Generation Gap

It was April 2005 and the battleground was Sydney's Powerhouse Museum. The lines were drawn but the opponents were generations, indeed centuries, apart. On one side Brittany Devlin aged 13 armed with a modern mobile phone, on the other, Gordon Hill, aged 93, armed with a nineteenth century morse key. This was to be a contest between the earliest form of telecommunication and the latest to see which was the faster.

Gordon and Brittany were given an identical message to send – Gordon, with many years of experience, had to send it by Morse Code to 82 year old Jack Gibson who would decode it on a manual typewriter; Brittany who had been texting for about two years was to SMS a friend standing alongside Jack.

The message selected was from a teenage magazine and read, "Hey, girlfriend, you can text all your best pals to tell them where you are going and what you are wearing."

When the contest started Gordon had to send the message in full. Brittany saved time by abbreviating hers to read, "hey gf u can txt ur best pals 2 tel them wot u r doing, whr u r going and wot u r wearing".

Jack finished typing the message just ninety seconds after Gordon started sending, Brittany's took eighteen seconds longer.

Three other teen aged challengers stepped forward to pit themselves against the skill of the two old telegrpahists but none were able to match the Morse for speed.