stv@uunet.uu.net (Steve Vance) (08/30/90)
A friend of mine has a NEC telephone system in his office. It has the ability to run special phones on ten desks. Each of these special phones has five telephone lines on it, twenty buttons for frequently-called numbers, a hold button, etc. All this thru one pair of wires back to the big NEC box in the basement, which connects to the five trunk lines. When the system was installed about five years ago, they only installed eight of the maximum ten stations. Now they want to add the remaining two stations, but they are having a hard time finding the special "desk station" phones anywhere. The dealer that sold them the system can "order them from Japan" at about $600 each. Of course, the dealer is less interested in doing that than selling them a whole new whiz-bang phone system, for mucho bucks. Does anyone know where I can buy a couple of these desk stations cheaply, OR know if there is a "clone" or "compatible" unit that can be substituted? The telephone system is called the "NEC Electra 616". The only markings on the bottom of the desk station (besides date and serial number) are "ET-6-1".
BRUCE@ccavax.camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) (09/01/90)
In article <11530@accuvax.nwu.edu>, decwrl!apple!well.sf.ca.us! well!stv@uunet.uu.net (Steve Vance) writes: > Does anyone know where I can buy a couple of these desk stations The generic answer to where do you find some old telecom thing is to look in the trade magazine for that industry that caters to buying and selling new/used gear. You will see occasional ads in the equivalent computer magazines, or in data or telecom mags, but for a magazine of over 100 pages of little else but ads for new/used/whatever telecom stuff you want "Telecom Gear". Many of the companies selling there DO NOT WANT to do retail sales to end users/hackers, but others could care less who they sell to. It is reasonable to be a data or alarm wiring type who is just doing a job and has this customer request that lets him break into some interconnect work which should lead to more, etc. Any reasonable line that makes you 'trade' but explains any 'stupid' questions should get you by with the used gear dealers. "Telecom Gear" bills itself as "The Market Place to Buy & Sell Telecom Gear". Yuo m i g h t be able to get a single comp copy to 'see if you want to subscribe', but you WILL LOVE IT, SO SUBSCRIBE! Try their 800 # for ads, rather than paying to call them. 800 322 5156