The internet technically existed in the late 90's. Already many "landline telephones" behind the scenes are transmitting calls over the internet. That's why the Internet is replacing them all. The Internet can do the job all these things did, and more. Telephones let anyone talk to anyone but that specifically means only talking. Television is an audiovisual feed only radio is audio only. And the contents of said messages can contain arbitrary data.That allows any node in the network to send messages to any other.What makes the Internet different than television? Or radio? Or the printing press, or the mail? The Internet is: While the relays and wires and people sending the telegrammes are the "communications network" part of the fictional world Internet. The real world Mundaneum is simply the "cloud storage" part of the fictional world Internet. It is also true that the telegraph system through which the real world Mundaneum would have done its work is a communications network. While it is true that the Internet is a communications network, it is also more than just that. I don't know if visual data can be sent over telegraph systems, but they could easily mail a microphotograph of the pertinent visual data, along with their written report, which I would then have blown up to its original size. ![]() They might write a short, well referenced report and telegraph that back to me. With the Mundaneum, I send a telegramme to their central receiving office who would then translate my request into the relevant catalogueing scheme, a research team would, using their own algorithms, research patents & makers & catalogues of musical instruments. With the Internet, I type "difference between dreadnought and parlour guitar", the request is sent into the workings of the search engine, whose automated algorithms return what (I desperately hope) are relevant documents, images, and videos that relate to my question. Its basic functions are essentially identical. The Mundaneum is simply a physical location that is an analogue to the ephemeral location we call the Internet. ![]() With powerful enough analog computers, digital counterparts of the like Charles Babbage had already designed, and monied backing neither Charles Babbage nor Paul Otlet ever had, you could potentially engineer and build custom analog computers that would run the Mundaneum. It didn't work out because of the technical problems. Someone invented the Internet more than a hundred years ago In addition, the shortwave amateur radio community, which boomed in the inter-war period, could function as the message carrier for non-commercial activity, similar to how the internet operated non-commercially in its formative years. The worldwide Telex network rose to prominence in the years after WW2, and remained in continuous use until the Internet was able to take over its main function of transmitting authorized-ish written messages in almost real-time. The worldwide telephone network was an interbellic development due mostly to transnational conglomerates such as the British Cable & Wireless, or the American International Telephone and Telegraph. The first successful transatlantic cable was laid in 1865, by the life-time efforts of Cyrus Field. The worldwide telegraph network was slowly stitched together in the second half of the 19th century. Before the establismnent of the Universal Postal Union, correspondents in countries which didn't have direct postal agreements relied on specialized mail forwarders. The worldwide postal system became available, if expensive, since the late 17th century. There were not less than four worldwide messaging systems in widespread use before the Internet. ![]() Please ask for clarifications if necessary before answering. Power consumption and inherent unreliability of components must be taken into account. Transistors can be considered impossible in this world. Or, you can invent a non-electronic alternative or banks of unreliable valves or electromechanical relays kept on permanently. If someone in this era invented "the internet", how closely (in terms of functionality and speed) could it approximate today's internet without digital computers? You can assume that memory functions can be carried out by people with notepads. Telephones work by having human operators who connect one caller to another by manually plugging them in at the exchange. Radio technology (still valve based) is however all the rage. There are no digital computers whatsoever. In this world there are analog computers used rarely in laboratories for specialised purposes. Imagine that we are in an alternative Earth in the early to mid 1940s.
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