Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!vortex!lauren
From: lauren@vortex.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Touch-Tone Pads (with "sidebar" about the Code-A-Phone 700)
Message-ID: <65@vortex.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Jun-83 21:25:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: vortex.65
Posted: Wed Jun 29 21:25:41 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 30-Jun-83 16:58:20 EDT
Lines: 75

Right.  Sixteen button touch-tone pads also have appeared/currently
appear with an "A" on the lower right button.  

Overall, touch-tone pads have gone through a variety of rather
interesting transformations over the years.  Anybody who 
remembers when touch-tone first started showing up (probably seeing
it for the first time at a World's Fair or Disneyland), will remember
the early ten button pads that did not include "*" or "#".  Ah, but
how many of you remember the ELEVEN button pads that were floating
around for awhile?

Western Electric had all of its bets covered when some of the later ten 
button pads went into full production: an entire series of the pads had 
holes perforated into the framework of the unit so that the "*" and
"#" buttons could be retrofitted later through the use of an appropriate
field modification kit.  Presumably a craftsperson would install this
kit if you really needed it (and paid the appropriate fee, of course).

When touch-tone was originally under study at Bell Labs, a variety
of human-factors studies were performed to determine how to
best arrange the buttons.  One of the big debates was whether:

	1 2 3                  7 8 9               			
        4 5 6        OR        4 5 6
        7 8 9 		       1 2 3
          0                      0

was the appropriate pattern.  The former we all know from current
phones, but the latter was (and still is) the standard pattern
for calculators (well, "adding machines" back then...)  It was
decided that "the masses" could more easily deal with the former,
though some users of adding machines would probably get some wrong
numbers until they got used to the new layout.

A variety of other designs were also considered, including the 
buttons arranged like a conventional telephone dial:

			       3 2  	
		             4     1
			    5
			    6   
			     7     0
			       8 9 


Another possibility tested was the pattern used for the MF keypads of
switchboard operators (2 vertical columns).  A considerable number of
other "bizarre" patterns were also studied.

--Lauren--

P.S.  This is totally off the subject, but my mention above about charging
for an "upgrade" to a touch-tone pad reminds me of a particularly
annoying habit of some of the telephone Operating Companies some years
ago.  For many years, the Code-A-Phone model 700 Answering Machine
was the workhorse answering machine of the Bell System (in fact, they're
still around at a variety of Bell System installations).  This was the
only reasonable unit that you could rent from Bell System telcos (this is
in the days when hooking up your OWN answering machine without an
expensive coupler could result in doom, destruction, and death if 
telco found out about it..)  Anyway, the 700 (which was a fine, heavy-duty
machine, by the way) was tariffed in an interesting fashion.  You paid
different amounts a month depending on which "version" of the machine you
wanted.  The "best" version allowed for up to three minute outgoing
messages and up to two hours of incoming messages.  If you paid less a
month, you'd get "versions" that had progressively less incoming or outgoing
message time.  Subscribers were told that this was only fair, since different
length tapes had to be installed, and cost varying amounts.  In
reality, there was only ONE version of the model 700 Code-A-Phone.
If you didn't pay for the "maximum version", the installer would set a
pair of little cams in the unit which would artificially limit the
incoming and outgoing message times!  Talk about "creative" product
design...

--LW--