Would you believe that the first large-scale virtual meeting happened as early as 1916? More than a century before Zoom meetings became just another weekday burden, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) pulled off an unprecedented feat: connecting 5,100 engineers across eight cities through an elaborate telephone network. Intrigued? The IEEE, the successor of the AIEE, just published an article about it.
This epic event stretched telephone lines over 6,500 km, using 150,000 poles and 5,000 switches, linking major hubs like Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. John J. Carty banged the gavel at 8:30 p.m., kicking off a meeting in which engineers listened in through seat-mounted receivers—no buffering or “Can you hear me?” moments. Even President Woodrow Wilson joined, sending a congratulatory telegram. The meeting featured “breakout sessions” with local guest speakers, and attendees in muted cities like Denver sent telegrams, old-school Zoom chat style.
The event included musical interludes with phonograph recordings of patriotic tunes—imagine today’s hold music, but gloriously vintage. Despite its success, this wonder of early engineering vanished from regular practice until our modern virtual meetings.
We wonder if Isaac Asimov knew about this when he wrote about 3D teleconferencing in 1953. If you find yourself in many virtual meetings, consider a one-way mirror.
“Despite its success, this wonder of early engineering vanished from regular practice until our modern virtual meetings.”
False. Though the scale of that early call was impressive, voice-only conference calls are still a feature in the catalog of bureaucratic time-wasters as they have been all along. The only major change is that they’re not the pre-deregulation budget-busters they once were.
That cable strain relief in the title pic needs fixing!
Yeah, my OCD kicked in too…
2L8, 3v3ryb0dy eez oozing m0b1135 n0w.
Coiled plastic coated handset cords are newer than that antique which should have had textile covered straight tinsel wire. I think sometime in the 60’s had these showing up and even later for any self respecting guitarists. They weigh more than the straight wire they replace unless of near non conductive ability. Tangle prone they also switch direction of part of the spiral in a mysterious way, after which is a real C/O detail to get out.
As Discovery show “How stuff’s made” shown 10 or more years ago, first you twist around a mandrel the straight wire in one way, heat it, cool it, then reverse the twist so it will stay tightly coiled. I also hate this back twisty tendency.
I’m feeling actually ashamed that I needed to click on the link to find out in which book Asimov wrote about teleconferencing ’cause I completely forgot, and it happens to be one I have already read.
Hey pal! Keep your eyes to yourself when you’re in the Men’s Personal!
” If you find yourself in many virtual meetings, consider a one-way mirror.” link goes to an article about using a two way mirror lol.
Like some … sorry
in the 1960’s there was a live streamimg music service through some sort of Hi/FI telephone line
only know of it from the liner notes on an vinyl album I have
stating that the same record had been live streamed in New York, over phone lines to subscribers