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17.9 Dead media: the pneumatic post

From: Mark.Hayhurst@unilever.com (Mark Hayhurst)

Dear Bruce,

While playing with the Autonomy search agent software and testing it out using some page references that I had done, I happened on some references to my father's book "The Pigeon Post into Paris 1870-71" which you have requoted.

About a year ago, I put the whole of his book (and another that you may find interesting) online, having scanned and OCRd the old printed booklet that I had. These items can be found at:

http://www.cix.co.uk/~mhayhurst/jdhayhurst/pneumatic/book.html (url updated from original listing)

As these contain the text, the tables, and other photos and illustrations, perhaps you would like to put a link in to them. In turn I would be happy to put references to items of interest to philatelists such as other pigeon post or pneumatic post items.

Best regards, Mark Hayhurst

(((bruces remarks: PIGEON POST INTO PARIS is without doubt one of the true classics of dead media studies, and is now available online in its entirety! I recommend the booklet, and the website, without reservation. The Hayhurst site also features a companion work by J.D. Hayhurst on the pneumatic post. Its splendid illustrations of eldritch French "pneumatique" postcards have, to my eye, a very high Cahill Rating. I was surprised to discover that the Paris pneumatic post is still a living-fossil medium, well over 100 years old.)))

The Pneumatic Post of Paris, by J.D. Hayhurst O.B.E., Edited by C.S. Holder
Prepared in digital format by Mark Hayhurst
Copyright 1974. The France & Colonies Philatelic Society of Great Britain.

Introduction

"The first half of the 19th century saw an unprecedented acceleration of communication through the introduction of the electric telegraph. Its principal application was to commercial intelligence for the merchants on the stock exchanges for whom fortunes could be won by the receipt of advance information, but the gain in speed from the telegraph could be lost if a message took a long time to get from the telegraph office to the stock exchange.

"It was to avoid this delay that in 1853 J. Latimer Clark installed a 220 yard long pneumatic tube connecting the London Stock Exchange in Threadneedle Street with the Central Station in Lothbury of the Electric Telegraph Company which had been incorporated in 1846. There were similar installations in Berlin in 1865 between the Central Telegraph Office and the Stock Exchange, and in 1866 in Paris out of the place de la Bourse.

"Other cities followed and tube systems were opened not only for the transport of telegrams but also for individual letters and for letters in bulk. The transport of letters in bulk required large diameter tubes such as exist today in Hamburg and as once existed in a number of American cities. Provision for the transport of individual letters was made in Vienna and Prague, Berlin, Munich, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Naples, Milan, Paris and Marseilles. There were ephemeral installations for private letters at the South Kensington Exhibition of 1890, at the Karlsbad Philatelic Exhibition of 1910, and at the Turin International Exhibition of 1911."

Mark Hayhurst (Mark.Hayhurst@unilever.com)

18.0 Dead media: the pneumatic post

From: Mark.Hayhurst@unilever.com (Mark Hayhurst)

Source: The Pneumatic Post of Paris by J.D. Hayhurst O.B.E. Edited by C.S. Holder Prepared in digital format by Mark Hayhurst Copyright1974. The France & Colonies Philatelic Society of Great Britain.

"Today, the pneumatic post survives only in Paris and Italy. Pneumatic tubes are still however widely used for the transport inside many cities of the world of small batches of telegrams, express letters and air mail letters. These tubes are generally of a diameter of about 3 inches and the messages are carried in cylinders which are propelled along the tube by an air pressure differential from the back to the front, attaining speeds of around 25 mph.

"Letters and cards which have been transported in the tubes are invariably creased where they have been rolled up for insertion in a cylinder.

"The Most Famous Pneu in History

"For generations the pneumatic letter-card was known affectionately as the petit bleu since, between 1897 and 1902, it was on blue paper and it was under this name that a 'Telegramme' was a vital piece of evidence in the enquiries which led to the eventual acquittal of Dreyfus. At a court-martial in December 1894 he had been found guilty of passing military secrets to the Germans and was transported to Cayenne. In 1896 the contents of a waste paper basket in the office of Schwartzkoppen, the German military attache in Paris, were taken to the French Intelligence Staff and found to include a torn-up pneu which had never been sent.

"When pieced together, it was found that the petit bleu contained a message to another French officer, Esterhazy, implicating him in the offences attributed to Dreyfus. Thus started the chain of events which culminated in 1906 with the ceremonial restoration of his commission to Dreyfus in that courtyard of the Ecole Militaire lying just behind the Pavillon de l'Artillerie which had housed the telegraph office Ecole Militaire until its closure in 1891.

"The standard work in France on the pneumatic post is 'Cent ans de tubes pneumatiques' J Boblique, Echo de la Timbrologie, 1966.

"The engineering aspects of the service are recounted in 'Le reseau pneumatique de Paris' M Gaillard, Revue des PTT de France, 1, 1959."

Mark Hayhurst (Mark.Hayhurst@unilever.com)

34.6 Dead media: Pneumatic mail (Part One)

From: jort@inetarena.com (Dan Howland)

Source: Scientific American, December 11, 1897

(((Dan Howland remarks: The following essay, in true Victorian style, is more than a bit windy, but this very specific article could aid in exhuming many early pneumatic mail systems. Some paragraphs have been re- arranged for clarity.)))

"The transmission of matter through closed tubes by means of a current of air flowing therein is not by any means a novel idea, although its successful application to commercial purposes is of recent date. For the earliest suggestion of pneumatic transmission we must go back to the seventeenth century and search among the records of that venerable institution, the Royal Society of London.

"Here we find that Denis Papin presented to the society in the year 1667 a paper entitled the 'Double Pneumatic Pump.' He exhausted the air from a long metal tube, in which was a traveling piston which drew after it a carriage attached to it by means of a cord.

"At the close of the eighteenth century a certain M. Van Estin propelled a hollow ball containing a package through a tube several hundred feet long by means of a blast of air; the device, however, was regarded more as a toy than a useful invention.

"Of more practical value were the plans of Medhurst, a London engineer, who published pamphlets in 1810 and 1812 and again in 1832, when he proposed to connect a carriage running inside the tube with a passenger carriage running above it."

(((Jules Verne's recently unearthed 1863 novel, *Paris in the 20th Century* proposed a similar transit system, in which a train would be pulled by magnetic attraction to a metal object in a pneumatic tube.)))

"The distinction of being the first city to install a practical pneumatic tube system belongs to London, where in 1853 a 1 1/2 inch tube was laid between Founder's Court and the Stock Exchange, a distance of 220 yards. The Carrier was drawn through the tube by creating a vacuum, a steam pump being used for the purpose. The roughness of the interior of the iron tubes gave much trouble, and when subsequent extensions of the system were made in 1858 and later, 2 1/4 inch lead tubes were used, the carriers being made of gutta-percha with an outer lining of felt."

((("Gutta-percha" is a sort of early plastic made from the latex of Malaysian trees; it is not the punchline to a Chico Marx joke about fishing.)))

"The London system has grown steadily and now includes 42 stations and 34 miles of tubes. The latter are of cast iron and lined with lead. On the shorter lines, the inside diameter is 2 3/16 inches, and on the longer lines, 3 inches. The lines are laid out radially, air being compressed at one end and exhausted at the other. Similar systems are used in connection with the telegraph service in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Dublin and Newcastle.

"Mention should be made here of the underground pneumatic railways constructed in London, the first built in 1863, 1,800 feet in length and 2 feet 8 inches by 2 feet 8 inches in section; the latter tunnels built in 1872, running from Euston Station to the general post office, a distance of 2 3/4 miles. The latter was in duplicate and D-shaped in section, measuring 4 1/2 feet wide by 4 feet high, the straight portion being of cast iron and the bends of brick. It was operated by a fan which forced air into one tunnel and exhausted it from the other. The capacity of the line was about one ton per minute. It was not satisfactory and was ultimately abandoned."

Dan Howland (jort@inetarena.com)

34.7 Dead media: Pneumatic mail (Part Two)

From: jort@inetarena.com (Dan Howland)

Source: Scientific American, December 11, 1897

"In 1865, Seimens & Halske, of Berlin, laid down in that city a system of pneumatic tubes for the transmission of telegraph messages. The wrought iron tubes, 2 1/2 inches in diameter, were in duplicate, one being used for transmitting and the other for receiving messages. They ran from the telegraph station to the Exchange, a distance of 5,670 feet. The tubes were looped together at the Exchange and a continuous flow of air was maintained by a compressor at one end and an exhauster at the other.

"The modified system now in use is worked by means of large storage tanks, containing either compressed or rarefied air, and it comprises 38 stations and more than 28 miles of tubing 2.55 inches in diameter.

"The pneumatic tube system in Paris dates from the same year as that of Berlin. Here a novel feature was introduced in the method of compressing the air, for instead of using a steam engine it was compressed in the tanks by displacement with water from the city mains. The tubes of the present system are 2.55 inches diameter, and the carriers are made up in trains of from 6 to 10, with a leather-covered piston at the rear which fits the tubes snugly and drives them forward. The tubes are wrought iron and the speed is 15 to 23 miles an hour."

Dan Howland (jort@inetarena.com)

34.8 Dead media: Pneumatic mail (Part Three)

From: jort@inetarena.com (Dan Howland)

Source: Scientific American, December 11, 1897

"The father of the pneumatic tube system of railways in America was the late Alfred Ely Beach, who for half a century was one of the proprietors of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. His experimental railway was first exhibited at the American Institute Fair held in New York City in 1867."

(((Dan Howland remarks: here followed a description of a pneumatic subway system capable of carrying ten people.)))

"Less well known but equally meritorious was the system of pneumatic postal tubes designed by Mr. Beach at about the same period. (...)

"In 1870, also, he built an 8 inch iron tube a thousand feet long, whose interior was glazed to form a smooth surface. This lead to a large receiving box, from which a second pipe led to an exhausting engine. A letter dropped into the pipe at any point was swept along by suction due to the exhaustion of the air from the box, from which it was easily removed."

(((Illustrations show a car about the size of a backyard steam train. Above it, postal workers sort letters and drop them into slots. To maintain the difference in air pressure, at the end of each slot is a tiny revolving door, laid sideways like a paddlewheel. As the car approached, slots and tabs in the top of the car tripped the appropriate paddlewheel, dropping letters into the correct compartments of the car.)))

Dan Howland (jort@inetarena.com)

36.3 Dead medium: Freight Tubes

From: bretts@earthlight.co.nz (Brett Shand)

Source: "Tube Freight Transportation" by Lawrence Vance and Milton K. Mills http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/fall94/p94au21.htm

(((Brett Shand remarks: Well this ain't dead, but it sure the hell is interesting!)))

(((bruces remarks: Tube freight is not dead, and not a medium either, but it is clearly a technology with apparently great promise that has conspicuously failed to deliver. This four-year-old government report by a pair of US federal engineers casts an interesting sidelight on a long-time Dead Media darling, pneumatic mail. Tube freight is the (mostly conjectural) big brother of the pneumatic post. The appeal is obvious: why settle for rapidly puffing mere "petit bleu" mailnotes beneath Paris, when the Russians and Japanese can ship entire trainloads at high speed through closed tubes? Furthermore, I confess myself thrilled to discover a credible reference to the long-abandoned underground railway of Chicago. If memory serves, Chicago suffered a catastrophe in the 1980s when this abandoned system broke open and was extensively flooded by the river. New York's abandoned pneumatic subway is notorious, but Chicago's dead subterranean railway still lacks its Dead Media chronicler.)))

Tube Freight Transportation by Lawrence Vance and Milton K. Mills

"Introduction

"Under a research program on advanced freight movement, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) with the support of the John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center is examining the technical and economic feasibility of tube transportation systems to address future freight transportation requirements.

"Tube freight transportation is a class of unmanned transportation systems in which close-fitting capsules or trains of capsules carry freight through tubes between terminals. All historic systems were pneumatically powered and often referred to as pneumatic capsule pipelines.

"One modern proposed system called SUBTRANS uses capsules that are electrically powered with linear induction motors and run on steel rails in a tube about two meters (6 feet) in diameter. The system can be thought of as a small unmanned train in a tube carrying containerized cargo."

(...)

"Potential Advantages of Tube Freight Transportation Systems

"Tube transportation systems have a number of attractive features that make them worthy of evaluation as alternatives for future freight transportation systems. Because such systems are unmanned and fully automatic, they are safer than truck or railroad systems. When traveling down grades, the capsules may be able to regenerate energy for improved energy efficiency. Because they are enclosed, they are unaffected by weather and are not subject to most common rail and highway accidents. Hazardous cargo can be more safely transported than on surface systems. The tubes could also be used as conduits for communication cables for the future information highway."

(...)

"The tubes can be placed above, on, or below ground. Underground locations are useful in environmentally sensitive areas and are important where surface congestion makes surface right-of-way difficult or expensive to obtain. Much right-of-way potentially exists below our present highway system."

(...)

"Tube transportation has a history that extends back at least 200 years. During this period, systems for both passengers and freight have been built and operated. Some are in operation today. In addition, there have been many more proposals that were never built. All of the historical tube transportation systems were pneumatically powered.

"George Medhurst, a London businessman, is considered the earliest proponent of pneumatic-powered railways although there were a few earlier, brief suggestions from others. He first published a freight proposal in 1810, a passenger proposal in 1812, and a more comprehensive set of proposals in 1827.

"Despite four demonstration systems, including a 95-m (312-ft), underground system built in New York City in 1869-70, no large-size tube transportation system has been introduced into common carrier service. The primary result of this activity was to lend support to the development of underground electric railway systems for urban passenger transportation. However, small diameter pneumatic pipelines have been providing reliable freight transportation around the world for more than 150 years.

"Common applications of pneumatic pipelines before World War II were the high- priority movement of documents and parts in industrial environments and movement of letters and telegrams under city streets to bypass congestion. These systems were built with tubes ranging from 5 to 20 centimeters (2 to 8 inches) in diameter. Such systems are still being built today to expedite small shipments."

(...)

"After World War II, larger pneumatic systems were developed and built in Japan and Russia to move bulk materials such as limestone and garbage. These systems had considerably greater throughput as a result of both their increased diameters of 0.9 to 1.2 m (3 to 4 ft) and their mode of operation, which allowed more capsules to move through the tube at one time. By the early 1970s, several groups began to give consideration to the use of these pipeline designs for common carrier, general merchandise freight applications using tubes 1.2 to 1.8 m (4 to 6 ft) in diameter.

"Nippon Steel Corporation and Daifuku Machinery Works Ltd., using an early license from TRANSCO of Houston, Texas, have built a 0.6 m (2ft) diameter, 1.5 km (0.9 mi), double line to move burnt lime in Nippon Steel's Muroran Number 2 steel plant. This elevated line was built in the mid-1980s and uses capsule trains (two cars per train) to move 22,000 metric tons (24,266 short tons) per month. This system is called AIRAPID.

"Sumitomo Cement Co. built a similar system in 1983 to move limestone 3.2 km (2 mi) between a mine and their cement plant. The 1 m (3.2ft) diameter pipe carries three car capsule trains delivering 2.2 million metric tons (2.43 million short tons) per year. This system was originally based on a Russian license but was considerably redesigned by the company.

"A number of tube systems, called TRANSPROGRESS systems, for moving crushed rock are being used in the former Soviet Union. An 11 km (6.8 mi) line for garbage was built in 1983 from St. Petersburg to an outlying processing facility using TRANSPROGRESS technology. This technology has also been applied to intraplant systems.

"Historically, there is a precedent for underground freight operations. The most notable underground freight system was the 80 km (50 mi) electric railway system built under the city of Chicago for the collection and distribution of general cargo and coal.

"The Chicago system operated from 1904 to 1958, interfacing with the main-line railroads."

Brett Shand (bretts@earthlight.co.nz), Managing Director, Earthlight Internet Services, Dunedin, New Zealand, http://www.earthlight.co.nz

36.9 Dead media: Pneumatic tubes

From: jathree@panix.com (John Aboud)

Sources: New York Times. Sunday, July 5, 1998. City section, page 8 "This Old Technology Hasn't Gone Down the Tubes," by Marcia Biederman. Pevco website: http://www.pevco.com/

(((John Aboud remarks: In response to the recent four-part pneumatic tubes story (Notes 34.6-34.9), I want to pass along this article from The New York Times. Pneumatics are alive and well in the medical profession, and in a computerized fashion no less. A case of a dying medium getting a blood transfusion?)))

"This Old Technology Hasn't Gone Down the Tubes

"By Marcia Biederman"

(((John Aboud remarks: there is a photo captioned, "At Columbia-Presbyterian, Marina Conliffe receives blood samples." "Marina" is opening a barrel-shaped canister, which opens like a clam. It doesn't operate like the traditional bank tubes common at drive up windows. The pneumatic station has a digital readout and touchpad. This is likely the computer enhancement mentioned in the article.)))

"Long before E-mail and faxes, pneumatic tubes were widely used in New York to whisk small capsules containing memos or other things from one office to another. Science fiction may have inflated hopes for the tubes, but they are still being used, in old and new ways.

"'They're elegantly simple,' said Mark A. Hirsch, senior project manager for the New York Public Library, explaining why pneumatic tubes were built into the ultramodern Science, Industry and Business Library on Madison Avenue, which opened in 1996. The tube system, which conveys call slips to the stacks, is not much different from the early-20th-century one still used at the 42nd Street research library.

"Gregg Hayes, executive vice president of Pevco, a Baltimore company that installed the new library's system, said hospitals in New York and elsewhere have revived the pneumatic tube industry. New technology, he said, controls the force of air in the tubes, allowing lab specimens and medication to be carried. Carriers used to 'just bang into the stations,' or receiving bins, he said, but now they glide in, and computers can track their movements."

(...)

"Pneumatic tubes are also used by Costco, the warehouse-club chain, which has huge stores in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, to move cash from registers to safes. Larry Montague, director of security, said that is safer than having employees walk around with the money.

"But at many of the city's brokerage houses, E-mail has replaced pneumatic tubes. And Sue-Ann Pascucci, manager of the New York Transit Museum archives, said nothing remains of New York's first subway, described by Stan Fischler in "Uptown, Downtown: A Trip Through Time on New York's Subways" as a 312-foot pneumatic tube. Entered via a station with a grand piano, the subway, built in 1870, propelled a 22-passenger car between Broadway and Murray Street until political entanglement closed it in 1873."

(((John Aboud: In my three years in New York, I've noticed that The New York Times is obsessed with abandoned parts of the subway system. The "grand piano" bit is a favorite. Also note that Pevco has a Web site: http://www.pevco.com/)))

(((bruces remarks: Pneumatic *mail* systems (especially pneumatic postal systems owned and constructed by cities and national governments) are very much in decline as a medium. But private pneumatic mail systems for large buildings are still being built today. Pneumatic transfer systems (which don't carry messages and are not "media,") seem to be more or less holding their own as a technology. I would point out that computerizing a pneumatic system is not necessarily a new lease on life for this technology. It may give the system new features, but at a great hazard. It not only spoils the system's original elegant simplicity, but introduces new factors of chip, interface and software death.)))

John Aboud (jathree@panix.com)

37.0 Dead media: Pneumatic tube applications

From: bruces@well.com (Bruce Sterling)

Source: http://www.comcosystems.com/

(((bruces remarks: the following outtake from the website of Comcosystems gives a good idea of the current spectrum of applications for living pneumatic tube systems. These areas of activity would be good places to look for dead tubes.)))

"Applications

"Pneumatic tube systems are highly flexible systems that tend to be limited by the nature of the material moved rather than the industry or location used.

"Any situation where small to medium-sized objects must be regularly distributed to or from a central location to remote locations would be made more efficient with the addition of a pneumatic tube system.

"We commonly install tube systems for the following applications:

"Hospitals: Pneumatic tube systems are commonly used in hospitals to reduce care staff workload by moving medication and samples between patient areas and labs."

(...)

"Sample Transport: Pneumatic tube systems are ideal for moving samples from collection points to a lab for analysis. (...) We manufacture heavy-duty systems for use in harsh environments. Steel mills and hospitals are frequent users of pneumatic tube systems for sample analysis.

"Toll Plazas: Pneumatic tube systems are used at toll plazas to increase efficiency and employee safety. Employees are spared the hazard of crossing lanes of traffic and less cash is available in the event of robbery. Toll plaza arrangements are commonly in use along tollways, in parking garages, and at airports.

"Central Supply: Pneumatic tube systems are used whenever items from a central location (such as a pharmacy or warehouse) must be regularly dispatched to remote sites. (...) Industries that employ pneumatic tube systems for central supply distribution include hospitals, automotive plants, car dealerships, and factories.

"Cash Handling: Pneumatic tube systems are frequently employed for cash handling. A Pneumatic tube system provides a secure method of moving cash from registers to central counting rooms. Keeping cash in a central location reduces losses due to robbery and employee theft. Industries that employ pneumatic tube systems for cash handling include retail stores, grocers, theaters, and home improvement centers == to name a few.

"Security Transport: Pneumatic tube systems can provide a secure method of transport for nearly any kind of item. All kinds of items can be moved securely with a pneumatic tube system including documents, parts, keys, and even firearms. Locations using Pneumatic tube systems for secure transport include penitentiaries, youth detention centers, retail stores, courts, and hospitals."

Bruce Sterling (bruces@well.com)

39.5 Dead media: Pneumatic mail

From: rdi@cci.com (Richard Inzero)

Source: Sears Roebuck 1908 stereoscope card

(((Rick Inzero remarks: Here's a description that I found on the back of an old stereoscope card. It describes the pneumatic tube system used by the mail-order store Sears, Roebuck & Co., of Chicago, Illinois, circa 1908. The size of the system and noted volume of traffic across this huge system in a single day is *quite* remarkable.)))

"Card #16: Pneumatic Tube Station

"Probably the most valuable time saver employed by us to facilitate the transaction of business in the new plant is the very elaborate system of pneumatic tubes used for sending written communications, orders, etc. between departments throughout the several buildings.

"The illustration will give you an idea of this very large system, this picture representing the station in the Administration Building which is said to be the largest of its kind in the world. More than fifteen miles of tubing were used in the installation of this system, and it undoubtedly takes the place of an army of messenger boys and handles inter-department communications at a tremendous saving in time.

"Letters and orders received from our customers are opened and read in the Administration Building and from this central building are routed through this tube station to the proper merchandise or clerical departments for handling, and as this service is operated by compressed air it it almost instantaneous. These tubes carry what we call a cartridge, which is a hollow cylinder about four inches in diameter and about twelve inches long. Letters, orders or papers are inserted in this cartridge and the cartridge in turn dropped into the tube and the great air pressure forces this carrier at a very high rate of speed to its destination.

"It is not an uncommon thing for the boys in charge of this room to handle more than twenty-seven thousand cartridges in the course of a day's work, and in the entire tube system more than seventy thousand cartridges or carriers are handled in a single day."

Richard Inzero (rdi@cci.com)

43.8 Dead medium: Pneumatic tube post - I Got Root on the Prague Pneumatic Post

From: mischief@interport.net (J.C. Herz)
Source: Personal, hands-on experience

In Prague, there is a fully functional municipal pneumatic tube system == the only one still in operation (the one in Paris was shut down long ago). It runs underneath the entire city == five trunk lines, 55 kilometers of tubes, switches, and relays snaking underground from the main post office in Old Town, south to New Town, which was constructed in the 14th century, across the river on the underbellies of three bridges, and all the way up to Prague Castle.

It takes eight minutes for a pneumatic tube to reach the furthest point on the network. An air blower starts at the point of origin, and a vacuum starts at the destination. On longer lines there is a relay network of air pumps which switch from vacuums to blowers once the tube passes, sort of like booster stations.

The first message was sent in 1899. On March 4, 1999, the system was 100 years old.

Originally, it was for wire telegrams. They came in, were rolled up and sent by pneumatic tube to the most important buildings in the city. After that, the system was used for telexes, which had to be centrally controlled so that the communist secret police could inspect everything. The telex room is in the same building: half an acre of ceiling-height shelves, like library stacks except it's not books, it's wiring, feeding into the same Cold War telex machines, still ticking.

The 1960's were a big decade for the Prague pneumatic post. Big traffic in the '70s, when the government-run Czech Press Agency was run out of same building == they distributed all approved international information, news, and government propaganda to the newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations via pneumatic tube. That ended in 1989, when the Velvet Revolution entitled news providers to get their information wherever they wanted.

But instead of fading into obsolescence, the Prague Post stubbornly reinvented itself as conduit for financial documents. Banks. When you need an original document within minutes, the pneumatic tube system beats a bike messenger. The system is actually being expanded now, at the behest of the financial sector. And the poetry is that it's owned and operated by Czech Telecom. They have to keep it running because the pneumatic tube lines run alongside the gas lines and if they shut down the system there might be a hazardous build-up and possibly explosions, and it's cheaper to keep it running than to dig it all up.

The system loses about $70,000 a year, but at that price it's a relatively inexpensive early warning system for gas leaks.

I found out about the Prague Post from Bruce Sterling's Dead Media listserv and made inquiries about seeing it. The Swiss consultancy that was bringing me over has connections in the Czech Republic and set up an appointment with the Pneumatic Post Supervisor, since the system isn't open to the public. And he gave me the whole history and the grand tour.

And the whole time there were these tubby ladies with gloves, who've probably been working there since the wire days, intercepting and redepositing these pneumatic cylinders, which arrive with a big rattle and a horrendous thud. These tubes are moving ten meters per second, and they're metal, and when they land they hit hard.

When he'd finished explaining, one of the red lights in this pipe organ of pneumatic tube conduits began to blink. And so I asked, "Can I? Can I do it? Can I put one of the messages in?" The tubby ladies eyed me suspiciously but the supervisor agreed.

So, poised over the iron and brass console, I opened one of the small, circular hinged doors. And there was an enormous whoosh of brownish smoke and a scary noise and so I threw the capsule into the hole and quickly closed the little door. There was more rattling and banging, and a light went on, and I turned to the supervisor and said, "I think I just broke your 100-year-old pneumatic tube system." But he said no, and got one of the maintenance guys to dislodge the capsule with a broomstick, whereupon it zoomed off to its intended location.

Most of the tubes have automatic air shut-off, he explained. This one was manual and I wasn't quick enough. One of the tubby ladies nodded smugly. But still, he said, "You are the first foreigner to operate the system. You should get a certificate."

Being eight years old inside, I immediately seized on this. "Can I? Can you make me a certificate? Do you have letterhead? Can you type a certificate for me? It would really... I mean, it would really mean a lot." And I actually marched the man into his office and made him type out this certificate on Czech Telecom letterhead:

"I hereby certify that Ms. J. C. HERZ has been the first foreigner who personally PUT a Pneumatic Mail System Cartridge into the appropriate aperture of the single and unique Prague Pneumatic Mail System."

Signed, Jiri Hak, Managing Director.

This piece of paper is now one of my most prized possessions. How often can you go into a country and be the first foreigner to do something? As far as I'm concerned, this is my claim to fame.

46.1 Dead medium: Portable pneumatic tube, early multi-media

From: tomj@wps.com Tom Jennings
Source(s): "ELECTRONIC INFORMATION DISPLAY SYSTEMS", Spartan Books, Inc, Washington D.C., 1963; edited by James H. Howard, Rear Admiral, U.S.N.(Ret.). JPEG page images of the above article at http://wps.com/texts/ARTOC/index.html

"One hundred million bits of random access storage are provided by two magnetic disk files, each housed in a 2-1/2 ton utility truck."

ARTOC, a late-1950's hare-brained Army tactical field communications coordination system, is a breathtaking mixture of Rube Goldberg technologies whose purpose was to coordinate information from many different and incompatible sources (messengers on foot; radio; centrally-gathered intelligence, etc) and to present it in a coordinated manner to Army personel who needed to make decisions based upon the information, once coordinated.

ARTOC is at once beautiful and horrifying; it used brute force, Army logic, blind faith and the latest in computer technology to put together what can only be called a multi-media system. It was very, very ambitious, to say the least.

Apparently this thing actually existed, at least in prototype form.

ARTOC is a portable, field-operated system. One tent full of people accepted the sundry inputs, and input them to computer(s), both graphical and textual. It is nearly impossible today to imagine how far-fetched storing graphical data in a computer was, in 1959. It just wasn't done. These were vector, not raster, days, and the details of implementation are not elaborated upon in this article.

You should read the article for details; but essentially, there was one tent where input was entered into the system, and a number of other tents, somewhat physically remote from the input area, that contained a number of display stations.

Data was input to a computer, which was used to produce photographic-type slides, in color, by using a non-real-time cathode-ray tube with RGB filters to make each "separation". The slide-producing machine (see photo) spit out a developed and mounted slide in under 10 seconds (please don't stand in its way). Each slide had a machine-readable indext attached. These were delivered by pneumatic tube to the remote display stations.

Each display station consisted of a small (20") rear-projection viewer and a large (7 foot) front projection viewer. There was some way to select which slide(s) to view; but essentially the slides were overlays for maps, and text could be overlaid in some manner on the screens too.

From page 236: http://wps.com/texts/ARTOC/p236.GIF

"A very simple, reliable pneumatic distribution and transport system automaticall delivers the slides from a central slide generator to the many display units in a user area. Two slide generators which feed the same pneumatic distribution network are located in each user area to maintain continuous operation during maintenance and reliading periods. Positive slides arrive at the display units about 12 sec. after initiation of computer output.

This was also a FIELDATA system, experience with which lead directly to the first ASCII standard, in 1963. It used the military MOBIDIC computer, a portable, transistorized computer, apparently under 150 lbs (don't laugh; most computers in 1959 consumed a thousand square feet).