Ticker tape was the earliest electrical dedicated financial communications medium, transmitting
stock price information over telegraph lines, in use from around 1870 through 1970.
It consisted of a paper strip that ran through a machine called a stock ticker, which printed
abbreviated company names as alphabetic symbols followed by numeric stock transaction price
and volume information.
Although telegraphic printing systems were first invented by Royal Earl House in 1846,
early models were fragile, required hand-cranked power, frequently went out of synchronization
between sender and receiver, and didn’t become popular in widespread commercial use.
It was improved with clockwork weight power in 1856, and became viable for commercial
use with a resynchronization system in 1858.
The first stock price ticker system using a telegraphic printer was invented in 1863
and unveiled in New York City in 1867.
Early versions of stock tickers provided the first mechanical means of conveying stock
prices ("quotes"), over a long distance over telegraph wiring.
In its infancy, the ticker used the same symbols as Morse code as a medium for conveying messages.
One of the earliest practical stock ticker machines, the Universal Stock Ticker developed
by Thomas Edison in 1869, used alphanumeric characters with a printing speed of approximately
one character per second.
Previously, stock prices had been hand-delivered via written or verbal messages.
Since the useful time-span of individual quotes is very brief, they generally hadn’t been
sent long distances, so aggregated summaries, were sent instead, typically once a day.
The increase in speed provided by the ticker allowed for faster and more exact sales.
Since the ticker ran continuously, updates to a stock's price whenever the price changed
became effective much faster and trading became a more time-sensitive matter.
For the first time, trades were being done in what is now thought of as near real-time.
By the 1880s, there were about a thousand stock tickers installed in the offices of
New York bankers and brokers.
In 1890, members of the exchange agreed to create the New York Quotation Co., buying
up all other ticker companies to ensure accuracy of reporting of price and volume activity.
Stock tickers used the technology of the then-recently invented telegraph machines, with the advantage
that the output was readable text, instead of the dots and dashes of Morse code.
A special typewriter designed for operation over telegraph wires was used at the opposite
end of the telegraph wire connection to the ticker machine.
Text typed on the typewriter was displayed on the ticker machine at the opposite end
of the connection.
The machines printed a series of ticker symbols (usually shortened forms of a company's name),
followed by brief information about the price of that company's stock; the thin strip of
paper on which they were printed was called ticker tape.
The word ticker comes from the distinct tapping (or ticking) noise the machines made while
printing.
Pulses on the telegraph line made a letter wheel turn step by step until the correct
symbol was reached and then printed.
A typical 32-symbol letter wheel had to turn on average 15 steps until the next letter
could be printed resulting in a very slow printing speed of one character per second.
In 1883, ticker transmitter keyboards resembled the keyboard of a piano with black keys indicating
letters and the white keys indicating numbers and fractions, corresponding to two rotating
type wheels in the connected ticker tape printers.
Newer and more efficient tickers became available in the 1930s, but these newer and better tickers
still had an approximate 15-to-20-minute delay.
In the early days of baseball, before electronic scoreboards, manual score turners used a ticker
to get the latest scores from around the league.
Ticker machines became obsolete in the 1960s, replaced by computer networks.
Simulated ticker displays, still exist.
One of the most famous outdoor displays is the simulated ticker scrolling marquee in
Times Square.
Used ticker tape was used as confetti, to be thrown from the windows above parades either
cut up into scraps or thrown as whole spools, primarily in lower Manhattan; this became
known as a ticker tape parade.
Ticker tape parades generally celebrated some significant event, such as the end of World
War I and World War II, or the safe return of one of the early astronauts.
Ticker tape parades are still held in New York City, specifically in the "Canyon of
Heroes" in Manhattan, most often when local sports teams win a championship.
However, actual ticker tape is not used during these parades any longer; often, pieces of
paper from paper shredders are used as a convenient source of confetti.