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--