DREUBEN@eagle.wesleyan.edu) (DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN) (10/14/90)
[In response to a post by RHOOVER@ibm.com, asking if there was any guide to old telephone designs/types]: Roger- I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, but I have two "picture charts" from Western Electric which have a pictoral history of the many new phone designs introduced by the Bell System from the early 1900s to the 1970s. (Actually, one goes up to 1969 or so, and the other was a modernized remake of the first chart with numerous changes which was issued in 1976 for the Bell System Centennial [I think that was in '76...]) Both have a good deal of info besides the pictures, and some interesting photos of early picturephones (I think the 1969 one has the model "I" picturephone, while the 1976 one has a more modern "II" (or "III") issue). There are also panel phones, a "home interphone system" (which was still available in 1982!) with separate speakers which you could place at your front door, early multi-line business phones, Call-Director sets, touch-tone phones with only 10 buttons (they didn't seem to have the "*" or the "#" when the photos were taken, although by 1969 I thought this was standard...), and in the 1976 version, they had a Mickey-Mouse (I THINK) Design-Line phone, which you could go buy at your nearest Bell Phone Center store. Note that this is only for Western Electric equipment, no Northen Telecom stuff or ITT (although ITT generally copied a LOT of AT&T designs, it would seem...). So they won't have some of the newer Bell Canada stuff like the "trimline" phone that is sort of squarish (I can't recall the name of it now ... they make a big deal about it in the back of the Toronto telephone directory in a section about Bell Canada's achievements). I MAY be able to shrink it down and make copies if anyone would like one, but I'm not sure ... It is quite large (poster sized), and I'm not sure how well the color will be converted to black and white. If anyone is interested, let me know, and I'll see what I can do ... (maybe I can just FAX it in sections? :-) ) Perhaps your local telco still has a few of these things around. They used to hand them out at "Open Houses" to show how great the Bell System is (errr ... unfortunately I mean "was"), and since the local Bells are no longer the "Bell System" anymore, perhaps they have a few that they no longer have a need for. I dunno ... it may be worth a try. Doug dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu dreuben@wesleyan.bitnet