And for many decades thereafter... (Score 1)

In 1973, I participated in such an online chat, dictating to a young brass-key telegraphist in the tiny Ecuadorian town of Santa Isabel, while my boss sat beside a more senior operator who had scored a location in the regional center of Cuenca. It was straightforward, common and useful for business conversations in those places that still had no telephone, and IETEL, the Instituto Ecuatoriano de Telecomunicaciones had an entry for it on its rate sheet. The Quito-Guayaquil railroad's telegraph system offered the same service.