Portal:Discworld/Article of the day/7
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The clacks in the Discworld novels are a network of semaphore towers stretching along the Sto Plains, into the Ramtops and across the Unnamed Continent to Genua. It was introduced in The Fifth Elephant and has become the Discworld's first telecommunications network. While the system structure is that of a telegraph, elements of it are often described as similar to the Internet; for example, it threatens to make the Post Office obsolete in Going Postal and is sometimes described as 'c-mail' (a clear reference to e-mail).
A possible influence for the clacks system is the similar semaphore network in the Keith Roberts novel Pavane. Both are based on the real-world optical telegraphs used in the early 19th century before electrical telegraphy made them obsolete. The name itself may have been inspired by 'clackers', the term for operators of mechanical computers in William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's steampunk novel The Difference Engine.
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