Presenter: Jane, you're a historian whose main interest is in modern communication, is that right?

Woman: Yes, it really is a fascinating subject.

Presenter: Perhaps you can help me understand something... modern communication ... it's not got a lot to do with history, has it?

Woman: Well, the field I'm interested in does go back further than the 20th century.

Presenter: When would you say modern communication history begins?

Woman: With Morse code, I suppose. That was invented in 1835.

Presenter: As early as that? So I suppose that was the start of everything?

Woman: Pretty much, yes. You see, the communication systems we have now depend very much on electricity so, although we had great inventors 200 years ago, they had to wait, really, until electricity came along ... for their inventions to work.

Presenter: So, are you telling me that the mobile phone was invented 200 years ago, but they had to wait until someone invented electricity?

Woman: No, not quite! That wasn't until 1979. But there were some surprisingly good thinkers who were around before 1900.

Presenter: Give us an example.

Woman: Well, a man called Alexander Bain invented the fax machine 150 years ago! And there was Edison, who invented the first office copying machine, called the mimeograph, in 1876.

Presenter: A sort of early photocopier?

Woman: Yes! And then there was the telephone. The first answering machine for the telephone came along as early as 1898.

Presenter: What about the first half of the 20th century?

Woman: Well, this was the beginning of radio. At first, radio was a local affair, broadcasting only a few kilometres at the most. They knew it would only be popular if they could transmit signals over long distances. So they kept carrying out tests. The first radio signal to cross the Atlantic Ocean to Canada was in 1902. And the telephone was another invention which was being developed at this time and it, too, needed to be able to reach far - off places. In 1914, we had the first telephone call to cross the Atlantic.

Presenter: And television? Wasn't that invented around this time?

Woman: In 1923, yes. But it was many years before we had regular television programmes.

Presenter: What about computers ... something we all take for granted these days.

Woman: In 1944, we saw the first computers being used, but they were owned by the government. Five years later, they were being sold commercially, but ... we're not talking about a PC here ... they were huge machines. We had to wait until 1976 for the first home comuter.

Presenter: And the Internet? Is that old?

Woman: well, not 200 years old! But 1969 is the recognised date for the birth of the internet. Actually, it wasn't called internet, it was called Arpanet. So that was 1969, but it was government controlled. The World Wide Web only came into being in 1994. And then, of course, came email programs and things really took off in communications.