What was the Semaphore originaly used for?

Question

What was it originaly used for?

Answer 1

Long distance communication; as early as 1792, Claude Chappe managed to have France covered with a network of 556 semaphore stations, spanning 4800 km.

It was later adopted for ship to ship communication.

Answer 2

Semaphore has been around much longer than the railways. Its a means of communication whereby specific letters of the alphabet are assigned to different positions of 2 flags held at arms length. The words of the message are spelled out by moving the flags to the positions which correspond to the letters of each word. Because railway signal arms look like a flag and the position of the arm has a specific meaning, they were given the name "semaphore signals" as opposed to disc and bar signals used on very early railways in Britain.

Answer 3

Depends which form of semaphore you mean.



Both flag and rail semaphore were developed in the early 19th century as a means to communicate over distances before the advent of the telegraph and of course radio waves.



Optical semaphore came later in the century.

Answer 4

Trains, to keep them from going down a track where another train was.