Talk:Telex

The Telex Network transmitted a lot more than Telegrams
The initial statement, "...A Telex message was a telegram sent by a Telex network, a switched network of teleprinters similar to a telephone network...." is incorrect as it limits the Telex network to the transmission of telegrams. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the bulk of the messages transmitted via the Telex Network were business related message, usually intra-business messages and messages to / from trading partners. Were telegrams transmitted via Telex? Yes! Customers could file telegrams for delivery to a distant location. And, customers could receive telegrams on their telex machines. However, It would be rare to find a customer filing a telegram for delivery to a distant Telex machine. Why? First of all the added cost. A primary reason for in the Telex Network was the ability to reach a distant machine directly over the network without having to deal with an intermediary.Wa3frp (talk) 00:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You're right. I cut and pasted the whole article from Telegraphy, including that sentence. I've rewritten the lead, feel free to improve it. Adpete (talk) 03:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The new text is clearly better but not precise. I'll make an edit shortly as "text messages" is going to sound like IM or Twitter to some. Something like "text based messages" is closer to the fact. This opening statement needs to include something about the size of the network at its and usage.Wa3frp (talk) 13:27, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I've changed the first paragraph in two ways. Please feel free to modify and edit. Also see new topic below that may help to clarify if the Telex Network is still operational.Wa3frp (talk) 14:31, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Related to this note I have changed customer to customer to station-to-station DGerman (talk) 17:14, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Does the Telex network Still Exist?
I say no.

I saw the 2007 reference that was recently posted from the Telecommunications and Data Communications Handbook and contacted the author, Ray Horak, looking for some detail and received the following reply: "...Although I cannot vouch for this as a certainty, when I wrote the book in 2006 it was my understanding that vestiges of the old Telex network were still in place in sub-Saharan Africa, including Namibia and the Republic of Congo. I didn’t personally lay eyes on the machines but had it on good authority from students in my classes in Joburg and Windhoek. I taught telecom classes, mostly in Joburg, twice a year for 10 years ending in 2007. I am due to go back this year or next, and will attempt to that point. Telex is so technically obsolete that I probably should remove this sentence in my next edition, even if there are still a couple of old machines bouncing their way across floors in hotels or banks in Congo or some such out-of-the-way place..."

Does anyone have first hand knowledge of an operational Telex Network? If so, what central office exchange equipment is in use (Siemens TWK or something more modern), what type of loop engineering is in place (loop, polar or tone) and what types of terminals are used?Wa3frp (talk) 14:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I say yes.

Several companies still provision telex subscriber lines, including Network Telex (based in UK) Tel: +44 (0) 1202 874156. Fkumbila (talk) 01:16, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you know if the folks who use the Network Telex service that you described dial to other telex machines? Or, are the subscriber lines terminated in a computer rather than a network of telex machines?Wa3frp (talk) 23:10, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Telex is still using 50-baud dedicated switched subscriber lines, in most cases terminating on PC's through telex modems. It's still a separate, proprietary network (although NT and others do provide email gateways). More info here:

http://www.ctm.net/cgi-bin/ctm/jsp/business/telex/telex.jsp?vasOID=9078

http://www.bsnl.co.in/service/telex_1.htm

http://www.ccl.co.uk/products/telex.htm

http://vpccorp.com/telex.htm

http://www.thij.net/SECURIO/securio_datek_telex.htm

Fkumbila (talk) 23:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Telex which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 02:45, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Moved. Also changed capitalization per OED note that telex is not a proprietary term. — kwami (talk) 12:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Unreliable article
"Telex began in Germany as a research and development program in 1926 that became an operational teleprinter service in 1933. " There is something seriously inaccurate here; the UK's National Archives & Post Office Archives holds POST 33/4514 of 1931 which describes a Telegram-teleprinter service code name 'Telex'. POST 33/3738 is a Telex Directory of August 1932. POST 33/4956 describes proposals to run it overseas from 1932. Treasury records T 219/436 discuss providing telex services for government departments and the general public from 1930. So Telex would appear to be not only operational but established enough to need a directory well before the dates given in the current article. Yet the article does not even mention the British Post Office or Cable & Wireless who were busy wiring up the world. Ephebi (talk) 10:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.Wa3frp (talk) 13:04, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

teh 1st txtspk?

 * Telex was the forerunner of modern email and texting[citation needed]. Abbreviated English (like: CU L8R for 'see you later') used in texting was first used by telex operators exchanging informal messages in real time[citation needed] - they were the first 'texters' long before mobile phones[citation needed].

Not likely. There were plenty of abbreviations in use in Morse Code, such as the Q code and the two-digit Western Union abbreviations. Q codes date from marine use in 1909 and abbreviation of telegraphic messages was very common as manual transmission of messages was slow and time-consuming. Prosigns for Morse code were effectively control characters. Telegraphic operators routinely referred to each other as 'OM' ("old man") and other common abbreviations included CQ (a message to all stations), MSG (master service gram, a message to the captain of an ocean-going vessel) and bar-SOS (one of various distress calls). The 1912 radio logs of ships in contact with RMS Titanic were filled with this txtspk, k? Individual station identifiers were also abbreviated as two or three-letter callsigns. MGY (Titanic) PWNED L0L!!! K7L (talk) 20:06, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.


 * Actually yes. The abbreviations were known amongst telex operators (at least in the UK) as 'telexese'.  Commonly used abbreviations were 'TKS' and 'PLS', but much else was abbreviated.  Almost all telexese abbreviations were three letter codes.  I am not aware that 'CU L8R' was ever used as (1) it was far too long for a telexese abbreviation and (2) it was not much of an abbreviation as it would require 8 keystrokes to send it (the '8' requiring a 'figure shift' an '8' and then a 'letter shift' to send the following 'R'.  Of course, references for this are impossible to find as was merely a custom and practice, the abbreviations were never standardises anywhere.  DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 08:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
 * There was more to Telex abbreviations than TKS or PSE. Although there were some standardised abbreviations, many were made up by the operator. Because time charges were horrendous, anything that could be abbreviated was, often to two letters, or sometimes even one.
 * As a Telex op, I remember getting messages that were akin to Ronnie Barker's "F.U.N.E.X" sketch. G7mzh (talk) 18:08, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Merge with Telex II
I oppose this merge. Telex II is the name of a particular commercial network, not the concept as a whole. The naming is unfortunately confusing, but that's "not our problem".

The real question is whether the Telex II article stands on its own as one worthy of existence. I always err on the side of inclusion, but in this case it seems that we might be able to do everything we need with a redir in place of the article, and a separate section in the WU article. But this all depends on the depth of material one might find on the topic.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:06, 20 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The precessor network doesn't have its own article; it is explained in the "Teletypewriter eXchange" section of this article. Telex II is still a stub after over seven years, and could easily be covered at the end of that section. -- Beland (talk) 01:20, 21 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Sure, but is that the right place? Isn't this really a topic about western union and/or AT&T? Atari made computers, some of them never released. Are they properly mentioned in computer, or Atari? Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:03, 21 December 2013 (UTC)


 * This may be an article about Western Union and/or AT&T at the moment but only because the Americans like to think they invented everything. This article badly needs expansion to cover telex networks elsewhere on the planet.  The article does claim that telex started in Germany, but even that is incorrect as the British Post Office beat them to it by about five years. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 08:07, 1 April 2014 (UTC


 * Thank you for your suggestion. I was able to write the article from a North American perspective based on my personal knowledge of the Telex network, having managed a large part of it for Western Union Telegraph in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's. I saw your opened handed slap at the article, directly stating that "Americans like to think they invented everything". However, that remark is not called for.  I would say in return that when you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.  I have a personal interest in this subject and would like to learn what was going on around the world before during and after my involvement.  Please post what you know, with references, so that the article fully reflects the subject of Telex from a global perspective.Wa3frp (talk) 13:38, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Is Telex proprietary?
The word Teletype is used by many as a synonym for teleprinter, but I think it is generally accepted as being a proprietary name of the Teletype Corporation. I had understood that the word Telex similarly referred to a proprietary system, not to switched telegraph networks in general. Or has usage led to it validly acquiring that meaning? --TedColes (talk) 12:20, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

"Telex®" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Telex® and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 15 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. BD2412 T 05:21, 15 April 2022 (UTC)