Talk:Push-button

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History[edit]

Can anybody provide more detail, e.g. a specific timeline of devices that used buttons? I'm thinking along the lines of early wireless receivers with plugin coils, slightly later ones with rotary switches, and later still with keys or buttons.

I must admit I started thinking about this when I saw the pseudo-victorian LCD screen and keyboard at Steampunk Workshop which on reflection is more Edwardian than Victorian :-) MarkMLl (talk) 16:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be interested in this as well. I presume that push buttons came about during the Industrial Age, but suppose there may have been some sort of watchmaker spring-loaded precedent. A little history would be beneficial. --GentlemanGhost (converse) 02:40, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A telegraph key ("Morse code" key) is an early example of an electrical push button. Jeh (talk) 03:35, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@MarkMLl, GentlemanGhost, and Jeh:

Plotnick, Rachel (2012). "At the Interface: The Case of the Electric Push Button, 1880–1923". Technology and Culture. 53 (4): 815–845. doi:10.1353/tech.2012.0138.
Plotnick, Rachel (2015). "What Happens When You Push This?: Toward a History of the Not-So-Easy Button". Information & Culture: A Journal of History. 50 (3): 315–338. doi:10.1353/lac.2015.0014.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:05, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But mechanically, a telegraph key is more like a door latch than a button, which protrudes through a panel and is usually surrounded by a bezel or escutcheon. Thinking about precedence, I think that SF in the 50s still used "stud" fairly regularly which I think derives from controls on an organ console. MarkMLl (talk) 12:53, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]