Donald Murray (1865–1945) was an

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and the

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

of a telegraphic typewriter system using an extended

Baudot code The Baudot code is an early character encoding for telegraphy invented by Émile Baudot in the 1870s. It was the predecessor to the International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2 (ITA2), the most common teleprinter code in use until the advent of ASCII ...

that was a direct ancestor of the teleprinter (teletype machine). He can justifiably be called the "Father of the remote Typewriter".New Zealand’s Donald Murray: The Father of the Remote Typewriter
Australian Typewriter Museum,

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

, 9 March 2012; accessed 10 March 2012 Murray's system became the

International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2 The Baudot code is an early character encoding for telegraphy invented by Émile Baudot in the 1870s. It was the predecessor to the International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2 (ITA2), the most common teleprinter code in use until the advent of ASCII ...

(ITA2) or Murray Code; it was supplanted by the

American Standard Code for Information Interchange ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

(

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...

) in 1963.Radio Teletype or RTTY: Baudot, Murray and ASCII Codes

Wireless Institute of Australia The Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA) was formed in 1910, and is the first and oldest national amateur radio society in the world. It represents the amateur radio operators of Australia as the AR "peak body" in dealings with the Australia ...

article

Early life and education

Murray was born in

Invercargill Invercargill ( , mi, Waihōpai is the southernmost and westernmost city in New Zealand, and one of the southernmost cities in the world. It is the commercial centre of the Southland region. The city lies in the heart of the wide expanse ...

, New Zealand, in 1865, and was educated at the Lincoln Agricultural College near

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...

from 1882. This led to his early work as a farmer. Murray went to Europe in 1886, returning home in 1887 and working at ''

The New Zealand Herald ''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation of all newspape ...

'' newspaper, while also studying at the

Auckland University College , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

from which he graduated in 1890 with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

. In 1891 he moved to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

, where he worked for ''

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...

'' newspaper while studying at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

for a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from prem ...

Telegraphic typewriter

It was during his time with the ''Sydney Morning Herald'' that Murray got the idea for the telegraphic typewriter. At the time,

telegrams Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

were transmitted by

telegraphist A telegraphist (British English), telegrapher (American English), or telegraph operator is an operator who uses a telegraph key to send and receive the Morse code in order to communicate by land lines or radio. During the Great War the Royal ...

s using

Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one ...

, then typed onto a telegram form which was then delivered by

bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. B ...

or on foot. Murray's idea was to use a

typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...

to drive a device that translated each character of the text into a modified

. On the receiving end, another mechanism would print the coded characters on a paper tape, and/or make a perforated copy of the message. This system allowed the transmission of messages without need of operators trained in Morse code. At the time typists were being trained in great numbers using the

QWERTY keyboard QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden ty ...

layout. Murray went to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1899 with the idea for his invention, and sought backing while submitting a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

. The patent describes the

teleprinter A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Init ...

system. It received backing from the Postal Telegraph Cable Company, and was then manufactured. This formalized and heavily promoted the use of the QWERTY keyboard, to the detriment of other keyboard layouts. The machines were introduced world-wide, with systems prominently at New York's

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company cha ...

and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...

. Murray soon moved to London, and remained there until he sold the rights to his invention in 1925. He then retired to

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...

and later

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, where he studied and wrote on

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

Publications

Murray was the author of three books: * ''The Philosophy of Power: First Principles'', London: Williams & Norgate (1939). * ''The Philosophy of Power, Volume 2: The Theory of Control'', London: Williams & Norgate (1940). * ''Australia: Poverty or Progress?'', Melbourne: Henry George Foundation (1945).

References

External links

New Zealand’s Donald Murray: The Father of the Remote Typewriter
Australian Typewriter Museum,

Codes that Don't Count: Some Printing Telegraph Codes as Products of their Technologies (With Particular Attention to the Teletypesetter)
- includes images of early Murray equipment, and visual comparison of

and Murray code
Teleprinter and Teletype

Radioteletype or RTTY
-

Telegraph Timeline
- North American Data Communications Museum (NADCOMM) {{DEFAULTSORT:Murray, Donald (inventor) 1865 births 1945 deaths University of New Zealand alumni University of Sydney alumni New Zealand inventors 19th-century Australian inventors Georgists