KRUM AND MORTON
(MORKRUM)
Mark Morton, head of the Western Cold Storage Company in Chicago, and
cold-storage engineer Charles L. Krum, the vice president of the firm,
entered the telegraph field quite by accident. A young electrical
engineer named Frank Pearne, in 1902, had some ideas for a printing
telegraph machine and needed financial backing to carry on his
experiments. One of his contacts happened to be Joy Morton, the founder
of the Morton Salt Company. Joy Morton became interested enough to
become Pearne’s backer, and prevailed upon brother Mark to set up a
laboratory in the attic of the cold-storage plant for Pearne’s
experiments.
It seems that after a year or so, Pearne lost interest in his invention
and went into the teaching field. He proved to be a very successful
professor at Armour Tech where he remained until his death.[3] But
Pearne’s work was not in vain, for Charles L. Krum had become intensely
interested and carried on the work with further inventions of his own.
Indeed, he filed his first patent application on August 20, 1903, which
proposed the use of a code comprising four signals: a positive pulse or
a negative pulse of low voltage, and a positive or negative pulse of a
higher voltage. Four additional patents were filed, the last in 1906.
C. L. Krum then set about building a machine which was demonstrated in
1906 and looked promising enough to form a company to further develop
it. This company was made up of the Mortons (brothers Joy and Mark) and
the Krums (Charles L. and his son Howard who had just finished college).
The combination of their names, of course, resulted in “The Morkrum
Company,” which was incorporated in the State of Maine on October 7,
1907. The charter stockholders were Joy Morton, who shouldered the
greatest financial burden; Charles Krum; Joy Morton’s secretary, Daniel
Peterkin (he later became an officer of the Morkrum Company); Mark
Morton; and Sterling Morton (Joy’s son, of whom we shall be hearing more
later on). The working capital of the new company amounted to
$150,000.00.
Charles Krum’s son Howard, after graduation, joined with his father in
the developmental work of this new company and, due to his studies in
electrical engineering, was able to help his father considerably. His
first love and intended career was music, but he put this aside in favor
of his father’s telegraph printer. However, a tune on the piano which he
always kept in the laboratory would help him solve many a difficult
problem.
In 1908 the Krums developed and produced a working model of the
four-unit-code, plus-minus, high-low-voltage system, which was applied
to operate the mechanism of an Oliver typewriter. The system was then
given an operative test on the wires of the Chicago and Alton Railroad,
of which Joy Morton was a director.
As their research work progressed, Howard studied the various systems in
current use and, with his father, decided to abandon the plus-minus,
high-low-voltage system. They turned instead to a system using the
five-unit permutation code as employed by Baudot in his multiplex
telegraph in which synchronized terminal apparatus with periodic
correction was the controlling feature.
Their first joint patent describes a plan for accomplishing synchronized
reception with transmission using a system of five relays interconnected
to operate in successive cascade form; thus, when the relays at both
terminals are correctly timed for successive operation, they will
transmit and receive the five pulse combinations of the Baudot code. For
transmitting and receiving the code pulses, each of the five relays has
an additional contact. To start the relay cascade operation, a start
relay is added at both terminals and operated by a start pulse which
precedes each code transmission. It seemed natural for the Krums to turn
to a relay system at first, since, from his work with the
three-unit-code, high-low-voltage system, C. L. Krum was experienced
with the possibilities of relay operation.
The system of the relay chain in cascade operation was employed to
operate a page printer using the mechanisms of the Blickensdoerfer
typewriter which had a three-row typewheel. The Postal Telegraph Company
became interested and bought a number of these printers in 1910. This
was the first sale of Morkrum apparatus and provided enthusiasm for the
Krums for further research, which led to the substitution of a
governed-motor-driven brush distributor to replace the relay cascade
system. For this new plan the motor at the receiving printer operated at
a slightly higher speed and was held in continuously synchronous
operation with the transmitter by the periodic transmission of a
correcting pulse. The new code selecting and printer control system was
also adapted to operate the mechanism of the Blickensdoerfer typewheel
typewriter. The idea worked out better than the cascade relay system,
and a number of printers using this method were constructed and named
the “Morkrum Blue Code.” A few were put in service at the Postal
Telegraph Company.
The Associated Press (AP) became interested in the Morkrum “Blue Code”
printer system as a replacement for the low-speed Morse system which was
being used to transmit news items to newspapers in many cities. Here,
continuous transmission under control of a code-punched tape, as used in
the Morse code system, was a requirement, so Messrs. Krum set to work
and designed a keyboard-operated, five-unit, Baudot-code perforator and
an automatic punched-tape-controlled transmitter. This apparatus was
installed at the New York headquarters in 1915 and receiving printers
were gradually installed throughout the Associated Press system. The
following excerpt and picture (fig. 6) from Oliver Gramling’s book,
_AP—The Story of News_,[4] describes the introduction of the system to
the Associated Press:
The tide of news by telegraph had continued with the years. Facilities
had been improved, the Morse clicked into virtually every town in the
country, but the old method was the same. Day in and day out, sending
operators took dispatches, translated them into the dash-dot of code,
and the telegraph keys sent the signals on the circuits at a rate of
twenty-five to thirty-five words a minute. In member newspaper offices
along the line the Morse sounders clack-clacked busily and receiving
operators translated the code symbols back into words, copying the
stories in jerky spurts. The news of more than half a century had been
handled that way.
For some time, however, Charles L. Krum, a Chicago cold-storage
engineer, and his son Howard had been working to perfect an automatic
machine which would send the printed word by wire at greater speed
without the intermediary of code. They called their invention the
Morkrum Telegraph Printer—coining the word Morkrum by combining the
inventor’s name with the first syllable in the last name of Joy
Morton, a Chicago businessman who financed them.
[Illustration: Fig. 6
A SENDING OPERATOR SAT AT A KEYBOARD LIKE THAT OF A TYPEWRITER.
Reproduced from _AP—The Story of News_, by permission of Associated
Press.]
Several other automatic telegraphic devices were being promoted, but
(Kent) Cooper and engineers in the Traffic Department decided Krum’s
machine held the most promise for their purposes. Tests got under way.
In the Associated Press headquarters, which had been moved seven
blocks from the old Western Union building to 51 Chambers Street, a
sending operator sat at a keyboard similar to that of an ordinary
typewriter. As he struck the keys, copying the dispatches before him,
the machine perforated a paper tape with a series of holes, each
combination representing a letter. The tape fed into a box-like
transmitter which transformed the tape perforations into electrical
impulses and sent them along the wires into the receiving machines in
newspaper offices. These impulses actuated telegraph relays and set
the receiving Morkrum machines automatically reproducing the letters
which the sending operators were typing miles away.
The tests demonstrated that the Morkrum could transmit news hour after
hour at the rate of sixty words a minute and the copy was delivered
clean and uniform. Thus began the slow extension of Morkrum
transmission to the whole leased wire system, replacing the “brass
pounding” Morse keys. It was a transition that required years and
until it was completed both Morse and Morkrum worked side by side in
many places.
An interesting story appeared recently in “The AP World,”[5] giving some
recollections of AP’s first field maintenance man, Royal (Roy) Bailey,
then aged 71 and living in retirement in California. He still remembers
the AP’s first printing telegraph machines, the article says; in fact,
he helped make them, for he was a mechanic in the Morkrum Company’s
factory in Chicago. When the Morkrum Company shipped the first machines
to AP headquarters, Bailey went along with the machines to install and
maintain them, although he remained on the Morkrum Company’s payroll. He
eventually installed AP printers all over New York City and Connecticut,
in Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, and in Chicago, St.
Louis and Kansas City. He recalls that Morse telegraphers “used to groan
when they first saw him.” The early teleprinters were hard to keep
synchronized, Bailey further recalls, and copy boys had to check the
speed frequently by sighting the striped motor flywheel through a tuning
fork. (Many of those copy boys, he says, including Mickey Burt and Henry
Elling, became AP engineers.)
As the experimental and developmental work continued at the Morkrum
plant, Howard Krum studied all types of start-stop systems and found
that synchronous control was the basis of all systems. After
experimenting with various ideas his thoughts turned to a plan to make
the start of the receiving unit somewhat independent of the transmitting
unit start, thus avoiding irregularities then present in transmitter
start devices. This idea led to the construction of a permutation-code,
start-stop system, using segmented commutators with rotating brush
distributors at both transmitting and receiving units and a start magnet
for each to control start-stop operation.
In this system the transmitter start magnet, when energized, releases
the transmitting brush, which immediately contacts the first segment to
transmit a start pulse to operate the receiver start magnet; the
five-unit-code signal combination follows and both transmitting and
receiving units are stopped. The apparatus was applied to control the
selecting and printing mechanism of the Blickensdoerfer typewheel
typewriter and named the “Morkrum Green Code.” This improved apparatus
soon replaced the Blue Code printer at Associated Press and other
installations (see figs. 7 and 7A).
In this connection the following additional comments of Mr. Bailey may
be of interest:[6]
In 1919 I installed the New York-Washington circuit, with drops at
Philadelphia and Baltimore. This was a new type of printer using what
we called the Green Code. This was considered an improvement over the
old Blue Code, which meant a rearrangement of the receiving mechanism,
but still the machines made use of a typewheel....
Our biggest job of all came in 1923 when we changed over all the old
Blue Code typewheel printers in the New York area to the new style L.
C. Smith typebar printers using Green Code. (Morkrum bought L. C.
Smith typewriters and added new machinery to them. Those printers
became the famous Model 12.)
As we have seen, a number of inventors had patented ways and means to
adopt the five-unit code for operating a telegraph printer system by the
transmission of a start pulse to start both transmitting apparatus and
the distant receiving apparatus at the same time, followed by
transmission of a selected code and a stop pulse. To achieve successful
operation, very close speed adjustment was required. At first, this was
achieved by the use of governed motors and, later, when accurately
timed, 60-cycle alternating current became available, the problem of
synchronous operation of send and receive stations was solved by the use
of synchronous motors.
[Illustration: Fig. 7
Morkrum Company’s Blue Code Typewheel Page Printer
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
[Illustration: Fig. 7A
Morkrum Company’s Green Code Typewheel Page Printer
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
Telegraph printer systems of this type were used by telegraph companies
for city-to-city transmission of telegrams and by news-gathering and
-distributing organizations to transmit the news from headquarters to
newspapers in different cities. While start-stop systems of this type
were used successfully on press circuits and on telegraph message
station-to-station circuitry, trouble was experienced when a number of
printer send-receive units were set up in an intercommunicating system.
Here it was found that the receiver start was not always in time with
the transmitter start, due to varying line circuit conditions and a
variation in the start release mechanism at connected stations.
It seems odd that synchronous systems, where both transmitter and
receiver were started at the same time (requiring both transmitter and
receiver to maintain synchronism), held the field for so long a time,
thus limiting telegraph transmission to one-way operation.
It evidently took a mind not bound or hampered by the standard and
accepted way of operating synchronous systems to discard such old ideas
and to set forth boldly on a new pattern which, in reality, differed but
slightly from the then-established synchronous systems, and to sow the
seed for starting further developments leading to the present telegraph
typewriter, TWX, and TELEX intercommunicating systems. Such a man was
Howard L. Krum, who, in further thinking on the subject, came upon the
almost simple idea of having the transmitter start the receiver rather
than having them both start at the same time. This arrangement required
higher speed operation of the receiver and therefore the receiving code
pulse positions were spread over a shorter area, which meant
progressively decreasing the angular division of the receiving members.
Then, to set the received start pulse in the most favorable position
with relation to the following code signal reception, an orientation
adjustment of the receiver start position was provided.
(Note: On June 20, 1961, Kleinschmidt wrote to Howard Krum—then in
retirement in California—giving a short description of the Morkrum
Company activities, including the wording of the above last two
paragraphs, and asking him to write the Morkrum story. Howard Krum
replied on July 3, 1961, indicating his approval and saying that he
would be glad to put together some notes for Kleinschmidt. It was quite
a shock, therefore, when a letter was received from Howard Krum’s son,
Charles, in September of 1961, telling of his father’s sudden serious
illness. Then, regretfully, it was not long afterwards that word was
received of Howard Krum’s death on November 13, 1961.)
[Illustration: Fig. 8
Morkrum Company No. 12 Typebar Page Printer
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
Howard Krum’s improved method for operating start-stop, permutation-code
telegraph systems was first applied to the Morkrum Green Code apparatus
to control the selecting and printing operations of the Blickensdoerfer
typewheel typewriter.
At this time the Kleinschmidt company and other manufacturers were
starting to produce permutation-code, start-stop telegraph printers
using typebar printing like the more modern typewriters which began
rapidly to replace the Blickensdoerfer, the Hammond, and the other
typewheel printing typewriters. Observing this situation, the Morkrum
Company started intensive development work to produce the No. 12 typebar
page printer, using the typebars and operating mechanism of the L. C.
Smith typewriter and platen of a Woodstock typewriter (fig. 8).
Further developments produced the Morkrum No. 11 tape printer which used
the Baudot combiner method for selecting and printing characters under
control of start-stop, send-receive devices. The No. 11 was a small,
compact tape printer operating at fifty words per minute. Quite a number
were put into service at hotels and elsewhere for local message service
(fig. 9).
[Illustration: Fig. 9
Morkrum Company No. 11 Tape Printer
_Picture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation_]
The new No. 12 typebar page printer found numerous applications. It
replaced the Green Code and the earlier Blue Code wherever used. The new
No. 12 was installed at Western Union, on some railroads, and in the
Chicago Police telegraph system. The No. 12s were also installed by
Postal Telegraph on intercity circuits and used as receiving units for
the Postal Multiplex. The Postal Multiplex had been designed by Morkrum
and Postal engineers with the consultant assistance of Donald Murray who
was a friendly associate and had a license agreement with the Morkrum
Company covering some of his patents. A few No. 12 Morkrums were shipped
abroad for use with the Murray Multiplex; the British Post Office
Telegraph and the Australian Telegraph Administration were customers.
Late in 1924 the Morkrum Company and the Kleinschmidt Electric Company
joined to form the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corporation. A story telling of
the union of these two companies was published by _Fortune_ magazine in
March of 1932.[7]
Before going to that story, it may be of interest to describe an
important event concerning the change in the supply of electric power
from direct current to 60-cycle alternating current and the final timing
to exactly 60 cycles per second of all A.C. power supplies so that our
electric clocks may be connected to an A.C. outlet and give correct
time.
The advent of correctly timed, 60-cycle A.C. electric power, available
throughout the nation, was a great boon to the designers of printing
telegraph apparatus and some types of facsimile telegraph and picture
transmitting systems. In prior years, overline synchronization of send
and receive apparatus was always a problem and never perfect. Today,
synchronizing apparatus between terminals becomes the simple matter of
providing 60-cycle A.C. synchronous motors. Just plug into a power
outlet and you have “sync”!
Henry Ellis Warren, a clock maker, noting the change in electric power
service from direct current to 60-cycle alternating current, set about
to build a motor to operate at 60-cycle speed but found that the
60-cycle frequency did not always hold to form, and when applied to
running a clock, did not hold correct time.
The following excerpt, from _The Romance of Time_,[8] tells of Warren’s
activities which led to synchronizing 60-cycle alternating current to
exact time:
_Synchronous Electric Time_
One of the most important of all contributions to horology is the work
of an American who has earned the title, “Father of Electric Time.”
Henry Ellis Warren was graduated from Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in 1894. In 1907 he married and settled in Ashland,
Massachusetts. Here it was that he began to work out his idea for
electrically operated timepieces.
His first product was an ingenious battery-operated clock. In 1914 he
organized the Warren Clock Company and set up production in a barn on
his farm. Yet he knew the battery clock was not his goal, for direct
current offered no means of accurate regulation. Direct current flows
constantly in one direction only, like water down a river or like the
passage of time. On the other hand, alternating current changes
direction regularly, like the oscillation of the balance wheel in a
watch. But instead of the usual five times a second of the balance
wheel, most alternating current completes its trip forward and
backward sixty times a second. Obviously, a clock “geared” to such a
frequency would run as reliably as the current.
In 1916, after several years of extensive experimentation, Warren
developed a motor which would start by itself, run on alternating
current, and carry without difficulty the load of reduction gears
driving the clock hands. It could also handle the cams and contacts of
an alarm clock or set in motion a striking or chiming mechanism.
Then came the test. He plugged the clock into the power socket. It
commenced to run. Weeks of observation and checking showed an
irregular error of as much as ten to fifteen minutes a day.
Convinced that his clock was right, Warren discovered that the
alternating current frequency delivered to his barn factory was off
half a cycle per second—59½ and not 60 cycles. This slight deflection
would produce that much time loss in a 24-hour run. When he informed
the electric company of this error, he was met at first with polite
disbelief. Yet he showed such a comprehensive knowledge of the subject
that the company began to recheck their standards.
Warren built several more synchronous clocks and a master regulator of
his own design for power-station use. On one dial of his master clock
there were two hands, black and gold. The black hand was connected to
an accurately adjusted pendulum clock, beating seconds. The gold hand
was driven by the gear train of one of his electric clocks. As long as
the two hands revolved together, the current cycles were exactly 60
per second. Set up in a power station, this allowed the operator to
adjust the turbine generators as needed to keep the two hands of the
master clock together. Thus all other properly set electric clocks on
the same system would keep the same time automatically.
The Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Boston tried out the
master clock on October 23, 1916. Since then this regulation has
continued.
Other power companies adopted Warren’s master clock. Today virtually
all alternating current furnished in America is similarly checked.
Practical electric time is available at the light socket almost
everywhere. But there are additional benefits.
Standardizing the frequency expanded the market for current to run the
increasing number of clocks in use. Yet, from the consumer’s point of
view, each clock draws little current, costing but a few pennies a
month. Uniform frequency also gave more even speeds in motor-driven
machinery, with a resultant improvement in product. It made easier the
joining of one power station to another. Synchronous motors used in
certain meters and recorders produced better, more accurate records at
lower cost.
The Warren enterprise expanded rapidly. The battery clock was
discontinued. The red barn was no longer large enough, and new space
was acquired. The trade mark “Telechron,” meaning “time from a
distance” (from two Greek words), was used to identify all products of
the company. The firm name was changed to stress the name Telechron,
and in 1952 a merger was made with the General Electric Company.
Plants are now operated in Worcester as well as in Ashland,
Massachusetts.
And now back to the telegraph field....