John E. Wright, who in the 1890s designed and built step-by-step printing apparatus, including the Wright-Negron bulletin printer, also turned his thoughts toward the five-unit permutation code for printer operation and built several variations using the synchronous principle. The Superintendent of Telegraphs for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad thought well of Wright’s apparatus and placed some in operation. But, here again, reliable operation could be maintained only in point-to-point operation. As will be noted in Chapter 2, Mr. Wright’s patents were purchased by the Kleinschmidt Electric Company in 1922. A paper issued by Siemens-Halske of Germany in January of 1917[1] states that the Siemens Pendel Telegraph “is among the forerunners of the eventual worldwide start-stop system for intercommunication by the printed word.” The following excerpt translated from that description briefly explains the operation: The Pendel Telegraph uses the five-unit permutation code to select characters, and operates on a start-stop principle. It is intended for station-to-station, one-way operation, the line current normally being closed to the positive side of the line battery. Transmission is under control of a keyboard with keys arranged as in a typewriter. Upon the depression of a key, the line battery is reversed, thereby transmitting a negative pulse to line which effects the start of both transmitter and receiver at the same time. Thereafter, five-code-combination pulses are transmitted, followed by positive current to line, thus restoring the circuit system to a normally closed line condition. The name “Pendel Telegraph” would make one think that the timing of the transmitter and receiver were under control of a swinging pendulum. This is not the case. However, it does have a plan for simulating the action of a pendulum by an arrangement of springs and semi-rotating weights to effect synchronism for each printing cycle; and energy is derived from a motor which intermittently winds a power mainspring to an even tension. This arrangement is started in operation at both terminals at the same time and provides isochronal motion at both transmitter and receiver for each transmitted character. Due to multiple operations of the springs and weights used to provide synchronous action, the operating speed is limited to four or five letters per second. In England, too, there was work being done along these same lines. Mr. H. H. Harrison, who is so well known for his contributions over the years in the telegraph field, devised printer apparatus using the five-unit code which is described in Herbert’s _Telegraphy_,[2] as follows: