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Post# 1113422   4/1/2021 at 05:19 (1,093 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        

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Ernestine

 

All about vintage telephones up to 1989. Advertisements, humor, history, collections, equipment, restoration/repair, technical questions, resources or just plain memories, it's all here. While emphasis is placed on American telephones, vintage telephones from around the world are also most welcomed.

 

"Hello central???"

 

Part One:

http://www.automaticwasher.org/c...

 

Part Two:

http://www.automaticwasher.org/c...

 

Part Three:

https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?79508

 

Part Four:

https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?81652





Post# 1113424 , Reply# 1   4/1/2021 at 05:21 (1,093 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        

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Post# 1113425 , Reply# 2   4/1/2021 at 05:23 (1,093 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Western Electric 1980

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Western Electric 1980


Post# 1113427 , Reply# 3   4/1/2021 at 05:27 (1,093 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
American Telephone and Telegraph Company 1933

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American Telephone and Telegraph Company 1933


Post# 1113429 , Reply# 4   4/1/2021 at 07:22 (1,093 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Western Electric 1956

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Western Electric 1956


Post# 1113430 , Reply# 5   4/1/2021 at 07:24 (1,093 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone System 1960

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Bell Telephone System 1960


Post# 1115791 , Reply# 6   4/28/2021 at 07:57 (1,066 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell System 1958

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Bell System 1958


Post# 1115793 , Reply# 7   4/28/2021 at 07:58 (1,066 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Western Electric 1953

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Western Electric 1953


Post# 1115794 , Reply# 8   4/28/2021 at 08:00 (1,066 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Western Electric 1965

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Western Electric 1965


Post# 1115796 , Reply# 9   4/28/2021 at 08:01 (1,066 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Stanley 1985

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Stanley 1985


Post# 1122067 , Reply# 10   7/1/2021 at 20:29 (1,001 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
AT&T 1991

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AT&T 1991


Post# 1122068 , Reply# 11   7/1/2021 at 20:30 (1,001 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Record-a-Call 1973

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Record-a-Call 1973


Post# 1122069 , Reply# 12   7/1/2021 at 20:32 (1,001 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
American Telephone & Telegraph Co. 1934

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American Telephone & Telegraph Co. 1934


Post# 1122072 , Reply# 13   7/1/2021 at 20:35 (1,001 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
General Telephone & Electronics 1960

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GENERAL TELEPHONE & ELECTRONICS 1960


Post# 1122073 , Reply# 14   7/1/2021 at 20:36 (1,001 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
"Independent Telephone Companies 1958

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Independent Telephone Companies 1958


Post# 1122081 , Reply# 15   7/1/2021 at 22:13 (1,001 days old) by CircleW (NE Cincinnati OH area)        
RE: General Telephone on the West Coast

As mentioned in Reply #13. I'm wondering if their service there was any better than what they provided in Ohio? Our service with them was much less than desirable. I know they served several parts of the Los Angeles area, and other parts of CA, so did any of you out west reside in their territory?


Post# 1122101 , Reply# 16   7/2/2021 at 05:58 (1,001 days old) by jamiel (Detroit, Michigan and Palm Springs, CA)        

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They were acquisitive in the West, completing acquisitions through the 50s and 60s to build up their footprint. Believe they didn't get the areas in Riverside County (Palm Springs/Coachella Valley) until the early 60s--before that it was the California Telephone Company. There's also a youtube out there from the Sunland-Tujunga independent telephone company touting their handling of a cutover/conversion in the late 50s which seemed to be before they got absorbed by GTE. You're right about the quality in Ohio, though...my aunt in Oberlin tells a story about her husband not hearing about a job offer because the call never came in in the early 70s.

Post# 1122120 , Reply# 17   7/2/2021 at 10:42 (1,000 days old) by CircleW (NE Cincinnati OH area)        

Jamie, that doesn't surprise me that GTE was on a buying spree out west at that time. When I was very young, the service in my immediate area was provided by Ohio Consolidated Telephone Co., and General acquired an interest in that company sometime in 1955. On June 30, 1958, it became General Telephone Co. of Ohio. It remained as such until 2000, when it became Verizon. In 2010, Verizon sold the territory to Frontier, and is currently that.


Post# 1122123 , Reply# 18   7/2/2021 at 11:22 (1,000 days old) by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.)        

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When we first moved to the Northern California Coast in ‘63 we had a PT&T toll station 5 party line. No dial service, you picked up the receiver and the operator came on the line and you gave your number and the number you wished to call and the operator rang in down. If the number you were calling was someone on your party line, you hung up while the operator rang the number and listened for the rings until your party answered, then picked up the receiver and proceeded with your call.

Then in ‘71 General Telephone acquired the phone service for the area and introduced dial service. I was already away from home for almost a year when this happened. Mom was over the moon getting a private line and dial service.

I don’t recall her having any difficulty with receiving or placing calls. However the billing was another matter. She frequently found that calls listed on the bill seemed excessive in time and the number of calls. The only calls that were local ie. no charge were within a 15 mile radius, everything else was a toll call. So she kept a spiral bound steno tablet next to the phone and meticulously recorded EVERY call made from the phone, the number called, date, time of call and disconnect. This way she was armed to dispute any invalid charges.

I believe that AT&T now has the service for this area again.

Eddie


Post# 1122154 , Reply# 19   7/2/2021 at 16:42 (1,000 days old) by RP2813 (Sannazay)        

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Sometime in the 1960s, GTE took over the long time mom & pop telephone company that served the Los Gatos area of what is now Silicon Valley, including the portions of the Santa Cruz mountains that were on the Los Gatos exchange.  Service was horrible and subscribers were pleading over the ensuing decades for Pacific Telephone (Pacific Bell after the court ordered divestiture by AT&T in 1984) to assume the exchange, but it was not to be. 

 

When Dave and I moved out to that area in 1989 and landed in GTE territory, we got to experience the sub-optimal service first hand.  At least we weren't subjected to the weird Automatic Electric telephone sets that seemed like toy phones, since by that time we could use our own equipment.  We had problems with both delayed dial tone and unbreakable dial tone, which is when you dial a number and still have a dial tone instead of a ringing signal. 

 

I started working for Pacific Bell in 1991 and a co-worker of mine had worked for GTE in Los Gatos.  She said the reason why Pac Bell wasn't interested in taking over the GTE exchange out there was because the mountainous region was a maintenance nightmare.

 

Once GTE morphed into Verizon, things got better and we even had services available that Pac Bell, the overwhelmingly dominant provider in the region, didn't even offer.   We were upgraded to a 5E switch, which was superior to what Pacfic Bell was providing in the vast majority of its switching offices.

 

Toward the end of our 19 year stay in that area, Verizon's Time of Day recording went totally bonkers.  The time lady would provide information such as, "At the tone, the time will be 4:20 and 98 seconds" or whatever.  It wasn't long before the telcos were allowed to discontinue that service altogether so it was clear that Verizon had stopped maintaining it in anticipation of that decision.

 

Continental Telephone served the Gilroy area for many years.  It was a much smaller operation than GTE, but I think at some point in the '90s Verizon took over.

 

The one independent provider in Northern California that gets high marks from its subscribers is Roseville Telephone in the northwest portion of greater Sacramento.   Not that it makes much difference anymore since residential land lines are being abandoned by subscribers and the telcos are discouraging them.  Other than the reliability factor, they just don't make sense anymore.  I removed all long distance access from my land line after receiving an $11 charge just for having it as an option.  All long distance happens from my cell phone now.  At some point I'll end up on VOIP.  Another high quality essential consumer service will be soon be gone forever, and there will be no chance of any telco building out new networks -- fiber or otherwise -- in the future.

 

I've been told that low income subscribers who are on "Lifeline" discounted service will soon be receiving cell phones and losing their land line service.  What goes around comes around.  In the beginning, telephone service was only marketed for business use, and that's rapidly becoming the case again well over 100 years later.


Post# 1122164 , Reply# 20   7/2/2021 at 17:27 (1,000 days old) by wayupnorth (On a lake between Bangor and Bar Harbor, Maine)        

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From Ma Bell, we went to AT&T, to Lucent, to Verizon, to FairPoint and now Consolidated. I went from a 12 party line to a private line in 1988.

Post# 1123467 , Reply# 21   7/16/2021 at 18:47 (986 days old) by iej (.... )        
Ireland mid 1970s

I just stumbled upon this one from the mid 1970s in the West of Ireland.

It’s a group of P&T operators in a small auto-manual exchange that was replaced around then, most likely an Ericsson ARF crossbar. I suspect this may have been their last day at the switch boards or something as there’s a bit of a giddiness and very lighthearted atmosphere.

I’m not sure what Earnestine would have made of her Irish colleagues!

Fascinating insight into a bygone era.

The last manual local switch (rural one) closed here in 1986. Digitalisation began in 1979 and what remained of any modern era operator services were permanently shut down in 2009.

They were the human communication hub of small communities all over Ireland and around the world. I just found it fascinating to see the lighter side of it. Operators are often presented as very austere and robotic, but often (especially in rural areas) they were the friendly voice af the end of the phone, covering those boards 24/7/365 and were life lines in emergencies too.
In small exchanges, they were often chatted to while calls were being connected.

I know I’ve heard stories about operators being able to relay calls to my grandmother in the 60s. Someone called her, the local operator answered and tried the line. Then said ..oh I think she’s getting her hair done. I’ll try the hairdressers for you and if she didn’t get her she’d take a message.

As great as modern telecommunications is, there’s something of the human touch that’s been entirely lost forever. It’s long before my time, but you haven’t even been able to call an operator here at all since 2009. All landline operator services were closed permanently and I don’t think you could ever call an operator on a mobile phone. In case of difficulty, I guess you can tweet them these days!









This post was last edited 07/16/2021 at 20:36
Post# 1123470 , Reply# 22   7/16/2021 at 19:34 (986 days old) by iej (.... )        
The old phoneboxes got a new lease of life.

Over the last number of years the classic old P&T phoneboxes have made a return as locations for automatic defibrillators. You’ll find these scattered all over Ireland in rural areas, towns and cities.

Just on the logo: P&T (originally stylised as P⁊T (using an old Gaelic script) ceased to exist in 1984, replaced by Telecom Éireann and then privatised as Eircom, now just Eir.


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This post was last edited 07/16/2021 at 20:34
Post# 1125729 , Reply# 23   8/14/2021 at 00:06 (958 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Automatic Electric 1935

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1935


Post# 1125730 , Reply# 24   8/14/2021 at 00:07 (958 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone 1954

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Bell Telephone 1954


Post# 1125731 , Reply# 25   8/14/2021 at 00:09 (958 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Northern Electric 1967

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Northern Electric 1967


Post# 1125732 , Reply# 26   8/14/2021 at 00:18 (958 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Western Electric 1966

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Western Electric 1966


Post# 1125735 , Reply# 27   8/14/2021 at 00:34 (958 days old) by iej (.... )        

I always find it quite interesting how they had one design of phone for decades and just kept tweaking it by bolting on extra buttons / speakers / mics / touchtone keypads etc etc.

 

We had plenty of Northern Telecom manufactured 500 series phones, alongside a lot of Ericsson F68 "Dialog" rotary dial phones in the 1960s/70s

 




 

Some similar models to the GPO in the UK were used too and the odd Siemens model.

 

In general the European telcos, while usually monopolies in those days, shopped around for their equipment.

 

Ericsson was probably the closest European counterpart to Western Electric, and remains dominant to this day in modern telecommunications gear.

 

Various ITT affiliates as well as Siemens, and in the digital era Alcatel, Nokia etc were a big deal.


Post# 1125745 , Reply# 28   8/14/2021 at 05:28 (958 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        

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That's interesting. I didn't know Ireland used 500 sets at one time.


Post# 1125766 , Reply# 29   8/14/2021 at 08:30 (958 days old) by jamiel (Detroit, Michigan and Palm Springs, CA)        

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Here the Bell System was totally integrated--at the cost of innovation, in some cases--never did you see anything but Western Electric associated with it (was a big deal when BellSouth after divestiture made a move to Nortel). Our independent sector (roughly 60% of the landmass/30% of the population...correct me on this statistic) could range far more widely. There were some big providers (Automatic Electric, North Supply, others) which competed for the independent company's favor...North Supply even licensed the Ericofon (the one-piece design from Ericsson). I had fun once (while I was working at a non-Bell cellular company) visiting the Telefonmuseet (telephone museum) in Stockholm, Sweden. It was obviously a paean to the wonders of Ericsson, but did make you realize that there was a big sophisticated telephone industry outside of the Bell System and outside of North America)

Post# 1125770 , Reply# 30   8/14/2021 at 09:32 (958 days old) by 48bencix (Sacramento CA)        
Don't like talking on Cell Phone

We still have the Land Line here, stopped the long distance. I use a calling card for Long Distance which requires dialing an access number and a pin number. But then you get the excellent fidelity and comfort of a handset. It does seem stupid that the POTS has the fee structure from the past. Most if not all Cell Phones have free long distance. About 1/3 of the cost of the Land Line is fees and taxes. The legislators added about a tax of $3 to Cell Phones but I suppose they would like to add more with the constant loss of taxes from all the cancelled Land Lines.

Post# 1125795 , Reply# 31   8/14/2021 at 18:49 (957 days old) by iej (.... )        
Irish 500 phone

There’s a Northern Electric (Nortel) 500 phone built in a plant in Galway for P&T decades ago.

www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas...

We didn’t use letters on dial phones, as we never used letter based exchange codes. It was always numerical only.


Post# 1125799 , Reply# 32   8/14/2021 at 19:19 (957 days old) by RP2813 (Sannazay)        

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I ditched my Long Distance service with AT&T a couple of months ago.  I was being charged almost $12 a month just for the privilege of having access.  I use my cell phone to make all toll calls now. 

 

At some point I'll probably switch to VOIP since my land line dial tone, which still comes from the central office, is carried over fiber, but it goes through my gateway for internet access so when the power goes out, I lose my dial tone.  If the dial tone still ran through copper, I'd not be as likely to switch to VOIP, which in my experience (talking with my sister, who has Vonage) is inferior to switched network service.


Post# 1125805 , Reply# 33   8/14/2021 at 23:08 (957 days old) by iej (.... )        

I moved to fibre a few years ago and got rid of the physical landline service. It's provided as VoIP through a FritzBox router. 

 

It's a quirky little device, but slightly overkill these days. It's a really excellent router with a mesh network, but also has a heap of VoIP functions, including a built in PBX with support for 5 DECT based handsets and a plugged in analog phone (with dial tone).

 

Even contains its own voicemail server (supporting multiple mailboxes), fax service (who's gonna use that?! I know some doctors still seem to use fax..) and can support multiple VoIP accounts and do all sorts of complex routing.

 

You can even set it to do a 'dial through' service so it'll recognise your caller ID when you call, present a dial tone and give you access to a VoIP account.

 

That and it has soft phones for iOS and Android.

 

Oh and it can control your lights, operate smart plugs and even has modules to control your radiators ... 

 

I'd rate the call quality as being as good or better than a PSTN line though. It's using a HD Voice codec, so it sounds great.


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Post# 1125815 , Reply# 34   8/15/2021 at 06:42 (957 days old) by WhiteWhiskers (Silicon Valley, California)        
dropped POTS years ago

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For several years now I've been using an Obihai OBi202 (now owned by Polycom), Google Voice, and my high speed broadband connection, to make and receive calls. The voice quality is EXCELLENT. This month Poly released a firmware update for the Obi202, so there's still support for this wonderful box. I can call anybody in the United States and talk for as long as I want for FREE.

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Post# 1125839 , Reply# 35   8/15/2021 at 09:12 (957 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        

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Now how cool is that? A 500 set with only numbers.


Post# 1125865 , Reply# 36   8/15/2021 at 16:00 (956 days old) by iej (.... )        

Probably our most memorable 1980s phone from Telecom Éireann (Ma Bell’s Irish equivalent)

Built by Nortel in Galway


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Post# 1125866 , Reply# 37   8/15/2021 at 16:07 (956 days old) by iej (.... )        
Based on Northern Telecom (Nortel) Harmony

That Ireland map phone was based on the chassis of a very standard issue Nortel Harmony phone that were one of their more popular rental models in the 1980s. I still have one plugged into VoIP and it works a charm despite being probably close to 40 years old.

Also including a photo of another common model that was rented here in the 1980s. Can’t remember what Telecom called it, but it was quite a famous Danish design, and I think manufactured by a Kirk.

The “R” (Recall) button is the hook flash for call waiting / 3 way calling. The timing is a bit different to the US and closer to pulse dialling 1.

If you used the “Flash” button on a US phone on an Irish landline it was too long and cleared the line, as it was interpreted as hanging up by the switching system.

R1 = answer incoming call waiting & hang up on current call.
R2 = toggle between calls.
R3 = conference call.

If you wanted to add a call, you dialled “R” which put the call on hold and gave you a dial tone. Then made the second call and R1 / R2 / R3 could be used to end one call, toggle between or merge the calls.

A lot of late phones had at least R 2 stored on a button.

A lot of European PSTN switches did it that way.


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Post# 1128103 , Reply# 38   9/8/2021 at 19:47 (932 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        

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Post# 1128111 , Reply# 39   9/8/2021 at 20:16 (932 days old) by RP2813 (Sannazay)        

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That phone is a lot more than 40 years old!  No * or # key on it means it's a 1960s Western Electric model 1500.  The later and infinitely more common and useful touchtone phones with the * and # keys are 2500's.


Post# 1128118 , Reply# 40   9/8/2021 at 20:49 (932 days old) by iej (.... )        

To be fair, the comparison is a bit ridiculous. A modern mobile phone is an ultra compact, very powerful computer primarily with a data connection that is faster than many large cities had in their entirety in the 1970, and it only incidentally makes phone calls.

I can’t even find an analogy that fits. A wash board has more in common with a brand new digital front loader washing machine than a smart phone has with a rotary dial phone and a steam engine certainly has more in common with a 2021 hybrid car.

If there’s one set of technologies that’s changed beyond all recognition it’s telecommunications.

Actually some of the concepts in microchips would have more in common with some of the concepts found in crossbar switching matrixes and their registers, but only at the most macro level.
So you could say a smartphone has more in common with a Western Electric No 5 crossbar or an Ericsson ARF than it does with a dial phone.

Also some of the software run on smartphones, including Unix has its origins in early digital switching systems and many computer and digital transmission technologies come from telecommunications research in the 50s-70s.

So you’d recognise more of the echos of old phone network equipment in the hardware of your smartphone than you would find anything in common with an old rotary dial PSTN telephone itself.


Post# 1128169 , Reply# 41   9/9/2021 at 07:48 (932 days old) by vacerator (Macomb, Michigan)        
When I was in

primary school, Kids still said their phone numbers with the alpha prefix. Those first two letters were the abbreviations for the central switching officees.
In our locale, we had AV for Avennue, DU for Dunkirk, LI for Lincoln, WO for Woodward, etc.


Post# 1128559 , Reply# 42   9/13/2021 at 15:30 (927 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Western Electric 1939

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Western Electric 1939


Post# 1128560 , Reply# 43   9/13/2021 at 15:32 (927 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone System 1963

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Bell Telephone System 1963 copy


Post# 1128561 , Reply# 44   9/13/2021 at 15:33 (927 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
General Telephone & Electronics 1962

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GENERAL TELEPHONE &amp; ELECTRONICS 1962


Post# 1128562 , Reply# 45   9/13/2021 at 15:35 (927 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone System 1958

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Bell Telephone System 1958


Post# 1130388 , Reply# 46   10/4/2021 at 19:07 (906 days old) by iej (.... )        

A slightly unusual public arts project using the telephone as a medium.

www.irishtimes.com/cultur...

twitter.com/dialaseanchai/status...

If anyone would like to listen to a very retro art project, replicating one done in 1988 by the County Clare Arts Office, you can dial a Seanchaí, a traditional historian/poet/musician, who will tell you a tale and sing you a song. They’re prerecorded, but quite well produced.

It has an Irish, U.K. and US number.

This is a public art project. The calls are not premium rate, nor are there any charges or for profit motives. It’s publicly funded by a county council.


Post# 1130843 , Reply# 47   10/10/2021 at 13:14 (900 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell System 1965

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Bell System 1965


Post# 1130845 , Reply# 48   10/10/2021 at 13:15 (900 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
American Telephone and Telegraph Company 1933

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American Telephone and Telegraph Company 1933


Post# 1130846 , Reply# 49   10/10/2021 at 13:17 (900 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Southwestern Bell 1963

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Southwestern Bell 1963


Post# 1130847 , Reply# 50   10/10/2021 at 13:18 (900 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Western Electric 1956

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Western Electric 1956


Post# 1130848 , Reply# 51   10/10/2021 at 13:20 (900 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone 1983

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Bell Telephone 1983


Post# 1133054 , Reply# 52   11/9/2021 at 09:29 (871 days old) by iej (.... )        

Well that’s the end of an era. I’ve just permanently hung up on the last vestige of the PSTN.

I upgraded to fibre to home and they used the copper phone line as a draw wire to pull the fibre though the ducts under my lawn lol

Seems the old policy was to leave them in place but they’re not planning to continue copper services, so now they’re convenient draw wires.

She was explaining the plan is to continue to support dial tone service using an MSAN but only for existing customers and they’ll be incentivising people to get off the copper network before switching it off.


Post# 1133056 , Reply# 53   11/9/2021 at 09:33 (870 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        

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Sad. Nothing will be as reliable as copper wire. We are paying more for inferior service.


Post# 1133060 , Reply# 54   11/9/2021 at 09:56 (870 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
American Telephone and Telegraph Company 1911

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American Telephone and Telegraph Company 1911


Post# 1133061 , Reply# 55   11/9/2021 at 09:58 (870 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Western Electric 1962

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Western Electric 1962


Post# 1133062 , Reply# 56   11/9/2021 at 09:59 (870 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Stromberg Carlson 1905

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Stromberg Carlson 1905


Post# 1133065 , Reply# 57   11/9/2021 at 10:01 (870 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone System 1960

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Bell Telephone System 1960


Post# 1133066 , Reply# 58   11/9/2021 at 10:06 (870 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
General Telephone and Electronics 1963

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General Telephone and Electronics 1963


Post# 1133067 , Reply# 59   11/9/2021 at 10:08 (870 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Phinney-Walker 1962

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Phinney-Walker 1962


Post# 1133068 , Reply# 60   11/9/2021 at 10:09 (870 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Western Electric 1945

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Western Electric 1945


Post# 1133069 , Reply# 61   11/9/2021 at 10:11 (870 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone System 1955

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Bell Telephone System 1955


Post# 1133070 , Reply# 62   11/9/2021 at 10:13 (870 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Western Electric 1974

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Western Electric 1974


Post# 1133071 , Reply# 63   11/9/2021 at 10:14 (870 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone 1941

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Bell Telephone 1941


Post# 1133085 , Reply# 64   11/9/2021 at 10:49 (870 days old) by iej (.... )        
@Unimatic - I suppose times change.

The technology's changing a lot, but I also think we're finally moving away from an interim stage of tech which was basically just a hack to reuse old copper networks and involved placing a lot of active equipment into cabinets located near to end users.

All the DSL technologies from ADSL through to VDSL (fibre to cabinet) have that issue. Cable modem services are better as the network was designed to carry high bandwidth TV signals, but it's still not exactly ideal and is a repurposing job.

Most rollouts of fibre-to-home (FTTP / FTTH) are using passive optical networks. In some ways this is more reminiscent of the classic PSTN, as you've no longer got active equipment out in boxes all over the place. The splitters and multiplexers are smaller and are just optical splitters. There's very little to go wrong in them as they're passive technology.

So, I think in a way we might be getting away from the reliability concerns and moving back to a solid public network again.

The biggest issues though are probably end user equipment - a lot of the ISP supplied routers / gateways are frankly, cheap rubbish. If you've decent equipment you'll get reliable service.

Local power interruptions are obviously going to be an issue, but in reality, how often does that happen ? I mean, I could count on the fingers of one hand how many times we've had a power outage since I was born and they were very short and usually caused by a tree falling on a local overhead line tripping out a circuit.

I appreciate in rural areas this is more of an issue due to long overhead lines and in places that are much more prone to lightening strikes etc, but you can overcome that with a UPS and the optical lines are completely lightening resistant and they are not conductive.

The old PSTN had the advantage of extremely simple end user equipment. There's very little can go wrong with a bog-standard telephone, unless you drop it down the stairs or something, but I think all in all we're looking at moving back to a far more reliable network as things progress. It's that interim era that gave VoIP and other techs a bad name. VoIP works wonderfully, if it's not being bolted onto some ropey broadband connection. When the network's built right, the quality of voice is actually drastically improved vs TDM based switching which only supported 8-bit channels and μ-law (US) or a-law (Europe) companding algorithms.

Some of the best audio quality you'd have ever heard on the phone networks was pre-digital, and only within your local exchange, as you could get copper-to-copper connections across the local switch be it crossbar, stepping, panel/rotary or even analogue electronic. Once it went outside the local switch, you were into multiplexing and trunks all of which squeezed the bandwidth using analogue techniques or later digital techniques, but they made things sound worse. Also the sound quality on old carbon microphones used in very old phones was quite poor and they used gate filters in switches to keep the frequencies used within certain bandwidths to prevent crosstalk in switches and bundles of cables.

As for removing my phone line, it was an option between digging up the lawn or attempting to pull the fibre with the old copper cable, so I just decided since I'm unlikely to ever need it again, it was worth a chance.

Realistically speaking though, landline service is now really just an access pathway for broadband and mobile phones really are not phones at all, they're ultra portable computers that happen to be able to make voice calls. The fact that we call them phones at all anymore is a bit of a stretch of the terminology.

It's sad to see some of these old techs disappear and be replaced, but I suppose without the evolution none of us would be posting on this forum either. Or, we'd have to have a party line for people interested in old washing machines with Ernestine listening in for gossip and ensuring we paid up lol




This post was last edited 11/09/2021 at 11:04
Post# 1142141 , Reply# 65   2/14/2022 at 05:16 (774 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
A.T.&T. 1970

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A.T.&amp;T. 1970


Post# 1142142 , Reply# 66   2/14/2022 at 05:17 (774 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone Company 1929

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Bell Telephone Company 1929


Post# 1142143 , Reply# 67   2/14/2022 at 05:19 (774 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Tollometer 1914

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Tollometer 1914


Post# 1142144 , Reply# 68   2/14/2022 at 05:20 (774 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Western Electric 1959

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Western Electric 1959


Post# 1142146 , Reply# 69   2/14/2022 at 05:21 (774 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone 1982

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Bell Telephone 1982


Post# 1142147 , Reply# 70   2/14/2022 at 05:23 (774 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell System 1965

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Bell System 1965


Post# 1143295 , Reply# 71   2/27/2022 at 11:32 (760 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Phone Center 1981

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Bell Phone Center 1981


Post# 1143297 , Reply# 72   2/27/2022 at 11:34 (760 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone System 1949

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Bell Telephone System 1949


Post# 1143298 , Reply# 73   2/27/2022 at 11:36 (760 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Coilette 1956

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Coilette 1956


Post# 1143299 , Reply# 74   2/27/2022 at 11:39 (760 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone System 1962

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Bell Telephone System 1962


Post# 1143300 , Reply# 75   2/27/2022 at 11:41 (760 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone System 1955

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Bell Telephone System 1955


Post# 1143306 , Reply# 76   2/27/2022 at 12:48 (760 days old) by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.)        
Re: Reply#73

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Now thats something I’ve never seen before! Back then Ma Bell charged extra for a coiled handset cord. I’m surprised that I never saw one of these on a handset cord in the 50’s. I wonder if it really worked very well?

Eddie


Post# 1144819 , Reply# 77   3/18/2022 at 21:55 (741 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone System 1963

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Bell Telephone System 1963


Post# 1144821 , Reply# 78   3/18/2022 at 21:57 (741 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Michigan Bell 1985

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Michigan Bell 1985


Post# 1144822 , Reply# 79   3/18/2022 at 21:58 (741 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell System 1966

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Bell System 1966


Post# 1144895 , Reply# 80   3/19/2022 at 21:45 (740 days old) by iej (.... )        

This one is in French, but was an ad that stuck in my head from a time I lived there.
French area codes changed completely on 18 Oct 1996.

They moved from a somewhat unusual system to something far more like the rest of Europe, with regional geographic area codes that start with 0

The ad is just *extremely* French!






France Télécom (Ma Bell’s somewhat artsy French counterpart) is now called Orange and is one of those the largest telcos in Europe.


Post# 1144897 , Reply# 81   3/19/2022 at 22:05 (740 days old) by iej (.... )        
GPO (UK) - The Coming of the Dial 1933

Introduction to dial telephones - GPO film from 1933
They did everything in film noir and Received Pronunciation back then…






Post# 1144901 , Reply# 82   3/19/2022 at 22:46 (740 days old) by jamiel (Detroit, Michigan and Palm Springs, CA)        

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One fascinating fact about the North American Numbering Plan (country code 1) is that there is no inherent way to identify numbers by technology as there was developed in most of the rest of the world. You're entirely unable to tell the difference when dialing 10 digits whether you're dialing a landline or mobile (which resulted in a mobile party pays system in North America). The rest of the world utilizes technology-specific numbering so you can identify technology (which results in a calling-party pays system, and calls to mobiles are typically more $$ to place than a call to a landline. It's actually illegal to differentiate technologies in US/Canada (New York proposed a cellular-only area code which was shot down toute suite!)

Post# 1144902 , Reply# 83   3/20/2022 at 00:27 (740 days old) by iej (.... )        

European numbering plans tended to encode a lot of geographical routing information into the number itself.

If you take the Irish system as an example, and the same applies in a lot of European countries, it works like this:

For landlines, the country is divided into 7 large “directory areas” which in the old days were literally the 7 telephone books. 01, 02, 04, 05, 06, 07 and 09.

Each of those codes is then further subdivided by adding an extra digit. Usually the principal town / city got 1. So Galway for example is (091), Cork (021) and so on. Smaller towns then other numbers, so you’d have (062), (064) etc and some area codes used a second layer like (0401) wheee they had more than 9 codes. Then local numbering is 5-digit in low population areas, 6-digits in others or 7-digits in some areas. It just depended on demand/population.

On the landline network number analysis is done live as you dial, so you get instant connection too. You’ll also get a reorder / error message if you hit a block of numbers that doesn’t exist, and that will happen before you compete the number. Like say 031 99x xxxx doesn’t exist, your call gets dumped at the 031 99

With mobiles that isn’t done as you send the digits with the send/call button and VoIP usually doesn’t bother either.

The structured number allowed routing without much number translation - so as you just dialled through the old network when long distance was introduced back in 1956 here. Charging also tended to be done by prefix.

The way charging worked in the old network (Strowger, Crossbar and earlier digital) here used impulses.
Calls were charged in “Units” not in money values. Each unit cost say 10 pence.

A local call used to coat 1 unit, untimed and a long distance or international call used 1 unit per x minutes. The more expensive the destination the faster the impulses.

Each time a unit elapsed, the telephone exchange recorded it on a subscriber meter, or on a computer system. The impulses could also be sent out as a 12kHz tone. That was interpreted by pay phones and also by PBXs for billing. You could even get a meter that plugged into the phone and request the meter pulses to be turned on.

They stopped using those sometime in the 1990s, other than for pay phones. Later pay phones had their own charging software built in and just used an initial meter pulse from the network so they knew the call had connected and to unmute the mic and begin charging.

Most payphones also wouldn’t allow you to dial extra digits before the call had connected and the mic remained muted until the first pulse was detected, so a lot of American Blueboxing etc never worked in Europe. I remember making calls on a line with an Ericsson crossbar, and it made none of the interesting noises I’ve heard on recording phone phreaks in the US heard. When the switch was talking to the network, you were connected to a comfort tone that just sounded like “tick tick tick tick..” mimicking a clock sound. When it created the path, you’d get a clunk and ring/busy etc. Any exotic inter office signalling MF tones and pulses during call setup we’re hidden/muted.

If you were using a pay phone you deposited coins or inserted a prepaid smart card (optical cards in some European countries too) and a value was displayed on a little display in units. Older coin phone didn’t display anything, but you just loaded them with multiple coins in advance. When you hung up, unused coins were returned.

When the payphone detected an meter pulse, it knew the call was connected and debited one unit or dropped a coin and as each unit ticked away, the credit was debited or the coins continued to drop. The more expensive the call, the faster the units ticked by.

None of that stuff is used anymore as billing is far more flexible and complex and there are umpteen companies involved.

When mobile phones arrived in around 1984 or so, they wanted to preserve the caller pays model and also didn’t want mobile phones to be tied to a specific geographical area, so the numbering was kept separate and calls to mobiles were more expensive than landlines, but you didn’t pay anything to receive calls.

As time moved on that’s become largely irrelevant. Everyone’s operating on unlimited call bundles these days and the number of landlines is dwindling fast. So we’ve something like 63 landline area codes with about 2 million active users and maybe 5.3 million active mobile lines using just 3 area codes.

The highly structured numbering was just very shored to electromechanical switching systems. It’s totally unnecessary really since the network went digital in the early 80s but changing them was also pointless.

You can now port landlines to mobile numbers or mobile numbers to other technologies so it’s becoming a bit irrelevant.

We also used to have complex shared cost numbers, mostly used by businesses. The caller and the receiver both paid part of the costs.

1850 charged local rate connection fee and 1890 charged as a timed local call and so on. They got rid of all of those recently.

We now just have 1800 toll free or 0818 which is just a non geographical area code, which is popular with business users as you don’t have be fixed too a particular official physical area. They just charge out of your bundled minutes as if they’re regular landline number.

The one handy thing about the system is you can still tell where a number is by just looking at the area code as they’re regional.




This post was last edited 03/20/2022 at 01:00
Post# 1145659 , Reply# 84   4/1/2022 at 15:01 (727 days old) by iej (.... )        
Mercury U.K.

Some adverts for long defunct Mercury, the first telco in the U.K. to break BT’s monopoly.
The brand no longer exists but the ads were very quirky:






Post# 1146109 , Reply# 85   4/9/2022 at 09:29 (720 days old) by iej (.... )        
Telephone books / directories

It’s amazing when you think back on it how much was involved in what seems like something very simple nowadays, with ubiquitous internet, information systems and powerful search engines.

This video is from 1979 from the U.K. GPO which operated the phone system there until the early 1980s when BT was spun out and privatised.








Post# 1146111 , Reply# 86   4/9/2022 at 09:58 (720 days old) by jamiel (Detroit, Michigan and Palm Springs, CA)        

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That was a fun blast from the past---with the privatized North American telephone system, these were done at a more local level (rather than by the GPO). Reuben Donnelly was one big directory printer (they also printed the Sears Catalogue as well as magazines).

My grandparents lived in suburban Chicago, but not in an Illinois Bell territory, so they had a wimpy telephone book only covering Des Plaines and Park Ridge, the areas covered by that company, but there was always a big Chicago phone book hanging around for dining room booster service :)

They tended to use exchange boundaries in our area to provide the smaller phone books, which wasn't always convenient when one lived near a boundary---


Post# 1146133 , Reply# 87   4/9/2022 at 17:47 (719 days old) by iej (.... )        

In the U.K. the GPO lost its monopoly in 1981 and was privatised as BT in 1984.

Here in Ireland phonebooks were a whole lot simpler, as the population is only about 4 million.

We had an absolutely ludicrous number of area codes (63 codes at one stage!) for the scale of the population, but they’re regionalised so the first two digits of the area code are for a broad region.

We had 6 phonebooks, 4 of which had the white pages and Golden Pages (Yellow pages) combined into the same physical book - you just flipped it over and opened it at the back for the Golden Pages.
Only the (01) Dublin and Cork (02) areas had separate books. The rest didn’t have enough population.

Our codes just divide the country into 7 broad areas and then sub-divided those further into 3 digit dialling codes - so you could always tell where you were calling / where incoming caller ID is from just by looking at the first couple of digits.

For example the 02 area - divides into Cork City (021) xxx xxxx and then smaller towns would be (022) xxxxx (023) xxxxx (024) xxxxx … right the way to. (029) xxxxx
All of the codes except Dublin worked like that and the number of digits in the local number varies from 5 to 7 depending on the demand. Most rural areas only have 5 digit local numbers, but a lot have been merged and are 7 digit. Whatever way the old Ericsson crossbars and ITT crossbars worked, they didn’t seem to be bothered by mixed length numbers. When digital arrived in 1980 that became even less of an issue.

The company that owned Golden Pages managed the whole directory publication setup commercially and the old P&T just gave them a franchise. They used to always feature photographs (often from a completion) or kids drawings and so on on the front cover.

They stopped publishing physical phonebooks in 2020. The were only available by special request by about 2007. By 2019 they were only sending out 2400 copies so they gave up entirely as there was no demand.

France originally launched their Minitel videotext services to avoid having to publish physical phonebooks. It morphed into a full interactive text system in the early 80s

Weird one I’ve heard here was the recorded wrong number messages now just say “The number you have dialled has not been recognised - please search online for a new number and try your call again.” Rather than “… please check the telephone directory, or call directory enquires and try your call again.”
End of an era.


Post# 1146140 , Reply# 88   4/9/2022 at 19:55 (719 days old) by iej (.... )        

A 1987 field training video from BT explaining how to look for chargeable items on repairs … just shows how those utility companies think …

I can’t speak for the situation in Britain, but here they ditched equipment rental in the early 1990s. Before that they used to install all your internal extension wiring and rented a range of phones and other equipment. You could also buy your own, but in theory you weren’t supposed to install your own extension wiring, but in reality they could do nothing about it if you did and the wiring is just two pair. I know my parents had DIY extensions in the 80s. I think in the U.K. it was common that DIY extension wiring was plugged into an official BT socket to avoid “tampering with plant and equipment”.

With landline faults, they only take responsibility up to a demarcation socket, which has a test socket that disconnects your extensions and with fibre services they have never supported anything beyond their own NTU. The fibre service is provided up to a termination socket and your ISP provides the router, which is just self install.








This post was last edited 04/09/2022 at 20:10
Post# 1146146 , Reply# 89   4/9/2022 at 20:33 (719 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell 1981

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Bell 1981


Post# 1146172 , Reply# 90   4/10/2022 at 06:50 (719 days old) by iej (.... )        
Odd 80s vibe …

This was Prestel, an early 80s videotext service in the U.K. which was somewhat similar in concept to the French Minitel platform but not quite. It never really took off, but it was an interesting bit of pre Internet technology. It was a lot more limited than Minitel, which actually let providers host their own services on their own servers, ands was a bit more like online teletext.

However, the GPO advertising campaigns seemed to really get the tone a bit weird - somewhere between HAL-9000 and The Ring. Rather than a friendly, cute household appliance like Minitel was presented, they managed to give this a really creepy vibe.






Minitel in France was much more successful and survived for a long time. Here’s a very good review of an old Minitel terminal connecting to a demo service (in English):




Attached below: image of late 1980s Irish Minitel. Same system - just with a QWERTY keyboard and an RJ11 phone jack and Irish power plug.

The service here never really survived beyond the earliest days of the Web and was very quickly surpassed by the internet. However, it had our earliest home banking, online shopping, airline, cinema, and train booking etc etc.

A service called Gulliver, used to centrally book B&Bs and small hotels clung on until the Minitel system was closed down. I don’t think it ever achieved much of a market, but it had some useful niches.

It was purely commercial here (a joint venture between two telcos and two banks) and incumbent phone company at the time, now known as Eir, was a 25% shareholder but didn’t really have much interest in driving it. Other online services were already available, the internet was very much on the immediate horizon and being an English speaking market, there were very few synergies with French services, but it was an interesting bit of kit and a step along the road towards the Web.

A lot of the business models for e-commerce sites were already happening on the French platform in the 80s, and at a scale because France Telecom gave the terminals away for free as part of your standard landline connection. So there were millions of active users in France at its peak and a whole ecosystem of servers and service providers (including plenty of X rated stuff) grew up around it. It was an interesting sandbox that preempted a lot of Web business models. It worked as an open exchange, allowing service providers to host their own Minitel sites and services across a very standardised platform - so you had a lot of innovative development of services for it, but it was still more like the Ma Bell concept of the phone company in charge.

Later versions supported GIF or JPEG images, better resolution and could even read chip credit cards (introduced in France in the 80s). So you could, at least on some terminals, complete secure transactions at home. Quite sophisticated for it's time and the terminals were very cute for that era. They are reminiscent of early Mac in shape, but a lot smaller, essentially dumb terminals and predate the Mac so I don't think one inspired the other.

Minitel essentially ran as an application on packet switching systems. Transpac in France, or Eirpac here. They had their own software platforms and some of the routing was done using special versions of digital telephone switches running custom software. So it was very much a creature of the 80s telephone network.

There were numerous Videotext services in Europe and North America, most of them flopped. Minitel in France seems to have the only one that ever achieved scale and a genuine existence of service providers.

It’s still cool though to look back on some of these very early attempts at mass market online services.


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This post was last edited 04/10/2022 at 07:43
Post# 1146464 , Reply# 91   4/13/2022 at 16:15 (715 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone System 1961

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Bell Telephone System 1961


Post# 1146466 , Reply# 92   4/13/2022 at 16:17 (715 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell System 1982

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Bell System 1982


Post# 1146496 , Reply# 93   4/13/2022 at 18:44 (715 days old) by CircleW (NE Cincinnati OH area)        

My cousin Pam got a Princess phone in Turquoise for her bedroom when she was about 12 years old (1966). There was a box mounted on the wall that had 6 buttons, one for hold, two for outside lines, and one for intercom. Her 15 year old brother Joe had a phone in his room too, but the line buttons were on the phone itself, as were all others except the kitchen wall phone, which had the same line selector box as Pam's room.

Post# 1146498 , Reply# 94   4/13/2022 at 19:02 (715 days old) by iej (.... )        
Bob Geldof Irish anti phone box vandalism ad

This is a very 80s cringe inducing public service ad from Telecom Éireann (Ma Bell’s Irish cousin) that aired around 1985. It features Bob Geldof (Boomtown Rats and Live Aid etc)

“Hey, stupid: Leave that phone alone!”








Post# 1148533 , Reply# 95   5/11/2022 at 19:46 (687 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Phone Center 1983

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Bell Phone Center 1983


Post# 1148534 , Reply# 96   5/11/2022 at 19:48 (687 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
General Telephone & Electronics 1958

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General Telephone &amp; Electronics 1958


Post# 1148535 , Reply# 97   5/11/2022 at 19:49 (687 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
Bell Telephone System 1941

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Bell Telephone System 1941


Post# 1149397 , Reply# 98   5/23/2022 at 23:47 (675 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        
The end of an era.

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Crews remove last functioning pay phone in New York City

 



CLICK HERE TO GO TO Ultramatic's LINK

Post# 1149401 , Reply# 99   5/24/2022 at 04:51 (675 days old) by iej (.... )        

Oddly enough the Irish equivalent of the FCC, ComReg, made a small number of pay phones a part of the ‘Universal Service Obligations’ for the ‘incumbent fixed line operator.’

The result has been they’ve contracted out the sites (all of which are prominent locations) to an advertising company. So they’re now electronic billboards with a pay phone stuck to the back of them and all branding has been removed. I assume the telco didn’t want their brand anywhere near that kind of street furniture.

They claim to be “a public service” but in reality it’s just a skinny electronic billboard with a phone providing it with an excuse to be there.


Post# 1151746 , Reply# 100   6/19/2022 at 18:25 (648 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City)        

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