Old-school wireless
My dad just sent me some magazine excerpts from 1922 that nicely demonstrate how the history of technology and control repeats itself:
“…[The radio critic has] sounded a cautionary note, asking readers to ‘Think of the tragic fate of some future Thoreau who goes to his beloved woods in search of solitude only to find the night made suddenly hideous by the famous laughing saxophone played at station XYZ and received and amplified by equipment in possession of the Boston Boy Scouts in camp not far away!’ And in contrast to the speculation by many that radio would help bring world peace, this review closed noting that ‘if another war comes, which radio-telephony may make easier to bring about, radio control of the means of destruction will add immeasurably to its horrors’ although possibly these were ‘the fears of a crotchety generation that is passing’.”
(The Nation, March 1922)
“From all parts of the United States telephone companies are complaining about the forays amateur radio operators are making on public telephones in order to secure equipment they think will be suitable for their outfits. The seclusion of a telephone booth affords a good opportunity for the radio nut to acquire a receiver. The thrifty and unprincipled parties are greatly disappointed with results of sets equipped with ordinary telephone receivers–they won’t work on the wireless sets. Telephone men are hoping the daily newspapers will tip off their readers to this fact and cut down the losses of telephone equipment.”
(Telephone Engineer, June 1922)