"Charles Haynes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Did the computer term "semaphore" come from train semaphores? I have always assumed so.
Possibly - though semaphores stared out as a military signaling system (in France, about the time of the French revolution, if I recall correctly). Other countries soon adopted it - and the name of Telegraph Hill outside London dates from the period that an 'optical telegraph' signal tower stood on it.
You may recall an episode in The Count of Monte Cristo where the eponymous count tricks de Villefort into bankruptcy by bribing a semaphore signaler to send a false report about an impending revolution in Spain?
cheers, Divya
