The Bramão Telegraph – (Maximiliano Augusto Herrmann) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Maximiliano Augusto Herrmann

Date: 1874

Museum: Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicações (Lisbon, Portugal)

Technique: Brass

Table Telegraph built by Maximiliano Herrmann and innovated later by Cristiano Augusto Bramão. This is an innovative piece in the world of communication since it allowed a faster transmission and reception as well as a better economy in the consumption of the ticker tape, due to its double chain operation. With this innovation, Herrmann intended to fix the problem in the Telegraphic Morse Receivers. Before there was a major technical problem since the Morse Receivers were constituted with a dry tip or a strip with ink. In the dry tip case, the signals were marked in the paper with a steel pointer, but these were of difficult perception and disappeared easily. With the ink on paper strip method it was, sometimes, impossible to read due to the excess of ink. Because of these technical problems, Herrmann built a type of inkstand with a thin stylus, flexible enough to allowed the user to adjust, using just the enough amount of ink to write the message. This innovation was made known to the Foreign Telegraphic Administrations and was presented in 1865 at the International Telegraphic Conference in Paris, by José Vitorino Damásio, director of the Portuguese Telegraphs. This rectangular trapezoidal shaped piece is made of wood, golden brass, metal and glass. The front face has a plate on which the model is identified. In the right side of the upper panel there is a reel with paper tape where the telegraphic message was printed, also containing two morse keys that worked with a manual computer. In the center and in the left there is a clockwork mechanism consisting of a mechanical system of gears in brass, copper and metal. At the rear face there is six pins for connecting wires identified by the letters