A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations.
Initially, from 1887 at the earliest, teleprinters were used in telegraphy. Electrical telegraphy had been developed decades earlier in the late 1830s and 1840s, then using simpler Morse key equipment and telegraph operators. The introduction of teleprinters automated much of this work and eventually largely replaced skilled operators versed in Morse code with typists and machines communicating faster via Baudot code.
