What is the difference between a telex and a telegram?

Answer 1

The International Telex service uses machines called "telex machines" or "teleprinters". (One famous US make is the "Teletype machine".)

Such machines are connected by "telex service lines". These are similar to telephone lines but do not use speech.

Each telex machine has a keyboard, like a typewriter, and also has a printer . If you know someone you want to send a message to has a similar telex machine, you can set up a telex call to their number - just like a telephone call - and then you can type in your message and the the telex machine at the other end of the line will print it out.

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The old-fashioned "telegraph" or "telegram" system used lines similar to telephone lines but did not use speech. It was used to send messages from one place to another by using electrical on/off signals, similar to the dots and dashes used in the Morse Code.

A person who wanted to send a telegraph message - also known as a "telegram" - would have to write it clearly - using block letters and numbers - onto a piece of paper called a "Telegraph Transmission Form" and had to take it by hand to a "Telegraph Office".

A person called a "Telegraph Operator" then had to read the form and tap-in each of the letters and numbers into a machine called a "Telegraph Machine". The signals made letters and numbers appear on a similar machine at a "Telegraph Office" in the town where the person lived who was to receive the message.

The machine at the "receiving station" actually printed out the letters and numbers onto a strip of paper just as they were sent out from the keyboard of the "transmitting station". The strips of paper were then pasted onto another sheet of paper, called a "Telegraph Reception Form" - or Telegram - and that was hand-delivered to the person it was addressed-to.