Family Telecommunications Exhibitions
From Semaphore to Smartphone
Have you got a mobile phone ? Do you use email to communicate with your friends? Can you remember when telephones had dials instead of buttons?
Our ability to communicate lies at the heart of everything we do. From the earliest times, Telecommunication Engineers have been exploiting technology to allow us to communicate over increasing distances and at ever faster speed. There was a time, only a couple of hundred years ago, when if you wanted to send your friend a message, you had to wave coloured flags at them! Needless to say, thanks to advances in engineering, we have evolved significantly from the use of semaphore flags. If you want to send a message today, you can use a small electronic gadget that is able to send text or an email anywhere in the world and within a few seconds. That same gadget also gives you access to unprecedented amounts of information through the Internet and allows you to share photographs or videos, watch television and pin point your position on the planet within a few metres. For many people, life without a smart-phone is quite simply unimaginable!
If you would like to find out more about how telecommunications technology has evolved, how it works, and how engineers have made it all possible, then you will enjoy a day out at our family exhibition. You can try and send messages using semaphore flags, learn Morse Code, make telephone calls using a huge range of phones, find out how big the earliest mobile phones were, experience firsthand retro computers from the 1980s, and see how today's technology works. With exhibitions provided by the University of Salford and industry there is plenty to see and do.
FREE ENTRY
Our next exhibition will take place on Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th October 2012 as part of the Manchester Science Festival. Come along to the University of Salford's building at MediaCity (near Salford Quays) and enjoy the fun. We are open each day from 10am until 4pm.
This year's exhibitions are sponsored by the BCS Manchester Branch and supported by BT Heritage.
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Signalling by semaphore Learn how messages were sent before the invention of electricity. Have a go yourself at sending messages by waving signal flags and see how easy or hard it is! |
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Tin cans and string It's true, two tin cans connected by a piece of string really makes a communications system. Don't believe us, or want to find out how, then come along and have a go for yourself! |
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Needle Telegraph The communications revolution really took off once electricity was harnessed to send our messages. Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke were the first to demonstrate an electric telegraph. Come along and try sending a message using one of their needle telegraphs. But you'll have to send your message using only 20 letters. |
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Morse code It was the Morse telegraph that became the world's first global network – the Victorian Internet as it is now known. Within our exhibition we have constructed a fully working Morse telegraph using original equipment that is over 100 years old. You may have seen it in the cowboy films, now come along and have a go yourself. Learn how messages are sent using a sequence of dots and dashes. |
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Telephones galore One of the most popular parts of our exhibition is our telephone timeline showing how the humble telephone has evolved from a wooden box to a multi-function communications device. Enjoy looking for your first phone and reminiscing about a time when telephones had rotary dials instead of push button keypads. Maybe you have never used a rotary dial, maybe you just want to do it again. Several of these telephones are also wired up so that you can call one to another and learn a little more about how the telephone works. There's also a section devoted to novelty phones featuring the dog phone, a piano, a frog and even an animated Homer Simpson. |
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Mobile phones The mobile phone was introduced into the UK in 1985 but it looked quite different then. See how it has evolved and find out why and how it has shrunk to something which now fits comfortably into your pocket or bag. Do you know how many text messages are sent in the UK each day? |
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The Home Computer There was a time when people didn't have computers in their homes but this changed dramatically in the 1980s. Do you remember the Sinclair Spectrum, BBC Micro or PET? Can you imagine loading programs using cassette tapes and a time when 64K of memory was cutting edge technology? We have several working examples of these machines in the exhibition for you to use and experience those early days of the home computer. Remember that had it not been for the home computer we may well never have connected them to the telephone network and the Internet may not have grown into the global phenomena of today. Come and join us in our Ye Olde Computer room.
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The Internet The Internet dates his history back to 1969 but it was the invention of the world-wide-web in 1989 that truly fuelled its expansion. Do you know how the Internet works? Maybe you would like to take part in a video conference with your friends. Come along and find out more. |
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Fibre Optics Today's communications networks transmit information using light passing through fibre optics. Find out how your voice can be converted into light. |
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Seeing your voice You may have talked on the telephone but have you ever seen your voice? How exactly does the telephone convert your voice into electricity? With this demonstration you'll find out how and see your voice pattern on an oscilloscope. |
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Follow our telecommunications trail and learn how our ability to communicate has advanced. Talk to engineers about the future of telecommunications. Most of all - come along and have fun! We are delighted that our exhibitions are supported by the BCS and BT Connected Earth. We also regularly feature contributions and demonstrations from industry.
. . . . and you might even get to say hello to Ollie Openreach . . . .
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Dates for your diary Our next exhibitions are scheduled for: Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th October 2012 10:00am to 4:00pm both days, free entry. In March 2013 we hope to be at the Museum of Science and Engineering
in Manchester to celebrate National Science and Enngineering Week. Dates
to follow. |
