SPGDCM@CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU.UUCP (04/17/87)
MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 04/17/87 12:33:42
To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address
From: Doug Mosher <SPGDCM at UCBCMSA>
Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823
Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
Subject: system 36-pc, FCC registrations, standards activities
To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu
System 36-pc connection
IBM provides some sort of interconnect for pc's which I think does what the
requester wants. Contact the IBM support people for the System 36 owner. If
they aren't helpful shake them till they call their daddies/mommies.
FCC registrations; how ETCO did it
In about 1982 or so, I used to buy telephones and terminal blocks etc. from
"ETCO" who had a thick surplus electronics pulp catalog. (Since then you can
buy these things at all rad shacks and for that matter drugstores so ETCO
became relatively less needed and more expensive than alternatives).
Several miscellaneous old-fashioned standard used phones I bought, of clearly
different styles (e.g. including both bell and Gen Telephone types) all had
the same FCC registration sticker on them, identical. I always wondered
whether ETCO or others got a broad FCC registration for the whole
grandfathered set, or whether they were cheating. Just curious.
Standards activities
In past times, MA bell was a focal point for a lot of telephone activity, but
even then there were other companies. Now it's the known mess. How in the
past, and how now, does anyone coordinate? Such matters as protocols,
assignment of area codes, plans for new service offerings, etc. Are there
agencies such as ANSI involved? Do they all meet with some sort of
trust-busting exemption? Are we worse off after the bustup in terms of
coordinated development? Do companies copy each other to some extent to
coordinate service offerings?
An example of an issue would be this: "call-waiting" has been out long enough
now for "the public" to begin to have some understanding of what it is and
what those funny beeps mean etc. This was an advantage of a new concept
disseminating itself into the populace over time. (But, answering machines are
also now widely understood even though they required no particular standards
activity.)
I wonder about the developments such as passing the caller's number, call
screening, etc. It would seem advantageous to have some aspects of the form of
this service comprehensible to "the populace", and more specifically for
instrument makers to know what to look for on the line no matter where the
call originated.
Thanks, Doug
system 36-pc, FCC registrations, standards activities