Speaker 1: got Channing working on this proposed system, and it wasn't

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Speaker 1: until eighteen fifty one that they actually presented their proposal

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Speaker 1: to the city, the Boston City government, and they argued

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Speaker 1: that this would be a way that would save a

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Speaker 1: lot some money in the long run, because fires were

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Speaker 1: still in a big issue, big fear they happened. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it was a scary thing that could completely devastate an

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Speaker 1: entire city, or at least districts of a city. There

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Speaker 1: are multiple districts within the city of Boston, um, and

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Speaker 1: actually their proposal incorporated that so that each district had

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Speaker 1: its own set of boxes. And in fact, as we'll

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Speaker 1: talk about the way that boxes were encoded, it would

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Speaker 1: tell the operator first which district was being affected, and

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Speaker 1: then tell the operator which box was the one that

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Speaker 1: had been activated. So they send this proposal to the

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Speaker 1: Boston City Government in eighteen fifty one, and the government

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Speaker 1: approves it and work begins on the system on September seven,

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Speaker 1: eight fifty one. Originally, depending upon whom you ask, because

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Speaker 1: there are discrepancies, Uh, this system had three box circuits,

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Speaker 1: three bell circuits, forty alarm boxes some into Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: all depends. Like there's one source that was very definitively

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Speaker 1: saying no, there were forty one boxes, and another one

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Speaker 1: that says no, there were thirty nine. I'm going with

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Speaker 1: forty forty ish boxes uh sixteen to nineteen alarm bills.

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Speaker 1: And the one central office, yes, one central office which

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Speaker 1: was this was the office through which all communication would pass.

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Speaker 1: So the idea being that when someone would would activate

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Speaker 1: one of these alarm boxes, the message would come to

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Speaker 1: this central office that the operator the central office could

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Speaker 1: then pass communication to the nearest fire stations. Originally it

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Speaker 1: was not recorded on paper, um, the way that we

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Speaker 1: were talking about earlier. Originally there it was just manned

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Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day. Right. Channing had said that

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Speaker 1: a paper recording would be valuable because, for one thing,

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Speaker 1: it would help keep track of all the different times

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Speaker 1: that the alarm was signaled, because even in the early days,

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Speaker 1: there was worry that prankish people something would be missed,

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Speaker 1: or that you know, um, eventually there would be finger

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Speaker 1: pointing that would happen due to some terrible something or another,

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Speaker 1: or someone just ends up having a hankering for triggering

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Speaker 1: alarms when there are no fires at all. It was

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Speaker 1: an idea of this way we keep a record of it.

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Speaker 1: It becomes more of an official thing it uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: that'll cut down on misuse of the system. Was really

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Speaker 1: that was the main focus, but also just to keep

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Speaker 1: an eye on different parts of the city, saying, well,

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Speaker 1: this one part of the city gets uh, there are

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Speaker 1: more alarmed trip there than anywhere else. That would bring

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00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:42,280
Speaker 1: were and Boston would have the first the first paper

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Speaker 1: recorder system for one of these telegraph fire alarms. But

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Speaker 1: but that was a few years. Yeah, but that was

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Speaker 1: that was what Channing had hoped to do at the

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Speaker 1: very beginning, but it would be a few years before

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Speaker 1: that happens. So what happens is that the the operator

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Speaker 1: sees it, they send out the alert to the to

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Speaker 1: the uh the respective fire stations, there might be more

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Speaker 1: than one, to say this alarm box was triggered, you

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Speaker 1: need to go there, and then the firefighters would there.

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Speaker 1: There's be someone at the fire fire station who would

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Speaker 1: be manning the receiving station to get that message, who

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Speaker 1: would then pull the bell to to alert the firefighters.

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Speaker 1: Let's go and give them the message of this is

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Speaker 1: where you need to go. This is the alarm box

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Speaker 1: that was triggered. Go to that location and and fight

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Speaker 1: the fire. So, uh, it was an ingenious system. He

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Speaker 1: had proposed that the power would come from two sources

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Speaker 1: outside the facility, so that if one source failed, the

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Speaker 1: other one would continue. And later they were able to

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Speaker 1: have a gasoline power generator as well, so that way,

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Speaker 1: even if the entire city lost power, the system would

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00:20:50,520 --> 00:20:54,320
Speaker 1: still remain viable. So telephone lines go down, electric power

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Speaker 1: lines go down. This system, yeah, so it's still working.

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Speaker 1: That was and you know, it's one of the the

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Speaker 1: things that really said apart from a lot of other

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Speaker 1: systems that people were proposing at the time. So there

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Speaker 1: were about forty miles of wire in this original system. Actually,

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Speaker 1: depending upon the source, it gets up to about forty

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Speaker 1: eight miles. It was technically twenty four miles. But they

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Speaker 1: made redundant circuits. So that was another really brilliant thing

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Speaker 1: about the system. Exactly. Yeah, the redundancy is so important

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Speaker 1: because you're talking about fire. I mean, this is a

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Speaker 1: dangerous and destructive force and above ground cables, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: And Boston has been known from time to time to

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Speaker 1: have snow and ice storms very occasionally, so it gets

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Speaker 1: wicked cold in Boston and so sometimes these these lines

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Speaker 1: can break and so by creating redundancy, it made the

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Speaker 1: made the system more robust. Uh. So there are two

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Speaker 1: sets of these lines forty miles or so forty eight

377
00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:57,280
Speaker 1: miles of wire, and the actual call boxes or alarm

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00:21:57,359 --> 00:22:00,760
Speaker 1: boxes were locked. They had a lock on them. They

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Speaker 1: were painted black at first. Right until about the eighteen seventies,

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Speaker 1: only trusted people in the area were given keys and um,

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Speaker 1: and there were instructions on the little key pop. I've

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00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:16,920
Speaker 1: seen a couple of museum museum pieces and uh. When

383
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:19,080
Speaker 1: eventually the system got too big to handle and they

384
00:22:19,119 --> 00:22:22,240
Speaker 1: realized they were doing everyone a disservice by keeping these

385
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Speaker 1: locked and making someone who wanted to report a fire

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Speaker 1: go find one of these people who held a key. Right.

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Speaker 1: Like you know, say someone is on vacation out of town.

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Speaker 1: That makes it a little more difficult. Well, when they

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Speaker 1: get back, we can tell them that their house burned down. Um. Yeah,

390
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:39,359
Speaker 1: so this it was locked away. But if you were

391
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Speaker 1: to unlock the system, open up the door. Uh, inside

392
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:48,520
Speaker 1: wasn't interesting pairing. There was a hand crank and there

393
00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:52,400
Speaker 1: was a telegraph key. Now, the hand crank was what

394
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:55,960
Speaker 1: the the person was expected to use. The person, the

395
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Speaker 1: person who had been entrusted with the key, and by

396
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:02,120
Speaker 1: turning the crank it would be the same effect as

397
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:05,320
Speaker 1: if you were sending a telegraph from a sending station

398
00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:09,199
Speaker 1: to a receiving station. The crank would turn a wheel,

399
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:12,040
Speaker 1: and the wheel would have on it essentially contacts. It

400
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:16,480
Speaker 1: would it would push a little spring powered UH circuit

401
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:22,679
Speaker 1: closed and complete the circuit to the central station. So

402
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 1: turning the crank turns the wheel. The wheel turns around

403
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:29,439
Speaker 1: and around, and that creates this pattern of dots and

404
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:32,879
Speaker 1: dashes that's unique to that particular box. Each box has

405
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 1: its own patterns. That way, when the operator receives it,

406
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:38,520
Speaker 1: they can this is box forty one, which happens to

407
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:40,280
Speaker 1: be on the street of such and such and such

408
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:44,679
Speaker 1: and such, and so the first bit of the wheel

409
00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 1: would actually have the UH the the district number, so

410
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:52,919
Speaker 1: that they know generally what part of Boston it was in,

411
00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:56,880
Speaker 1: and then the next part would actually have the boxes identity,

412
00:23:56,960 --> 00:23:59,199
Speaker 1: and the wheel, by the way was or the crank

413
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:01,680
Speaker 1: was waited so that when you were done turning it,

414
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 1: it would move into its rest position, so that would

415
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,600
Speaker 1: be ready to give the exact right information as soon

416
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:09,960
Speaker 1: as you started turning it again. Instructions were, by the way,

417
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 1: to to only do this once, because if you kept

418
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:17,880
Speaker 1: repeating the signal, it would clog, it could interfere with itself. Exactly.

419
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:21,000
Speaker 1: If you were to continue this, it could end up

420
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:24,159
Speaker 1: causing confusion. You wouldn't necessarily know where the beginning and

421
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 1: end of the message was. That could cost you valuable minutes,

422
00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:28,960
Speaker 1: which is a huge thing when you're talking about fighting

423
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 1: a fire that could go out of control, particularly in

424
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: a city again that has these problems of this really

425
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 1: dense population and flammable building materials. So the idea was

426
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:42,879
Speaker 1: that the through batteries and this backup generator and the

427
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:46,639
Speaker 1: incoming power, that the system would always be available. And

428
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:52,640
Speaker 1: assuming that at least one of the two the two circuits, Yeah,

429
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 1: you're you're in good ship, You're now. This is really

430
00:24:55,960 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 1: kind of an ingenious way of making this possible for

431
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 1: even someone who has no idea how telegraphs work. All

432
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 1: they have to do is turn a crank once that's it. Well,

433
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 1: they have to unlock the box first, obviously. Now, if

434
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:13,160
Speaker 1: you've got someone there at the station or at the

435
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 1: alarm box, someone who generally speaking is with the firefighters,

436
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: who has trained in the telegraph system. They could use

437
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,959
Speaker 1: the actual key, the telegraph key that was also inside

438
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 1: the box to send specific messages back to the operators.

439
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: So let's say that the fire itself is around the

440
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:36,720
Speaker 1: corner from where the alarm box is, that might be

441
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 1: valuable information for more incoming engine saying now there's you

442
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:43,679
Speaker 1: need to come up through blah blah blah street in

443
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 1: order to get to where the fire is. That kind

444
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:49,239
Speaker 1: of thing. So I could give more information, but that

445
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 1: was generally meant for people who are part of this

446
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 1: whole system, not not the average citizen. Yeah, they also

447
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 1: did eventually, although they never managed to sink up all

448
00:25:57,800 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: of the church bells in the city. Um. They didn't

449
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: stalled alarm bells in the boxes that would um. Once

450
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:07,119
Speaker 1: once the operator had sent out a signal to the

451
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:11,400
Speaker 1: relevant fire stations, some of some of the boxes alarms

452
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,439
Speaker 1: would sound, letting anyone else who was nearby in the

453
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 1: area know that there's this call box down here has

454
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 1: reported a fire, right and and the way that would

455
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 1: work is exactly the same way really as the telegraph machine.

456
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: You had an electromagnetic coil in there that would pull

457
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: back a lever that was on a spring, so the

458
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:36,320
Speaker 1: spring would create tension, and once the electromagnetics signal went away,

459
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 1: once the electricity went out, it would release that and

460
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 1: it would strike the lever would strike a bell, and

461
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 1: it would do this multiple times, and you know, several

462
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 1: times a second. So you would get that did into things, Yeah,

463
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:50,520
Speaker 1: you would. It was codd. For example, with with box

464
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: forty one, it would be a bell strike four times,

465
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 1: a slight pause, and a bell strike one. Wow. I

466
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 1: did not know that. I didn't come across that. That's

467
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:00,080
Speaker 1: kind of cool. So when you get up in to

468
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 1: the thousands, you gotta count a lot because, by the way,

469
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:06,919
Speaker 1: when when it first started, obviously we're talking, you know,

470
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 1: about forty or forty ish boxes, but eventually there would

471
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:15,920
Speaker 1: be more than two thousand of these installed throughout Boston,

472
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,639
Speaker 1: some of them in public and private buildings, some of

473
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 1: them months on actual streets. Uh. And of course the

474
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 1: mechanism would change, as far as the interface would change.

475
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:28,639
Speaker 1: We'll get into that that interface would change, but the

476
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: basic principle of what we're talking about here has remained

477
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 1: largely unchanged when they started building it. Yeah, two, that's fair.

478
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: Fifty two was just when it was complete, limented Yeah,

479
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 1: and even even when I say completed, there were still

480
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:48,680
Speaker 1: lots of bugs to work out, So wouldn't be until

481
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,360
Speaker 1: probably the mid eighteen fifties that the system was what

482
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: you would call robust. Early times they were like, oh,

483
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 1: we just found out something else that we did not

484
00:27:56,400 --> 00:28:01,640
Speaker 1: anticipate when we first started building this thing. Yeah, two

485
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 1: was the official installation date. April. So, um, when did

486
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 1: the first alarm come in? Not even a full day

487
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 1: old and the alarm comes in. There's actually another story

488
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: that will get to later on that's very similar to this. Yeah,

489
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:23,160
Speaker 1: April eighteen fifty two. The system is up, the systems

490
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:27,080
Speaker 1: in place, they can identify what boxes is sounding the alarm,

491
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 1: and it did not take but a day's five PM,

492
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:35,239
Speaker 1: as it turns out, because people would take note of

493
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: when the alarms came in. The first alarm was received

494
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: over the system and uh. Actually Moses Farmer would become

495
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 1: the superintendent of the fire alarm system and uh it

496
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: was shown to be effective, although again they had to

497
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 1: tweak it multiple times over the next few years. Meanwhile,

498
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 1: around eighteen fifty five, that's when a man named John

499
00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 1: Nelson Gamewell, who was a postmaster and telegraph company agent

500
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 1: from South Carolina attended a lecture that Dr Channing held

501
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 1: about the telegraph system, and that same year, just a

502
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: little bit later, a game Well ended up purchasing the

503
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: regional rights for marketing the system in the Southern United States,

504
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: South and the West, I believe. Yeah, yeah, there was

505
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: a well the Southern United States and the western territories.

506
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: We don't really talk about them in the eighteen fifties.

507
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: Uh so yeah, so that you might be noticing eighteen fifties,

508
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:30,920
Speaker 1: if you know your United States history, something major is

509
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:34,240
Speaker 1: about to happen. Uh, And that actually shakes things up

510
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 1: a bit. But in eighteen fifties seven, Channing and Farmer

511
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:40,719
Speaker 1: are issued a patent, and that patent is for the

512
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: invention that they called improvement in electric magnetic fire alarm

513
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:50,959
Speaker 1: Telegraphs for cities. That's specific. Um. And it was interesting

514
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: I read this patent, this patent they actually filed for

515
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 1: it in eighteen fifty five and they got the patent issued. Um.

516
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: It's interesting because you know the I explained the system

517
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: they used where they went with what was essentially an

518
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: open circuit that would close as these wheels would turn right. Uh.

519
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: They had also allowed for a version where it would

520
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 1: be a closed circuit. So in other words, electricity is

521
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:17,040
Speaker 1: always flowing through the circuit, but when you turn the wheel,

522
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: the wheel interrupts that electricity and it creates the same

523
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:24,479
Speaker 1: sort of code. It just does it using an open

524
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:29,040
Speaker 1: you know, open interruptions as opposed to closed signals. So

525
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 1: it was they were saying, you know, you could do

526
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 1: this either way. Yeah, it doesn't doesn't matter which one

527
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: you choose. It's going to work. You just have to

528
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 1: be consistent. That's the only important part is being consistent.

529
00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: And the redundancy they stressed that as well. But the

530
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 1: and the patent is, by the way, it's available to

531
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: read if you go I use Google Patent search, it

532
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 1: actually goes back further than a lot of the other Yeah.

533
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 1: And if you just put in improvement and electric magnetic

534
00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: fire alarm telegraphs for cities and will pop right up.

535
00:30:57,720 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 1: It's a it's a fun read. I mean, you know,

536
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 1: as pa, let's go. It's it's actually I would argue

537
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: it's easier to understand than a lot of modern patents.

538
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 1: A lot of modern patents fall into this, uh, this

539
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:14,360
Speaker 1: habit of using uh yeah, well they're using language that

540
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: is specifically has been specifically evolved for patents, and it

541
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 1: gets you know, those who was it. It's it's something

542
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 1: in the art. It's like those who are knowledgeable in

543
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:28,240
Speaker 1: the art will see that blah blah blah blah blah.

544
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: You start reading it and you're thinking, this sounds like

545
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 1: this sounds like this patent could easily be one quarter

546
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 1: of the length if they dropped all those kind of

547
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 1: kind of pretension. Yeah. Yeah, and this one pre dates

548
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 1: a lot of that, so it's pretty straightforward. I think

549
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 1: the patent issued was in the seventeen thousands at that point,

550
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: so it's pretty early in the patent system. So eighteen

551
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 1: fifty nine, a couple of things happened. First of all,

552
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 1: Moses Farmer continues to innovate in different areas. He he

553
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 1: was really one of those, yeah, one of those engineer

554
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 1: years back when things were just starting to really take off,

555
00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 1: like uh, like lights, lightbulbs. He invented yep, he invented

556
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 1: an incandescent electric lamp. Um. He didn't invent the light

557
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 1: bulb or anything. Of course Edison didn't either, but uh,

558
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 1: he he invented a type of lamp that was one

559
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:22,880
Speaker 1: of the earlier incandescent electric lamps, and the same year

560
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 1: game Well purchased the patents, or he purchased everything from

561
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 1: Channing and Farmer for the for the telegraph system. Yep.

562
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 1: He wanted to start installing this in cities everywhere he went.

563
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: He saw the value in it, and he purchased the

564
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 1: entire essentially the entire intellectual property, if you will, of

565
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 1: how this was done. And Channing and Farmer essentially stepped

566
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 1: back at this point they had invented it, and now

567
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 1: they no longer play a direct role. So here's game

568
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: Well eighteen fifty nine. He's bought all this stuff. He's

569
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 1: ready to go. It's time to become an industrialist. Win.

570
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 1: The Civil War breaks out, game wells from South Carolina.

571
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 1: He goes back to South Carolina. At the conclusion of

572
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: the Civil War, the United States government decided to do

573
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 1: something somewhat controversial for those in the Southern States. They

574
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 1: seized a lot of patents that were held by Yep, yep, yep.

575
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: It turned out they sold them at public auction. Yeah,

576
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 1: so these are our property, will sell them an auction now,

577
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 1: So Gamewell loses his patents. Uh. In eighteen sixty seven,

578
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 1: John F. Kennard goes to Washington, d C. To go

579
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 1: to one of these auctions. He had planned on purchasing

580
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: the patents that Gamewell had owned, and he had originally

581
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:40,840
Speaker 1: planned on spending about twenty grand on it. And I

582
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 1: believe that this was a former employee or a current employee.

583
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: He was he was affiliated, he was affiliated with Game Well. Uh,

584
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 1: he was ready to pay twenty grand for these patents,

585
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 1: ended up paying slightly short of ninety bucks for all

586
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: of them, and he gave them. He gave them back

587
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 1: to games Ago boss, and Gamewell said, I see this

588
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:06,760
Speaker 1: as the beginning of a beautiful friendship. And they went

589
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:09,919
Speaker 1: into business together. So they together they created the Game

590
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:14,239
Speaker 1: Well uh Telegraph Company, the Fire Alarm Telegraph Company, and

591
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:18,240
Speaker 1: uh so they go into business and start to really

592
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 1: push this right. Um. Meanwhile, I do want to say, um,

593
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:25,400
Speaker 1: telegraphy was was big around eighteen sixty one. You got

594
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:29,800
Speaker 1: the first transcontinental telegraph line out to California, which beat

595
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 1: the Transcontinental rail Road by eight years. F y. I, um,

596
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: you know, we had a first laying cables easier than

597
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 1: laying railway ties. As it turns out it is that's true.

598
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: But you know we We We also had the first transatlantic

599
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 1: cable three years before a transcontinental UM. It failed two

600
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:51,759
Speaker 1: years after it was installed. But that's beside the point,

601
00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 1: beside the point entirely, um and uh. In those early

602
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties, a few other cities were starting to install

603
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: these telegraph fire alarm systems, you know, usually through citizen

604
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: petitions to the government, going like, they have this cool

605
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 1: thing that lets them not die in fires. We want that. Yeah,

606
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:11,240
Speaker 1: can we not die in fires? Please? Became a common

607
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: plea Americ in the fifties and sixties. Um. You know,

608
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 1: one of those things that's not spelled out in the Constitution,

609
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: but you know, you just figure that goes into the

610
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 1: whole life and liberty thing. Um. In eighteen sixty four,

611
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: hooked systems were introduced in alarm boxes, and this was

612
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: an alternate to that hand crank, right, so you simply

613
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 1: pull a hook to generate the correct exactly. Yeah. This

614
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 1: was this was the ones the Boston system went from,

615
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: well a few alarm boxes in s four went from

616
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: these hand cranks to the hook system. It was decided

617
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 1: that this was simplified it and it created less of

618
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 1: a chance of failure because once the hook went back

619
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 1: into place, the wheel was ready to go. It reduced

620
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 1: the odds that someone was going to make the wheel

621
00:35:56,480 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 1: rotate more than once for one thing, because you just

622
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 1: had to pull the hook ones. I think kind of

623
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:04,359
Speaker 1: similar to the to the concept between push button and

624
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 1: rotary telephones, like it was just less things to screw up, right, Yeah,

625
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: the few the more idiot proof you make it, the better.

626
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:14,360
Speaker 1: By eighteen sixty eight, all of the single boxes in

627
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 1: Boston had been replaced with that type of of of

628
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: alarm system and uh. In eighteen sixty six, Moses Farmer

629
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 1: continued his innovative work. He patented a self exciting dynamo.

630
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: I don't want to go into any more detail about that.

631
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 1: I just want you to try and imagine what a

632
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:32,759
Speaker 1: self exciting dynamo is. If you have an idea of

633
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 1: what a self exciting dynamo is, and funny ideas are

634
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: better than not funny ideas, you should let us know

635
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:41,360
Speaker 1: tech stuff at discovery dot com because I want to

636
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,360
Speaker 1: see it, and if you use that email address, we

637
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 1: both get to see it. All right, But we've got

638
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: a lot more to talk about with this fire system,

639
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: as well as an actual fire that broke out shortly,

640
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:56,320
Speaker 1: just just two decades after the system was in place,

641
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,200
Speaker 1: and what happened at that time. But before we get

642
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: into that, let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Alright,

643
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 1: we're back and you were going to bring us up

644
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:08,839
Speaker 1: to date with what eighteen sixteen nine, all right, right,

645
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 1: or around this time, there were about a hundred and

646
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: twelve alarm boxes and service in Boston. UM systems were

647
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: in place in thirty eight cities across the US, and

648
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 1: according to game Well, these systems cost um two thousand,

649
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars to ten thousand dollars to set up,

650
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:26,840
Speaker 1: which in the day was was like forty five to

651
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 1: a hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars and in two

652
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 1: day's But but just that that's a whole system, that's

653
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: that's an entire system. So when you think about it,

654
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:40,240
Speaker 1: that's incredibly cheap compared to the devastation of a fire

655
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 1: of ranger fire, right, you know, it was also right

656
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: and this is this is why they were starting to

657
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:48,239
Speaker 1: become Over the next couple of decades, they would be

658
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:53,520
Speaker 1: rolling out in enormous numbers, right, so, partially because okay,

659
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 1: so um so eighteen seventy two. Uh, this is what

660
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:00,840
Speaker 1: was known as the Great Boston Fire. It was not

661
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 1: a pleasant experience. So eighteen seventy two, a fire begins

662
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 1: in the basement of a five story warehouse. We're still

663
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:10,880
Speaker 1: not sure what caused it. It was on Kingston and

664
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:15,759
Speaker 1: as Summer Streets yep November nine two. It might have

665
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: been caused by a coal spark from a steam boiler. So,

666
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 1: in other words, this is a boiler that you put

667
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: water in it, you create a fire from coal. The

668
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:28,120
Speaker 1: fire heats up the water, which converts it to steam

669
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: that then can be used to heat a building or

670
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 1: do other work. So there's some suspicion that perhaps a

671
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:38,359
Speaker 1: spark from this coal fire is what started it all off.

672
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 1: At any rate, a fire started and the building was

673
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:46,920
Speaker 1: what we would call crazy flammable or even inflammable because

674
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 1: they mean the same thing completely engulfed pretty shortly. Um.

675
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:53,920
Speaker 1: This this this occurred around seven pm and at seven

676
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 1: the first fire alarm was triggered, right, and it was

677
00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 1: triggered at Summer in Lincoln Streets at box number fifty two.

678
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:04,280
Speaker 1: And from what I understand, citizens kind of took their time,

679
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:09,279
Speaker 1: uh triggering the alarm because people just assume someone else

680
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 1: had already done it. This, I think falls under that

681
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:14,319
Speaker 1: category that a lot of us fall victim to the

682
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 1: idea that someone smarter than us has taken care of

683
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:19,839
Speaker 1: the problem, that that holds someone else's problem kind of,

684
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:22,760
Speaker 1: or just that I would do something, but I'm sure

685
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 1: someone else has already done it. Not. No, it's not

686
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 1: so much apathy as it is uh absolute uh surety

687
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:32,720
Speaker 1: that you are not the most competent person in the area.

688
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,680
Speaker 1: I have been victim of this um as I'm sure

689
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 1: most people have. But at any rate, additional alarms were

690
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:44,600
Speaker 1: struck at seven four and seven and eight pm, which

691
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:47,360
Speaker 1: means this was a five alarm fire, which is where

692
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 1: that phrase comes from. Yes, uh, and you know, with

693
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:52,480
Speaker 1: the idea being that the more boxes are involved in

694
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 1: calling out the alarm, the bigger a fire is exactly,

695
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 1: So there you go. If you've ever heard of five

696
00:39:57,000 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 1: alarm fire and wondered where it came from, essentially comes

697
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:02,840
Speaker 1: from the This is the idea of multiple alarms triggered

698
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 1: for a single fire. This one was a doozy. There

699
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:08,759
Speaker 1: were other boxes, of course, that were involved, Box forty

700
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: eight and Box one three, which for some reason we're

701
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:15,959
Speaker 1: near box fifty two. The numbering system in Boston, I'm sure,

702
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 1: was mostly based on chronology, meaning that if you had

703
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 1: started off with forty or forty one boxes, and then

704
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,840
Speaker 1: you add in one part of the city versus another,

705
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:27,720
Speaker 1: it makes about as much sense as the house numbering

706
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 1: system in certain parts of Atlanta, where you think, oh,

707
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 1: well thirty will be Wait now I'm in the what happened?

708
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 1: Now it's going backwards. What happened? All these streets are

709
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 1: named peach trees. That also does not help. Uh So, anyway,

710
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 1: at least three boxes, probably more, we're involved in signaling

711
00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:49,560
Speaker 1: alarms to the central operator. And so pretty soon by

712
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:54,279
Speaker 1: every single fire station in Boston had been alerted to

713
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 1: this fire and to where the where it was coming from.

714
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:01,800
Speaker 1: Um help came in for them from all around Boston,

715
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:05,920
Speaker 1: as as far away as a New Haven, Connecticut, and Manchester, Manchester,

716
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 1: New Hampshire. Yeah, it's kind of crazy how far away

717
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:13,799
Speaker 1: they were. There were firefighters who were putting equipment on railroads,

718
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:18,160
Speaker 1: on railroads, on trains which were in turn on railroads,

719
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:22,799
Speaker 1: and shipping them down to Boston in response to this fire.

720
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:24,759
Speaker 1: Because you know, when you're talking about a fire of

721
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:27,800
Speaker 1: this magnitude, and you're talking about the technology of eighteen

722
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:31,839
Speaker 1: seventy two. It's not like they're going to necessarily be

723
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:33,720
Speaker 1: able to get under control in a matter of hours.

724
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 1: The Great Fire of London which happened back in sixteen

725
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:40,319
Speaker 1: sixty six, that took three days to get to put out,

726
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 1: So you know that these fires could last a really

727
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 1: long time. Now, despite this amazing fire alert system, there

728
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 1: were still huge problems in fighting this fire, which had

729
00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 1: nothing that. The problems had nothing to do with the system.

730
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:56,880
Speaker 1: The system worked just as it was intended to the

731
00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:00,160
Speaker 1: alarm system, right. Um, the hoses, the fire hoses that time.

732
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:04,799
Speaker 1: Unfortunately we're not standardized. So with the hydrants, Yeah, the

733
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 1: fire hydrants weren't standardized. Neither with the hoses, which meant

734
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 1: that some hoses would not fit some hydrants. That's a problem. Yes,

735
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:13,960
Speaker 1: let's see that there was a there was a terrible

736
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 1: outbreak of equal distemper a a strangles horse horse flu,

737
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:21,920
Speaker 1: which is a bacterial infection caused by by a strain

738
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 1: of strap. So this is an extremely virulent, fast acting

739
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 1: virus that is frequently fatal, I believe. Yeah, And and

740
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 1: even if it didn't kill a horse. The horse was

741
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 1: essentially out of commission. Now this again and had to

742
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:39,279
Speaker 1: be quarantined. So this is before automotives. This is when

743
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:42,439
Speaker 1: you know, you your fire engines were horse drawn, So

744
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:44,479
Speaker 1: now there aren't any horses at this time. That means

745
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: that they had to be man and drawn. Yeah. Yeah,

746
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:49,800
Speaker 1: you'd hook up a team of men to your fire

747
00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 1: engine and have them tug it to wherever it was

748
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 1: that needed to go. So you had hydrants and hoses

749
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:57,719
Speaker 1: that didn't necessarily fit each other. There was also a

750
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 1: water pressure problem in that particular district. This was in

751
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 1: a commercial district of Boston, so lots of warehouses and factories.

752
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 1: Not very many homes in this part of Boston, but

753
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: lots of commercial buildings. And in fact, the fire chief

754
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:14,759
Speaker 1: of Boston had been telling the city for a couple

755
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,840
Speaker 1: of years that they really needed to address the problem

756
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 1: of water pressure, but no one had really taken any

757
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:26,320
Speaker 1: efforts to do it, mostly because you know, at the time,

758
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:29,760
Speaker 1: the accusations are all about how everything was very political

759
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:33,399
Speaker 1: and they didn't want to take attention away from more

760
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:37,280
Speaker 1: political matters to deal with this very practical problem. However,

761
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,799
Speaker 1: because the water pressure was low, it wasn't sufficient to

762
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: get water to the higher levels of some of these warehouses.

763
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 1: And because we're talking about warehouses that were some were

764
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 1: four or five stories tall, they were taller than most

765
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 1: fire ladders were. So firefighters couldn't get to where the

766
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 1: flames actually were, either with water or with ladders, and

767
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:59,439
Speaker 1: it was really a problem. It meant that the fire

768
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: just continued to spread. So that led some people to

769
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 1: come up with a brilliant plan of a way of

770
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: of of destroying the links between buildings so the fire

771
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: could no longer spread further outward that was blowing them up.

772
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 1: Yet they blowed them up real good with gunpowder. Now again,

773
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 1: the fire chief initially was very much against this because frankly,

774
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who wanted to use this

775
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:24,040
Speaker 1: were not trained in the use of gunpowder. And as

776
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:26,759
Speaker 1: it turns out, if you are not trained in explosives,

777
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:30,719
Speaker 1: you have a very strong possibility of blowing yourself up

778
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:33,759
Speaker 1: along with whatever it is you're planning to destroy. And

779
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 1: in fact that there were many injuries reported as a

780
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 1: as a result of some of the explosions. But it

781
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:41,240
Speaker 1: was an attempt to create what are called fire breaks.

782
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: These are those those breaks between buildings so that the

783
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 1: fire can cannot jump from one building to the next.

784
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:52,920
Speaker 1: Depending upon the report you read, this was fairly successful

785
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 1: and it helped keep the fire under control. Other reports

786
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 1: say that it didn't you know that that it didn't

787
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 1: have a really noticeable effect on actually fighting the fire,

788
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:05,480
Speaker 1: but it certainly made it more complicated. The fire chief

789
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,840
Speaker 1: was overruled by the city government that said, you know,

790
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 1: it's fine for them to use this. He was not

791
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:13,920
Speaker 1: entirely happy. The fire chief, by the way, his name

792
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 1: is was John Damrell. He was pretty much a hero

793
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:23,880
Speaker 1: during this whole process. He was coordinating everything. However, because

794
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:26,759
Speaker 1: the devastation was so vast. There were seven seventy six

795
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,399
Speaker 1: buildings destroyed around that number anyway again that I see

796
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: seven hundred depending upon the report, uh and and around

797
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:39,840
Speaker 1: seventy three million dollars and damages at that time. Although

798
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: um only and I mean, I mean, you know, any

799
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 1: any deaths are tragic, but they're only Thirteen people died

800
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:47,400
Speaker 1: in the fire, um, including two members of the Boston

801
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 1: Fire Department. Ye. Most of the buildings were in the

802
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:52,360
Speaker 1: commercial district, like we said, so they weren't residents, and

803
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 1: so if it had been in a residential area, obviously

804
00:45:54,840 --> 00:46:00,040
Speaker 1: those numbers would be different. So that considering the of

805
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 1: a staying nature of this fire, that was that was

806
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:04,360
Speaker 1: It's hard to call it a silver lining, but it

807
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 1: could have been worked. So Fire Chief John Damrell had

808
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 1: warned the city he had tried to work against some

809
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:15,760
Speaker 1: of the plans of using gunpowder. He coordinated the efforts.

810
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:18,720
Speaker 1: How was he rewarded well? He went on to organize

811
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 1: the National Association of Fire Chiefs. But eighteen seventy two

812
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:23,640
Speaker 1: was when the fire broke out, and by eighteen seventy

813
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 1: four he had been replaced as fire chief of Boston. Congratulations,

814
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:30,399
Speaker 1: fire chief, are doing a great job and telling us

815
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 1: all the things that we needed to hear because it

816
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:36,399
Speaker 1: wasn't political. We're gonna put all the blame on you

817
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:39,239
Speaker 1: for the fact that this fire was bigger than what

818
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: it should have been. Instead of crediting you, we're gonna

819
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:44,839
Speaker 1: put the blame on you and you lose your job.

820
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: He would actually go on to become the building inspector

821
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 1: for Boston. Like instead of becoming better, he actually took

822
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 1: on a different role and made sure that building codes

823
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:58,239
Speaker 1: and fire codes were enforceable by law. Right right. He

824
00:46:58,239 --> 00:46:59,839
Speaker 1: he went at the system in a different way and said,

825
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:01,439
Speaker 1: if you're not going to listen to me this way,

826
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 1: then I can do it this way. I can at

827
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 1: least make this enforceable to make sure this doesn't happen again.

828
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 1: So because of the work he did and the work

829
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:14,840
Speaker 1: of other people who who followed him, they the building

830
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:18,800
Speaker 1: codes for Boston changed, the materials used in construction, changed

831
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:22,319
Speaker 1: the the actual uh the way things were constructed so

832
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:26,000
Speaker 1: that they weren't built necessarily so close together. That changed

833
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 1: another interesting point early on with this whole fire system.

834
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:35,120
Speaker 1: Perhaps you could call it ironic that the the central

835
00:47:35,160 --> 00:47:37,720
Speaker 1: system we had talked about, the central office where everything

836
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 1: came through, was actually originally housed in an extremely flammable building.

837
00:47:42,239 --> 00:47:44,840
Speaker 1: Isn't a building that was crammed up against other buildings

838
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:47,960
Speaker 1: and could have easily caught on fire, but eventually was

839
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:50,960
Speaker 1: moved to a different location and in fact is now

840
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:53,520
Speaker 1: part of the Parks department. It's still operational. I mean,

841
00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 1: this is still a working fire safety department, and it

842
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 1: it be cause it's in the parks. That means no

843
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:04,480
Speaker 1: one else can build there. So it's the closest building

844
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:07,440
Speaker 1: is two fifty feet away from this and that is

845
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 1: regulated in in the laws forever. Yea, So there's not

846
00:48:10,960 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 1: it's made out of flame retardet material and it's not

847
00:48:13,719 --> 00:48:16,319
Speaker 1: close to any other buildings. So now at least the

848
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 1: fire alert system on fire, which would be you know interesting,

849
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 1: like to get an alert like be a be a

850
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,399
Speaker 1: firefighter and you get an alert there's a fire? Where

851
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:29,359
Speaker 1: is it in the fire station? That bites Let's go

852
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 1: all right, so now we get back over to some

853
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:37,239
Speaker 1: more development developments in this system. Now remember, yeah, the tech,

854
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:42,280
Speaker 1: the basic principles remain the same, but the interface changes.

855
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 1: And another change happened in one UH that was the

856
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 1: first key less alarm box, where people said, you know,

857
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 1: maybe something that could help make alarm boxes more effective,

858
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 1: as if we didn't have to worry about where the

859
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:58,399
Speaker 1: key is when we need to signal the alarm. Now,

860
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:01,959
Speaker 1: of course, this does obviously open up the possibility for

861
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:05,719
Speaker 1: pranks or mistaken UH calls. There might be and you know,

862
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:09,400
Speaker 1: the occasional alarm where someone legitimately thought something was on

863
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:12,319
Speaker 1: fire and it turns out it's not. So it's not

864
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:14,839
Speaker 1: like I don't want to suggest that only hooligans were

865
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 1: going around pulling fire alarms, but also they changed the

866
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:22,359
Speaker 1: actual handle. They went to the T handle approach, which

867
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 1: shaped like the letter T, which is why it's called that.

868
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:28,600
Speaker 1: So you've probably seen ones like this. It's a little

869
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 1: lever and you pull it down and that's what activates it.

870
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:33,880
Speaker 1: But otherwise it did the exact same thing as the

871
00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:39,080
Speaker 1: previous generations. Um. The first one that had this kind

872
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 1: of UH alarm system was box number forty two, which

873
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:45,920
Speaker 1: is at the intersection of Tremont and Winter Streets. And

874
00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:49,320
Speaker 1: by the way, when I started mispronouncing Boston streets, uh,

875
00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:51,160
Speaker 1: I'm sure that both of us have been doing a

876
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:54,280
Speaker 1: whole lot of that. I've only been to Boston once,

877
00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:57,800
Speaker 1: and I did not go to that many streets. I

878
00:49:57,840 --> 00:49:59,759
Speaker 1: went to an aquarium in the Science Museum, both of

879
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:03,799
Speaker 1: which were lovely. On May two of eight eight one,

880
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:06,759
Speaker 1: the city government ordered that all fire alarm boxes were

881
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:10,080
Speaker 1: to be painted red instead of black, which probably made

882
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:12,279
Speaker 1: it a lot easier to find them at night in

883
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:15,319
Speaker 1: the dark. Yeah, when you're when you're told at night

884
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:18,040
Speaker 1: that the nearest alarm boxes a block away and it's

885
00:50:18,719 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 1: it's painted black, you might start to consider certain phrases

886
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:28,720
Speaker 1: in your mind to describe the decision to paint said

887
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:31,400
Speaker 1: boxes black in the first place. They would later be

888
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:34,239
Speaker 1: painted green and are now back to red again as

889
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:36,600
Speaker 1: of this current date. Oh, I didn't even know they

890
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 1: had changed to green. Yeah, that's why I don't think

891
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:41,799
Speaker 1: it was for another another while. UM And and at

892
00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 1: this point in time, systems, these UM, these game Well

893
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:48,839
Speaker 1: systems were in place in a hundred and three cities. UH.

894
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:53,160
Speaker 1: In eight two, they decided to install another new technology

895
00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:56,880
Speaker 1: as part of the central office. This one called the telemophone.

896
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:02,640
Speaker 1: Yes ahoihoi so telephone was ordered to be installed at

897
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:05,880
Speaker 1: the central Office in the fire alarm headquarters, which was

898
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:10,200
Speaker 1: different than the central office and most firehouses or fire stations.

899
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:13,760
Speaker 1: But it would take about three years before they actually

900
00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:17,319
Speaker 1: managed to outfit all of the system with these new

901
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 1: fangled telephones. UM. During during that decade from from about

902
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:27,360
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty eight, that the number of telegraph fire alarm

903
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:31,240
Speaker 1: systems jumped from about a hundred to about seven hundred

904
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:35,239
Speaker 1: and fifty across the country. About five of those game well,

905
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:37,480
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, about five hundred of those game well and

906
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:40,719
Speaker 1: in another two hundred something something something. UM rival companies

907
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:43,239
Speaker 1: that were starting to open up clearly game. Well was

908
00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:47,719
Speaker 1: ahead of the game. One might say, well ahead of

909
00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:51,120
Speaker 1: the game. Goodness, Lauren wouldn't, but I would. I would

910
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:56,000
Speaker 1: not at all. That's when the first underground fire alarm

911
00:51:56,200 --> 00:52:00,120
Speaker 1: cable was installed. Now, all previous cables, of course, were

912
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:03,480
Speaker 1: strung out over head. They were you know, across rooftops.

913
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:06,279
Speaker 1: They had their own glass insulators that held them. This

914
00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:09,520
Speaker 1: one was a cable that would go under the ground.

915
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 1: The first box connected to the underground cable was box

916
00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:16,120
Speaker 1: number fifty four on Beach Street in eighteen nine, and

917
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:19,280
Speaker 1: a year later, several alarm boxes were equipped with red

918
00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:24,240
Speaker 1: electric lamp indicators. So now you have the audible alarm

919
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:26,520
Speaker 1: as well as the red light that could light up

920
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:31,400
Speaker 1: when an alarm box was triggered. By seven, all of

921
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:34,520
Speaker 1: the alarm boxes in Boston were equipped with keyless doors.

922
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:37,799
Speaker 1: So that finally rolled out after you know, more than

923
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:42,280
Speaker 1: a decade, and then uh in nt uh the current

924
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:44,960
Speaker 1: Fire Alarm Office of Boston opens. Now you remember we

925
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:46,959
Speaker 1: said that it moved from when we were talking about

926
00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:49,600
Speaker 1: it's in Kaway Park and um, it's it's got that

927
00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:52,640
Speaker 1: good cushi zone around it, yep, and it's uh. It

928
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 1: took all of two minutes when it officially opened before

929
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:01,760
Speaker 1: the first alarm came in. So eight a m. It opens,

930
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 1: eight oh two, they get their first alarm. Yeah, uh,

931
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:09,240
Speaker 1: and it was from box which was located at Westland Avenue.

932
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:13,520
Speaker 1: Probably still is probably doubt that Boston has moved around

933
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:16,239
Speaker 1: that much. I have not noticed it doing so. They

934
00:53:16,239 --> 00:53:20,080
Speaker 1: could have renamed the street that's sometimes um and it's

935
00:53:20,160 --> 00:53:22,919
Speaker 1: and it's still as of Boston was still the only

936
00:53:22,920 --> 00:53:26,880
Speaker 1: city with a telegraph alarm system that made this paper record. Wow,

937
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:30,400
Speaker 1: that is incredible because that paper record is important, definitely.

938
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:32,959
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a historical document all on its own.

939
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: And again, by looking at that record over lengths of time,

940
00:53:37,080 --> 00:53:39,600
Speaker 1: you could see if there were parts of the city

941
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:42,480
Speaker 1: that perhaps needed to be looked at more closely because

942
00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 1: of the frequency of fires that are breaking out. So

943
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:48,000
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting to me that that they were

944
00:53:48,040 --> 00:53:51,319
Speaker 1: the only ones really doing it at that point. It's

945
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 1: it's a vague possibility that that um game well exaggerated

946
00:53:56,440 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 1: that figure for the purpose. I believe the document I

947
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:04,919
Speaker 1: read it in was a pamphlet had been that's fair. Well,

948
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:07,480
Speaker 1: let me ask you this, because I've got a huge

949
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 1: jump in time now from nine to three. Do you

950
00:54:11,800 --> 00:54:14,000
Speaker 1: have anything you want to fill in between those years?

951
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:16,240
Speaker 1: I do not. It was it was a boring time

952
00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:18,680
Speaker 1: for alarm telegraph systems, right, I mean, we had a

953
00:54:18,680 --> 00:54:20,680
Speaker 1: couple of world wars and a depression in there. But

954
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:24,240
Speaker 1: other than that, and maybe you know, some occasional fires,

955
00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 1: but beyond that, I I guess we should mention that

956
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:30,719
Speaker 1: you know that this was when you know, during that time,

957
00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:33,200
Speaker 1: we went from the what seven and fifty something to

958
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:38,760
Speaker 1: over two boxes box systems across the country. And also

959
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:41,239
Speaker 1: by by the time you get to three, there were

960
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:44,240
Speaker 1: a lot of cities that had installed the telegraph systems

961
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:47,680
Speaker 1: that were now decommissioning them. But we'll talk more about

962
00:54:47,680 --> 00:54:49,880
Speaker 1: that towards the end, because there's some interesting facts and

963
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:53,800
Speaker 1: figures about that. Okay, So nineteen eighty three, the Boston

964
00:54:53,920 --> 00:54:56,759
Speaker 1: Fire Commissioner George Paul announced plans to phase out this

965
00:54:56,800 --> 00:54:59,520
Speaker 1: alarm system, which was over a century old almost it's

966
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:02,080
Speaker 1: like a hund and thirty one years old at this point. Uh,

967
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:03,920
Speaker 1: he had he said that he wanted to phase it

968
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:06,480
Speaker 1: out over the following seven years, so it would have

969
00:55:06,520 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 1: concluded in nineteen Now, why would he want to get

970
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:11,919
Speaker 1: rid of a system that had been in working order

971
00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:14,319
Speaker 1: for more than a century. Out of the working order

972
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:17,759
Speaker 1: was not hugely working. There were a lot of problems. Yeah.

973
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:19,800
Speaker 1: First of all, he said that there were that the

974
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:23,440
Speaker 1: vast majority of alarms that were coming in through this

975
00:55:23,560 --> 00:55:27,440
Speaker 1: system were false alarms. Whether those were pranks or mistakes

976
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:31,960
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter. He was saying that over of all

977
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:35,480
Speaker 1: alarms received through the system were false and and that furthermore,

978
00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:38,759
Speaker 1: each false alarm was costing U the city like seven

979
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:41,880
Speaker 1: hundred bucks. Yeah, which meant that it costs the taxpayers

980
00:55:41,920 --> 00:55:45,919
Speaker 1: seven hundred bucks per false alarm. And uh, and that's

981
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:49,680
Speaker 1: because you figure out the cost of the firefighters, the

982
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:53,120
Speaker 1: fuel needed for the fire engine, all the equipment, and

983
00:55:53,160 --> 00:55:56,880
Speaker 1: then just the time wasted. So that was kind of

984
00:55:56,920 --> 00:55:59,440
Speaker 1: a figure that he had he had cited in his

985
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:02,360
Speaker 1: decision to phase this out. And he said that only

986
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:07,080
Speaker 1: two point four percent of all structural fires were reported

987
00:56:07,160 --> 00:56:10,560
Speaker 1: through the use of these boxes. So not only are

988
00:56:10,640 --> 00:56:13,360
Speaker 1: most of the reports coming in false the ones that

989
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:16,960
Speaker 1: are actual fires, the only two point four percent were

990
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:19,120
Speaker 1: coming in through boxes in the first place. Otherwise they

991
00:56:19,120 --> 00:56:23,600
Speaker 1: were getting them through other means, whether it was radio, telephone, whatever,

992
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:26,440
Speaker 1: but they were getting their information in other ways. So

993
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:28,839
Speaker 1: he was saying that it's an obsolete system that is

994
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:32,480
Speaker 1: giving us more false alarms than than active ones. We

995
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:36,920
Speaker 1: should get rid of it now. Despite this, the system

996
00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:40,440
Speaker 1: stays in place. So even though he cites this plan

997
00:56:41,239 --> 00:56:43,520
Speaker 1: and he gives his reasons and they seem like pretty

998
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 1: solid ones, nothing happens. I don't know the reason for that.

999
00:56:47,520 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 1: I don't know if there was a lot of resistance.

1000
00:56:50,280 --> 00:56:54,800
Speaker 1: Bostonians can sometimes be considered a somewhat stubborn lot, perhaps

1001
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:58,120
Speaker 1: some kind of a historical society lobby. Um. Boston is

1002
00:56:58,120 --> 00:57:03,200
Speaker 1: also a very very big city for for historical preservation. Yep, yep, um.

1003
00:57:03,239 --> 00:57:07,800
Speaker 1: Maybe they're just full of beans. It is Beantown, face it, alright.

1004
00:57:07,840 --> 00:57:12,040
Speaker 1: So anyway, the system doesn't go anywhere. It stays in place.

1005
00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:19,360
Speaker 1: So Boston does something incredible. They update the system with

1006
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:23,200
Speaker 1: electronic decoding terminals, and at that time they are about

1007
00:57:23,200 --> 00:57:25,720
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred or so far alarm boxes on streets and

1008
00:57:25,760 --> 00:57:29,240
Speaker 1: another one thousand in public and private buildings. There are

1009
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:35,200
Speaker 1: more now, but or so total across the city. They

1010
00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:39,120
Speaker 1: maintain the fact that it is um independent of telephone

1011
00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:43,160
Speaker 1: and grid electric lines, right, meaning that if the telephone

1012
00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:46,160
Speaker 1: system fails, if the electric system fails, this system will

1013
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:48,440
Speaker 1: still work. That's actually one of, probably one of the

1014
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:50,760
Speaker 1: reasons why it stayed in place, because even though you

1015
00:57:50,760 --> 00:57:54,000
Speaker 1: could argue that you are getting more false alarms than

1016
00:57:54,080 --> 00:57:56,440
Speaker 1: real ones, and that you are getting most of your

1017
00:57:56,440 --> 00:58:00,040
Speaker 1: information through other means, anyway, this was a rely a

1018
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:04,200
Speaker 1: bowl method of reporting a fire that was completely independent

1019
00:58:04,200 --> 00:58:06,360
Speaker 1: of other systems, So even if other systems failed, you

1020
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:09,240
Speaker 1: could still rely on this. I'm guessing that's one of

1021
00:58:09,240 --> 00:58:12,120
Speaker 1: the reasons why it remained active even after the fire

1022
00:58:12,120 --> 00:58:16,800
Speaker 1: commissioner had planned on phasing it out. Now UM around

1023
00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 1: around this time, ish, I I know definitely. As of

1024
00:58:20,080 --> 00:58:24,280
Speaker 1: two thousand three, UM, game Well had been acquired by

1025
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:28,400
Speaker 1: a company called Honeywell International UM and no longer makes

1026
00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 1: new telegraph systems. However, they do still continue to support

1027
00:58:32,720 --> 00:58:36,160
Speaker 1: the existing ones, right. Yeah, that warranty was serious business.

1028
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:39,480
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, way better than my TV. Yes. So,

1029
00:58:39,600 --> 00:58:43,800
Speaker 1: Honeywell now is the parent company, the owner of the

1030
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:48,520
Speaker 1: game Well company. UM and in early this year, we're

1031
00:58:48,560 --> 00:58:51,040
Speaker 1: recording this in for those of you in the future

1032
00:58:51,080 --> 00:58:53,840
Speaker 1: who are listening back on this episode. Hi, where's my

1033
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:57,840
Speaker 1: jet pack? But in the Boston government actually opened up

1034
00:58:58,360 --> 00:59:03,800
Speaker 1: a forum of dialogue and said, Hey, Bostonians, how would

1035
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:06,720
Speaker 1: you update our fire alarm system? What would you do

1036
00:59:06,880 --> 00:59:09,920
Speaker 1: to bring it into the twenty first century? What capabilities

1037
00:59:10,160 --> 00:59:13,760
Speaker 1: should it have, what what technology should it be built upon.

1038
00:59:13,880 --> 00:59:18,640
Speaker 1: So now we're talking about finally perhaps switching this from

1039
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:22,360
Speaker 1: the telegraph system it's been based on since eighteen fifty two.

1040
00:59:22,800 --> 00:59:25,680
Speaker 1: So we might actually see a new fire alarm system

1041
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:28,280
Speaker 1: rolled out in Boston over the next few years that

1042
00:59:28,360 --> 00:59:32,480
Speaker 1: will be similar perhaps to what is exists now, but

1043
00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:35,760
Speaker 1: built on a completely different technology. I wouldn't be surprised

1044
00:59:35,800 --> 00:59:38,680
Speaker 1: if it's still had its own independent power system so

1045
00:59:38,720 --> 00:59:40,360
Speaker 1: that it could maintain, because I think that's one of

1046
00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:44,360
Speaker 1: the most important parts. Sure. Sure, and and a lot

1047
00:59:44,400 --> 00:59:48,280
Speaker 1: of towns are taking down their their telegraph systems these

1048
00:59:48,360 --> 00:59:52,440
Speaker 1: days in favor of radio signal alarm systems. UM. You know,

1049
00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:55,360
Speaker 1: And and like we said, those those benefits are really

1050
00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:58,040
Speaker 1: just that, you know, if if there's an earthquake and

1051
00:59:58,080 --> 01:00:01,000
Speaker 1: it brings telephone and power down, or um, if there's

1052
01:00:01,040 --> 01:00:03,120
Speaker 1: some kind of computer glitch that brings down a nine

1053
01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:05,640
Speaker 1: one one system. UM. Both of these things are things

1054
01:00:05,640 --> 01:00:10,240
Speaker 1: that have happened and UH in earthquake in San Francisco

1055
01:00:10,520 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 1: two thousand four glitch in the New York City UH system,

1056
01:00:15,600 --> 01:00:18,680
Speaker 1: the boxes can still operate and can still get messages

1057
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:21,720
Speaker 1: that will save lives and property. We've even seen, you know,

1058
01:00:21,920 --> 01:00:25,960
Speaker 1: during big catastrophes or even just large events where cellular

1059
01:00:26,000 --> 01:00:30,080
Speaker 1: networks get completely overwhelmed with traffic and you can't get

1060
01:00:30,080 --> 01:00:32,480
Speaker 1: a call in or out of them. This would still

1061
01:00:32,480 --> 01:00:34,520
Speaker 1: be a system that would work under that, Because, I mean,

1062
01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:36,919
Speaker 1: more and more people are moving away from landlines. But

1063
01:00:37,200 --> 01:00:39,240
Speaker 1: just because you have a cellular phone doesn't mean that

1064
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:41,560
Speaker 1: you can always depend upon it. There are gonna be

1065
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:44,360
Speaker 1: times where systems are gonna get overwhelmed. So having an

1066
01:00:44,360 --> 01:00:48,200
Speaker 1: independent system that doesn't need to tie into any of

1067
01:00:48,200 --> 01:00:51,960
Speaker 1: those things has a lot of appeal. Sure, the upkeep

1068
01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:54,480
Speaker 1: on them is very expensive. Those Sacramento is hope and

1069
01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:57,360
Speaker 1: hoping that dismantling its system is going to save the

1070
01:00:57,360 --> 01:01:01,440
Speaker 1: city UM five thousand dollars per year UM. And upkeep

1071
01:01:02,120 --> 01:01:06,600
Speaker 1: so so cheap to install, expensive to maintain. I see

1072
01:01:06,640 --> 01:01:09,000
Speaker 1: how they get you. You know that the wires are

1073
01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:12,440
Speaker 1: susceptible to wear, and unlike other utility systems that a

1074
01:01:12,480 --> 01:01:16,480
Speaker 1: city would buy into it's it's a unitasker. It's not

1075
01:01:16,600 --> 01:01:18,880
Speaker 1: it's not like this can be used for anything else.

1076
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:22,880
Speaker 1: Brown would hate it. Yes, thank you to Alton Brown

1077
01:01:22,920 --> 01:01:27,160
Speaker 1: for totally what I was thinking of. Yeah, there are

1078
01:01:27,200 --> 01:01:30,320
Speaker 1: a lot of cities that are turning those old boxes

1079
01:01:30,360 --> 01:01:33,840
Speaker 1: into art. They make it into like an art exhibit.

1080
01:01:33,920 --> 01:01:36,920
Speaker 1: So you know, they're not getting rid of the infrastructure

1081
01:01:36,960 --> 01:01:38,880
Speaker 1: in the sense of like taking down the boxes. They're

1082
01:01:39,480 --> 01:01:43,400
Speaker 1: letting it not be updated anymore. It's just becoming something

1083
01:01:43,600 --> 01:01:48,960
Speaker 1: that's meant for. Yeah, speaking of historical I wanted in

1084
01:01:49,120 --> 01:01:52,680
Speaker 1: this kind of talking about the Boston Fire Museum. Uh.

1085
01:01:52,800 --> 01:01:55,480
Speaker 1: The website, by the way, was very helpful putting together

1086
01:01:55,520 --> 01:01:57,440
Speaker 1: a lot of the information for this podcast, so I

1087
01:01:57,440 --> 01:02:00,280
Speaker 1: recommend looking at But according to the website, the Austin

1088
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:03,240
Speaker 1: Fire Museum has some of the old equipment from the

1089
01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:07,760
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two system on display, including a box transmitter

1090
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:11,320
Speaker 1: which was designed to re transmit information from alarm boxes

1091
01:02:11,360 --> 01:02:15,360
Speaker 1: to fire stations, and it's tied into the tapper circuit

1092
01:02:15,960 --> 01:02:19,120
Speaker 1: of the Boston fire alarm system. But whenever anything goes off,

1093
01:02:19,160 --> 01:02:21,120
Speaker 1: it rings the bell. It rings the bell and types

1094
01:02:21,160 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 1: out the tape so you can actually see if you

1095
01:02:23,640 --> 01:02:27,360
Speaker 1: can read the Morse code. You'll see which box number

1096
01:02:27,560 --> 01:02:30,120
Speaker 1: triggered that alarm, so you if you are there when

1097
01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:32,440
Speaker 1: the alarm is triggered, it'll go off and you'll be

1098
01:02:32,520 --> 01:02:36,000
Speaker 1: able to see it in action. I don't recommend that

1099
01:02:36,040 --> 01:02:39,680
Speaker 1: you orchestrate this so that you can actually see it. Uh.

1100
01:02:39,760 --> 01:02:42,200
Speaker 1: I hope that if you do go to the museum

1101
01:02:42,240 --> 01:02:44,920
Speaker 1: that it remains inactive, because that means there's not a

1102
01:02:44,920 --> 01:02:48,800
Speaker 1: fire hopefully, but but still kind of a cool thing.

1103
01:02:48,920 --> 01:02:50,680
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of neat that it's tied. It's

1104
01:02:50,720 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 1: actively tied into the system. Now, nothing is dependent upon

1105
01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:58,800
Speaker 1: this particular piece of technology. It's just it's just tapped into. Yeah,

1106
01:02:59,120 --> 01:03:01,959
Speaker 1: for a certain amount of anything, like, wow, it still works,

1107
01:03:02,000 --> 01:03:05,360
Speaker 1: and you think that either means someone's being naughty or

1108
01:03:05,440 --> 01:03:08,400
Speaker 1: someone is on fire. I hope everyone's okay, exactly, So

1109
01:03:08,440 --> 01:03:12,080
Speaker 1: it's that weird moment of wow. Oh but anyway, I

1110
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:14,560
Speaker 1: thought it was really cool. So anyway that I except

1111
01:03:14,600 --> 01:03:17,960
Speaker 1: this discussion. I love this topic. I love taking stuff

1112
01:03:18,000 --> 01:03:20,600
Speaker 1: that has this historic aspect to it, something that I

1113
01:03:20,600 --> 01:03:23,560
Speaker 1: didn't really know very much about before we started researching it.

1114
01:03:23,600 --> 01:03:26,720
Speaker 1: In fact, this was all new information for me, so

1115
01:03:26,840 --> 01:03:30,080
Speaker 1: and of course, I love learning things. That was really exciting. Guys,

1116
01:03:30,400 --> 01:03:34,160
Speaker 1: if there's anything along these lines, something that is historical

1117
01:03:34,360 --> 01:03:37,920
Speaker 1: and technological, keep in mind the Hard Technology podcast that

1118
01:03:37,960 --> 01:03:39,680
Speaker 1: you would like to hear more about something that you've

1119
01:03:39,680 --> 01:03:41,960
Speaker 1: always heard about and you thought, how did that work

1120
01:03:42,040 --> 01:03:45,000
Speaker 1: and what was it successful? Let us know, says an

1121
01:03:45,040 --> 01:03:49,240
Speaker 1: email tech Stuff at Discovery dot com, or you can

1122
01:03:49,240 --> 01:03:51,400
Speaker 1: get in touch with us on Facebook or Twitter, just

1123
01:03:51,480 --> 01:03:53,440
Speaker 1: like our listener did Hey, did you ever figure out

1124
01:03:53,480 --> 01:03:56,760
Speaker 1: who it was? Yes? That was listener Ben via Twitter. Ben,

1125
01:03:56,760 --> 01:03:58,800
Speaker 1: thanks so much for the suggestion. I know that this

1126
01:03:58,840 --> 01:04:00,640
Speaker 1: is a little bit different from let you ask, but

1127
01:04:00,680 --> 01:04:03,360
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed it, so be like then contact us.

1128
01:04:03,400 --> 01:04:06,080
Speaker 1: Remember Facebook and Twitter. We are tech Stuff hs W

1129
01:04:06,680 --> 01:04:11,680
Speaker 1: and Lauren and I will touch you again Willison for

1130
01:04:11,800 --> 01:04:14,120
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it

1131
01:04:14,160 --> 01:04:21,800
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com