larry@uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman) (10/08/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0427m06@vector.dallas.tx.us> SKASS@drew.bitnet writes: > And does anyone besides me have fond memories of the Panel Phone > (tm) ? My parents still have the two we had installed about 20 years > ago, and they work fine. They were installed into the wall, requiring > a hole about 8 x 10 inches, and have a non-tangling cord about 4 feet > long which retracts into a hole in the panel. They've never failed, > despite the thousands of times my father said I was pulling too hard > on the cord. They'll never go modular, I'm afraid, and if they do > fail, we'll have to call the plasterer, but they made a lot of sense. > We even have one of those two-line knobs on one of them, though it's > not hooked up to both lines any more. An installer who came by the > house a couple of years ago had never seen them before. Panel telephones were rather neat, and I remember them fondly from the 1960's when they seemed so *futuristic*. :-) Panel telephones were also made as a 5-line keyset, along with an internal speakerphone option (although an external 55-type speakerphone control box was required). I don't believe that panel telephones are still manufactured for single-line residential use, but an equivalent type of instrument for installation in control consoles may still be manufactured by such vendors as Allen-Tel, Northern Telecom and Plantronics. An interesting Bell System offering which came out in the early 1960's (about the same time as the panel telephone) was the 1A Home Interphone System. This system required two-line "turn-key" telephone sets, often of the Princess variety. The system had capabilities for answering one CO line and placing it on hold, in addition to providing local intercommunication between telephone sets within a residence. There were also some handsfree intercom options, which included the ability to answer the front door using an outdoor transmitter/loudspeaker. There was even a feature which integrated the 1A Home Interphone System with a 1A or 1A1 key telephone system for residences with up to three CO lines. The Bell System had grandiose plans during the 1960's for a 1A Home Interphone System in every home, along with a chicken in every pot, but alas, the 1A Home Interphone System was a turkey which was over-priced and simply never sold to within a fraction of expectations. Speaking of chickens and turkeys - believe it or not - there was also the 2A Farm Interphone System. This apparatus was similar to that of the home variety, except that it had higher-power outdoor loudspeakers for intercom purposes, in addition to providing electronic tone ringing over the outdoor loudspeakers. Some of the BSP sections on the 2A Farm Interphone System have really precious drawings of typical installations on a farm, including house, barn, silo, a loudspeaker in a chicken coop, etc., along with a smiling farmer (with overalls and hat) talking to a smiling wife (reminiscent of Mrs. Cleaver) in a bedroom! If you think that the above interphone systems were turkeys because very few were ever sold, there is something even worse, the Edsel of the Bell System, PICTUREPHONE [tm]. Some years ago I heard a rumor from a "well-placed source" at AT&T that the Bell System had lost over $ 300 million on Picturephone; while that may not seem like much money today, picture :-) it in terms of 1960's dollars and it becomes much more significant. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 | 716/773-1700 {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 | 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?" [Moderator's Note: There were also a few panel *pay* phones around. The post office at 211 South Clark Street in Chicago has two of them in the lobby. Slightly larger than the home models, these are also completely recessed into the wall, with a single slot on the top for the money. These were installed when this post office opened, in 1973. Apartment building front door 'enterphone service' provided by Illinois Bell (a CO-based service) also uses panel phones, but with armored handsets instead of the old kind which retracted back into the wall. And for quite a few years, *the* picturephone center was located in the lobby of the Illinois Bell HQ building, 212 West Washington St. They had a rather nice looking conference room set up, with camera, speakers, etc, and they rented it out by the hour to companies wanting to have picturephone conferences with a branch in some other city. PT]
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) (10/09/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0436m01@vector.dallas.tx.us> kitty!larry@uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman) writes: > An interesting Bell System offering which came out in the >early 1960's (about the same time as the panel telephone) was the 1A >Home Interphone System. ... We had one of these in our house in Cambridge when we moved here in 1981. It had long since been de-tarriffed, but we could keep it and pay several dollars per month as long as we wanted. The previous owner told me that the last time it broke in the mid 1970s they had to fly someone up from Philadelphia, nobody else remembered how to fix it. It wasn't working very well, so I called repair and they told me that they couldn't fix it, take it or leave it, so I left it and they came and removed all of the old grey dial sets and put in modular jacks. One nice thing is that because of the Interphone our house is wired with 12-pair cable (all of which they had to snake, the house was built in the 1880s) terminating in a punch-down block in the basement. Next to the punch-down block, there is also a box full of relays similar to that for a 1A key system that the installer left here. ("We don't want it, either.") > The Bell System had grandiose plans during the 1960's for a 1A >Home Interphone System in every home, ... They must have been nuts -- wiring every house in the country with 12 pair? If it had been at all successful, we all shoulda bought copper mining stock. John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 864 9650 johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|lotus|spdcc}!esegue!johnl Massachusetts has over 100,000 unlicensed drivers. -The Globe
morris@jade.jpl.nasa.gov (Mike Morris) (10/10/89)
(Larry Lippman) writes:
%
% Panel telephones were rather neat, and I remember them fondly
%from the 1960's when they seemed so *futuristic*. :-)
%
% Panel telephones were also made as a 5-line keyset, along with
%an internal speakerphone option (although an external 55-type
%speakerphone control box was required).
I saw a 5-line speakerphone version at a swap meet onetime, and am still
kicking myself for passing it up because the speakerphone control box
was missing. Five months later I picked up 3 complete speakerphones
for $5. An acquaintance told me that he saw a couple of 9-line units.
% I don't believe that panel telephones are still manufactured
%for single-line residential use, but an equivalent type of instrument
%for installation in control consoles may still be manufactured by such
%vendors as Allen-Tel, Northern Telecom and Plantronics.
Or Plant Equipment Inc, in South Laguna, CA. They have a very interesting
catalog.
% An interesting Bell System offering which came out in the
%early 1960's (about the same time as the panel telephone) was the 1A
%Home Interphone System. This system required two-line "turn-key"
%telephone sets, often of the Princess variety. The system had
%capabilities for answering one CO line and placing it on hold, in
%addition to providing local intercommunication between telephone sets
%within a residence. There were also some handsfree intercom options,
%which included the ability to answer the front door using an outdoor
%transmitter/loudspeaker. There was even a feature which integrated
%the 1A Home Interphone System with a 1A or 1A1 key telephone system
%for residences with up to three CO lines.
I'd love to see the BSP on that.
% The Bell System had grandiose plans during the 1960's for a 1A
%Home Interphone System in every home, along with a chicken in every
%pot, but alas, the 1A Home Interphone System was a turkey which was
%over-priced and simply never sold to within a fraction of
%expectations.
% Speaking of chickens and turkeys - believe it or not - there
%was also the 2A Farm Interphone System. This apparatus was similar to
%that of the home variety, except that it had higher-power outdoor
%loudspeakers for intercom purposes, in addition to providing
%electronic tone ringing over the outdoor loudspeakers. Some of the
%BSP sections on the 2A Farm Interphone System have really precious
%drawings of typical installations on a farm, including house, barn,
%silo, a loudspeaker in a chicken coop, etc., along with a smiling
%farmer (with overalls and hat) talking to a smiling wife (reminiscent
%of Mrs. Cleaver) in a bedroom!
When I was working at a 3rd party Teletype(tm) repair shop in the 1979
-1980 timeframe we had two buildings, and a crossbar PBX. We had
sleeved the line relays for extensions 200, 201 and 202, and connected
them to a pair of relays hooked to a pair of 2A amplifiers. Dialing 200
would pull in both relays and page in poth buildings, 201 paged in the
north one, 202 in the south building. When the night bell was enabled
from the console, it's dry contacts "rang" on both amplifiers via the
ring cycle contacts in the interrupter from an old 551B key system (the
Hitachi AX2S switch had night bell contacts that latched shut). The 2A
amplifier was based on germanium transistor technology, and had a relay-
enabled built-in oscillator. We also keyed the "ring" tone with a time
clock for breaks and lunch.
I still have a xerox of the 2A BSP, and yes, the drawings are very
cute. I think that the system could have been marketed better - the
hardware worked well, and would have been ideal in small businesses.
Mike Morris UUCP: Morris@Jade.JPL.NASA.gov
ICBM: 34.12 N, 118.02 W
#Include quote.cute.standard PSTN: 818-447-7052
#Include disclaimer.standard cat flames.all > /dev/nulljohn@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (10/12/89)
The majority of public telephones at San Jose and San Francisco
International airports are of the "panel" variety. There are also many
of them in the BART stations and in many public buildings. It is very
strange to hear them spoken of as if they were extinct.
I also remember the "three-slot" type which looked very much like the
single slot but apparently had the standard (of the era) "dings" and
"gongs" mechanism behind the panel.
However, while we're on the subject of turkeys, the "card dialer"
deserves at least an honorable mention. The touch tone model, while a
little spiffier than its rotary counterpart, seemed to be a journey to
the absurd. The effort in locating the correct card, inserting it into
the slot, then letting it dial was more effort than dialing the number
in the first place. Programming the cards (by punching out the little
holes) was an exercise in complexity. And then of course, you couldn't
reprogram the cards; they were discarded, meaning that you had to
depend on telco for an endless supply. The cards were not free.
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !