Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway
From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Precise Dial Tone & A Tone of the Past: No-Such-Number
Message-ID: 
Date: 25 Sep 89 21:36:12 GMT
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In article , kitty!larry@uunet.uu.
net (Larry Lippman) writes:
> 	Interestingly enough, with one exception, I have never seen
> nor even heard of a call progress tone generator which used vacuum
> tubes.  Technology in this area went directly from the
> electromechanical to the solid-state.  The one exception was the
> "no-such-number" tone generator, which used vacuum tubes and made its
> debut around 1940; it has been affectionately called the "crybaby
> tone".

The dial and busy/reorder tones in a stock Stromberg XY are generated
by a device which uses a single vacuum tube. Ringback comes from a
vibrating reed device (and sounds like a fart). The sound made by the
dial tone generator is reminiscent of the old WE SXS "honker" tone but
has a more mellow timbre.

Although rapidly disappearing, the California desert is peppered with
exchanges using the XY.

        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   +1 408 723 1395
    john@zygot.ati.com      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !