Real-time delivery
Your message reaches every one of the other person's devices at once. A device that was switched off catches up on what it missed as soon as it's back, and the Android app gets notifications even when it's closed.
News that never stopped running — Pabal
Pabal (擺撥) was a courier system set up in 1597, the 30th year of King Seonjo of Joseon, to carry urgent news during the Imjin War. Riders on horseback, the gibal (騎撥), and runners on foot, the bobal (步撥), passed the news on day and night, changing horses and men at relay stations called cham (站) along the road.
The Pabal messenger does the same. What you send passes through the server — our relay station — and races straight to the phone and computer of the person you're writing to.
The senderSends the news from the app
Relay station · Pabal serverDecrypts it, finds the recipient and keeps a record
Every device of the recipientReaches them at once, wherever they're online
1636The winter of 1636, Namhansanseong
Outside the walls, nothing but the enemy’s tents. Someone still had to carry the news out.
In December 1636 the Qing army crossed the Yalu and stood before Hanyang within days. The beacons were lit, but fire can say only one thing: “danger.” How many, how close — no flame could tell, and by the time the court knew, the roads were cut. The king withdrew into the mountain fortress of Namhansanseong, and it was soon under siege.
Inside, one thing could still be done. A man with the king’s call to arms (檄書) against his chest slipped down the wall under cover of night to tell the provincial troops that there were still people here. Anyone caught would not come back, yet people set out all the same, and the news kept moving. Pabal had been laid forty years earlier in that same spirit: though the road is cut and the night is long, the news must reach the person waiting for it.
A beacon says “something came.” A courier says what.
Beacon fires could signal only how urgent it was, by how many were lit. A courier carried the document in hand — who was coming, how many, and where to — and could keep it secret. The difference between a notification and a message is that old.
The name is still on the map
Gupabal (舊擺撥) in Seoul’s Eunpyeong district takes its name from the relay station that stood there. Four centuries ago horses were changed on that spot; news still passes through it today.