One of the striking things about Wirt's message is that the more
sophisticated the technology, the more frivolous the first message
transmitted over it.

At 19:09 10/27/98 -0500, Wirt Atmar wrote:
>Some people have accused me of retaining massive amounts of useless trivia,
>but I must admit that I do enjoy recording first messages, such as the first
>inter-city telegraph message, "What hath God wrought?" or the first message
>reflected off of an orbiting satellite, sent by a Morse-code modulated laser
>beam, "NASA. Rah. Rah. Rah."
>
>I personally remember vividly when the first transcontinental satellite relay
>of television signals occurred from Goonhilly Downs, England to Andover,
Maine
>in the summer of 1961. I was working for RCA at the time. When it was
>announced at a NY Yankees baseball game that the signal was being beamed to
>all of Europe, the crowd stood and cheered for several minutes. I must
admit I
>was impressed, even though the picture quality was terrible.
>
>In that same vein, but perhaps far less amazing, the first nation-wide (at
>least in the larger cities) HDTV broadcast will be accomplished this Sunday
>night by ABC and will be a movie, the 1996 remake of "101 Dalmations."
>
>A bit of trivia perhaps worth remembering.
>
>Wirt Atmar
>

Tom Brandt                            Northtech Systems, Inc.
+1 734-769-5040                     3588 Plymouth Road, Suite 292
+1 734-769-5498 (FAX)            Ann Arbor, MI 48105