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When Göta kanal was built in the early 19th century, Motala became an important city for the trade on the canal. Motala verkstad was the ship and steam engine industry, famous in large parts of the world. In the science fiction novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, the Nautilus submarine's (engine?) was built at Motala verkstad. The creator of Göta kanal Baltzar von Platen has his grave by the canal, in Motala.
Another important event in the history of Motala is 1925, when the Swedish national longwave radio broadcasting station was built here. The city marks the middle of a straight line between Sweden's two biggest cities, Stockholm and GothenburgGothenburg ( Swedish: Goteborg [jøːtə'bɔrj]) is a city and a municipality on the western coast of Sweden, in the County of Vastra Gotaland. With 478,055 inhabitants in the city and 816,931 in the metropolitan area it is the sec. Radio programs were transferred from studios in Stockholm to Motala by telephone wire. The call was "Stockholm-Motala". The sender operated on 191 kHz longwave until a few years ago.
As a consequece of the radio station the company LuxorLuxor was Swedish home electronics and computer manufacturer located in Motala, acquired by Nokia in 1985. Originally a manufacturer of television sets it launched its first home computer, the ABC80 in 1978. The succeding ABC800 series was introduced in 1 was started. Luxor soon became one of the largest radio, and later televisionSee TV (disambiguation) for other uses and Television (band) for the rock band Television is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term has come to refer to all the aspects of television p manufacturers in Sweden. In the 1980s they started producing their own line of computers, like the ABC80The ABC80 was a home computer engineered by DIAB and manufactured by Luxor in Motala, Sweden in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was based on the Zilog Z80 and had 16 KB RAM and 16 KB ROM, the latter containing a BASIC interpreter. The monitor was a mon. In 1985 Luxor was acquired by NokiaFor the Finnish town, see Nokia. Nokia Corporation is the world's largest telecommunications manufacturer. It is a Finnish telecommunications company best known for its leading range of mobile phones. Nokia also produces mobile phone infrastructure and ot, and eventually production moved elsewhere.