Tivadar Puskás de Ditró (in older English technical literature: Theodore Puskás) (17 September 1844 – 16 March 1893) was a Hungarian

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

telephone A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...

pioneer, and inventor of the

telephone exchange A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a central component of a telecommunications system in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It facilitates the establishment of communication circuits ...

. He was also the founder of Telefon Hírmondó.

Biography

The Puskás family from Ditró (today

Harghita County Harghita County (, and , ) is a county () in the center of Romania, in eastern Transylvania, with the county seat at Miercurea Ciuc. Demographics 2002 census In 2002, Harghita County had a population of 326,222 and a population density of ...

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

), was part of the Transylvanian Hungarian nobility. Puskás studied law and later engineering sciences. After living in England and working for the Warnin Railway Construction Company he returned to

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. In 1873, on the occasion of the World Exhibition in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, he founded the Puskás Travel Agency, the fourth-oldest in the world and the first travel agency in

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. After this, Puskás moved to

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

and became a gold miner. It was while he was in America that Puskás exposed the American "energy machine" inventor Keely as a fraud. Puskás was working on his idea for a

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

exchange when

Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (; born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born Canadian Americans, Canadian-American inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He als ...

invented the

. This led him to take a fresh look at his work and he decided to get in touch with the American inventor

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...

. Puskás now began to concentrate on perfecting his scheme to build a telephone exchange. According to Edison, ''"Tivadar Puskas was the first person to suggest the idea of a telephone exchange"''. The first experimental telephone exchange was based on the ideas of Puskás, and it was built by the

Bell Telephone Company The Bell Telephone Company was the initial corporate entity from which the Bell System originated to build a continental conglomerate and monopoly in telecommunication services in the United States and Canada. The company was organized in Bost ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

in 1877. On March 11, 1878, Puskas demonstrated the first working Edison phonograph from the US (using tinfoil) to the French Academy of Sciences. It was generally successful although he was also accused of "ventriloquism." He was responsible for having it manufactured (in limited quantities) by E. Hardy of Paris. In 1879 Puskás set up a telephone exchange in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, where he looked after Thomas Edison's European affairs for the next four years. In Paris he was greatly helped by his younger brother Ferenc Puskás (1848–1884), who later established the first telephone exchange in Pest. In 1887 he introduced the

multiplex Multiplex may refer to: Science and technology * Multiplex communication, combining many signals into one transmission circuit or channel ** Multiplex (television), a group of digital television or radio channels that are combined for broadcast * ...

switchboard, which was a revolutionary step in the further development of telephone exchanges.Francis S. Wagner: Hungarian Contributions to World Civilization - Page 68 His next invention was the "Telephone News Service" that he introduced in Pest, which announced news and "broadcast" programmes and was in many ways the forerunner of the radio. According to a contemporary scientific journal, at most 50 people could listen to Edison's telephone at the same time, if one more person was connected, none of the subscribers could hear anything. With Puskás's apparatus, by contrast, half a million people could clearly hear the programme coming from the exchange. In 1890, Puskás was granted a patent for a procedure for carrying out controlled explosions, which was the forerunner of modern techniques. He experimented with this technology when he was working on regulating the Lower Danube. Puskás registered the

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

of technology behind the telephone newspaper Telefon Hírmondó in 1892, in the

Patent Office A patent office is a governmental or intergovernmental organization which controls the issue of patents. In other words, "patent offices are government bodies that may grant a patent or reject the patent application based on whether the applicati ...

of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with the title "A new method of organizing and fitting a telephone newspaper". The ''Telefon Hírmondó'' service started on 15 February 1893, with around 60 subscribers. After Puskás's death on 16 March 1893, his brother Albert Puskás sold the enterprise and the patent rights to István Popper. Tivadar Puskás did not win extensive public recognition during his lifetime. However, in 2008, the

Hungarian National Bank The Hungarian National Bank ( , MNB) is the central bank of Hungary and as such part of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). It was established in 1924 as a successor entity of the Austro-Hungarian Bank, under the economic assistance ...

issued a 1000 Forint commemorative coin in honor of Puskás and the 115th anniversary of the introduction of the ''Telefon Hírmondó''.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Puskas, Tivadar 1844 births 1893 deaths Hungarian inventors Hungarian scientists Hungarian electrical engineers Engineers from Austria-Hungary Inventors from Austria-Hungary People from Harghita County Burials at Kerepesi Cemetery