Samuel F. B. Morse is given credit for developing Morse Code, a system that used electronic impulses to communicate signals that were heard as dots and dashes - short and longer sounds transmitted from one machine to another.

Morse applied for his first patent in connection with his new method of communciation in 1837. The innovations covered under the patent included his design for the transmitting and receiving machines, a description of the wiring that would be necessary to allow the equipment to function, a prescribed method for recording signals, and the actual code of dots and dashes and the letters for which the various combinations stood.