The modern telephone and cell phones have their roots in the telegraph which was first patented by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail; other inventors simultaneously invented telegraphs during the same time period. The finished telegraph, which was called the "Recording Telegraph," became commercially feasible in 1837. It sent a flow of electricity through a wire to a distant location. The electricity could be interrupted by pressing a pad for short or long periods, later known as Morse code. The resulting differences in electricity lengths would be recorded onto paper as bumps or transcribed orally.

· Translator Tool - A cool little page that translates text into Morse code. · A Pictoral History of the telegraph. · A more technical representation of the telegraph and its circuitry. · The two forms of Morse code; International and American Standards.

Telegraph lines were employed underground but proved to be a faulty economic idea, and telegraph poles were used instead. Based upon improvements to the telegraph, the telephone allowed for human speech to be transmitted instead of a signal representing speech.

While the original inventor of the telephone is up for debate, Alexander Graham Bell is credited with its invention in the US. Early telephones used a system of carbon microphones for sound reception and batteries to power the transmitters. Later, exchange houses would supply the power via the phone line in a number of wire variations. Late in the 20th century telephones went cordless utilizing radio frequencies to transmit the signals from the base receiver to handsets.

While the cellular phone and telephone both allow for communication without wires, the technology behind cellular phones comes from several sources. Cellular phone technology developed out of advanced math formulas, quantum mechanics, radio technology, and its manipulation and miniaturization.

Martin Cooper is credited with inventing the Cellular phone. The math enables the spoken signal, ring tone, and Internet data to be encoded and placed on an FM radio wave. The radio wave is transmitted, received by another tower, and then decoded using the above mentioned advanced math. The chips and processors needed for this type of communication and signal processing need to be extremely small, although early cell phones were quite large.