Hi-- my name is Dennis M0MMX (formally 2E0DLW) and my passion is morse code. My involvement with amateur radio began a few years ago, I, like many others began with CB, in my case in the late 70's on AM, illegal I know, we were always dodging the man from the GPO !! Upon researching amateur radio web sites I became fascinated with the wartime stories in particular the VI's (volunteer interceptors) and so became interested in morse code or CW (continuous wave).Like everyone else these days, I had to study and gain my foundation licence, but determined to carry on, I gained my intermediate then advanced licence. Learning morse code is an arduous, tedious long process (especially to a man of my age) but eventually managed to get the basics and get “on air” and indeed managed to collect several different types of keys.
One of these types of keys is called a “semi automatic” key commonly known as a “Bug” key and the principal manufacturer is the Vibroplex Company. They were used by American telegraphy companies but also newspaper publishers and the military. In the days before the modern electronic paddle key they were the fastest available. I have a Vibroplex Lightening model.
Fascinated by the history of these keys I researched their history and especially why they are called “Bug keys”. Here is the text of that research project---

Why is my semi automatic key called a Bug?

The first recorded use of the word bug in a disruptive situation is from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part III - Act V, Scene II: King Edward: “So, lie thou there. Die thou, and die our fear, For Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all".
Moving to the nineteenth century, as the story goes, it is thought that the first mention of a “Bug” was when a fault occurred on a Duplex circuit and was attributed to a Cockroach that, covered in ink, crawled across a tap of a rheostat and caused the circuit to become unbalanced. Let me explain, originally, a line was operated by an operator at each end but soon Duplex operation began with two operators at each end allowing two messages in opposite directions to be sent at the same time on the same line. This system required the signal to pass through a dummy line of the same resistance and capacitance as the main line and the system required a large rheostat to maintain that balance. When the unfortunate creature upset the balance, the signals became faulty.

It wasn’t long before Quadraplexing was developed where four operators at each end, two transmitting and two receiving, were able to use a single line. Thomas Edison was at the forefront of this advancement which involved the use of many relays, one of which was called the neutral relay, which had a tendency to misbehave and create false and interfering signals which were always referred to as a “Bug” on the wire”. Edison designed many electro mechanical devices to overcome the faulty neutral relay and he called them his “Bug Traps”.

How was the term for a faulty signal transferred to a morse key? First, we have to go into the history of Horace Greeley Martin the inventor of the Vibroplex semi automatic key. H.G.Martin was born in Adairsville, Georgia in 1873 and as a child would spend his time at the train depot where he learned telegraphy listening to the dispatcher. By the age of 9 years old he was employed by the Western and Atlantic Railroad as an extra operator and by the age of 14 was an expert telegrapher and typist and hired by Associated Press in Atlanta. He quickly moved on to Western Union and, still as a teenager, became the chief operator in the Atlanta office.

To further his career and earnings Martin moved from city to city, and because of his remarkable talent as a telegrapher (he could use two keys independently with left and right hands) he arrived in New York and was employed on Wall Street. Again, looking for career opportunities Martin returned to newspapers and joined The United Press, by then he had gained the reputation of being the best ever press telegrapher.

In 1898 the New York Electrical Society hosted The Grand National Telegraph Tournament held in Madison Square Garden. The nation’s best telegraphers would compete against each other as the fastest sender and/or the most accurate receiver. H G Martin entered the accurate receive category and it is recorded that the judges, including Thomas Edison and J H Bunnell remarked that they had never seen such accurate typewritten work, ever. There was however a problem, Martin had misread the rules and forgot to put the name of the sender on each of his seven sheets of copy. After a week’s deliberation the judges finally declared Martin had incurred seven errors and was relegated to third place. Still, the newspapers reported that “ It is safe to say there is no better telegraph operator in America than Mr Martin “ Now we must ask the question, why did the nation’s best operator not enter the fastest sender category. The answer is simple, by 1898 he was suffering from Telegraphers Paralysis, also known as Glass Wrist. As an A1 press operator he was sending up to 20,000 words per shift and at the age of only 25 his ability to send at speed was dramatically reduced and of course so was his earnings. Now we can understand why H G Martin began his quest for a key suitable for someone with Repetitive Strain Injury.

Martin now embarked on a period of experimentation which included an electro-medical shock device to treat telegraphers (presumably, using himself as a guinea pig). He also attempted to make a morse typewriter but in the end settled on designing a simple transmitting device to enable an operator to send at speed and using a horizontal movement (these early keys were referred to as transmitters).

In 1902 Martin made his first semi automatic key and called it The Autoplex because it operated almost automatically. This was patented at the end of 1902 and by the following year was in production. It was a key that worked on the same principle as today’s bug keys but the arm or lever is actuated by an armature (electromagnet) which of course requires batteries. Various design changes were made and the instrument began to sell, so much so, that by 1905 a new company was formed called United Electrical Manufacturing Company and a start up capital of one thousand dollars mostly from new investors.

These new keys were bought principally by the “bonus men” the high speed operators who could cope with a large amount of work in the shortest time and appreciated the high speed capabilities of the key. The down side was that they had to provide their own batteries.

The race was on to design a “transmitter” that did not require batteries. Martin experimented with various designs that incorporated a vibrating lever. Although these keys were not entirely successful he did use the name Vibroplex. His efforts were interrupted by the fact that William Coffe of Cleveland patented a similar key but with a vertical lever. Martin persevered and being careful not to infringe the Coffe patent came up with a design that we are all familiar with i.e. a single arm incorporating the spring and actuated by hitting a stop, the movement arrested when released by hitting a damper. His patent was filed on the 16th April 1906.The New York facilities were expanded and both the Autoplex and Vibroplex went into production. The new Vibroplex transmitter (as it was still called) was successful, however, it became apparent that the average operator unable to come to terms with the complexity of setting it up properly and without sufficient practice started sending faulty code. These poor operators were subsequently called “Bugs” and because they were using the new semi automatic key the term was also applied to the key. The name “Bug” became synonymous with the semi automatic key.

In 1908 Martin’s association with U.E.M ended and a new company was set up, The Vibroplex Company Inc. This was in association with J E Albright who was a marketing man who had a successful history of selling typewriters. The Vibroplex Company issued many law suits and aggressively defended their patents, they were generally successful, however, after failing to stop J. H. Bunnell manufacturing their Gold Bug model, took them back to court in an effort to stop them using the name “Bug”. This issue was resolved when in January 1928 the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision in favour of J.H.Bunnell & Co. The name bug was legally a generic name that distinguishes the semi automatic key from any other. This did not stop J.E.Albright designing the “new” brass plate incorporating the red cockroach with its four lightening flashes and words Trade Mark, ironically the Bunnell Company was an active dealer for Vibroplex keys during these court proceedings.

Incidentally, the term debugging is now commonplace in computer science. The first actual case of a “Bug” being found is recorded in the log entry (dated 9th September 1947) of a team headed by Admiral Grace Hopper who is credited with inventing one of the first compilers which led to the development of COBOL ( She is also known as Grandma COBOL). On that day a Moth was found impeding a relay and the technicians removed it and taped it to their log with the words “First actual case of a bug being found”. Admiral Hopper conceded that she did not invent the word Debugging and that it had been in common use since the time of Edison.

Had the Cockroach not crawled across that rheostat and Thomas Edison not inverted his “Bug Traps” I guess solving computer hardware/software malfunctions would be called De Mothing and my Vibroplex key? Well, I know what I call it when I produce faulty code---but that is unprintable.