History-- The "Call Director" set? [telecom]

In general, they were simply a "jumbo" keyset, with multiple key groups. The earlier ones, with the vertical rows of 6 buttons, were simply groups of 6 lines (5 +hold on the first group). I think they came in

12, 18, and 30 button versions.

They were versions with round buttons, and with rounded square, and square buttons. The later 10/20/30 button units had square buttons.

The 6 button sets were also available in colors, I have seen red, beige, green, yellow, black, blue, etc. Not all colors were available from WE.

They were very common in locations where there were a large number of lines, where the user might need access to any of the lines, or where additional buttons were needed to control external devices, such as speakerphones, or tape recorders, etc.

All the 1A2 systems used line cards to control hold and lamp, one per line. The line cards were shared across multiple phones sharing a line appearance.

Line cards could be CO lines, intercom, ringdown (hotline), or other functions.

Call directors, like any other phone, could be used either directly connected (through the KSU) to the telco, or to a PBX. Individual line appearances could be supplied either way.

I used to work for a radio station, that had an old step-by-step PBX, with about 30 line appearances on the 1A2 key system, with a mix of PBX extensions, and external lines appearing on the phones. We had several devices controlled by the phones, including audio interfaces to the mixing console, and at least one device that used a button as a status light, without any control function.

The basic configuration was 3 pairs per line (Tip/Ring, A1/A, and LG/L), plus a pair (pair 20) for the ringer. The ringer was frequently wired to a diode matrix to allow multiple lines to ring on a single set.

Some of the leads, such as LG (lamp ground) could be shared across multiple lines, and in the later 10/20/30 button call directors, the spare LG leads were used as L leads in order to shoehorn 9 lines into 25 pairs. I can't remember if you could do the same with the A or A1 leads.

The earlier phones with the 6 button groups were simply wired as 6 buttons, with no special wiring tricks. The line cords were frequently undersized to reduce size, and eliminate extra unused pairs, although there were always spare pairs provided for buzzers, etc.

The nice thing about these phones, is that the A/A1 leads were just contact closures, and could be used to control external devices, which made them a natural choice for use in radio stations, etc. There was frequently a spare set of contacts in the hookswitch available as well. On the basic

6 button phone, the WE 2564 lacked the extra hookswitch contacts, and the 2565 included them.

The phones and KSU's were available from several manufacturers, including WE, Stromberg-Carlson, ITT, etc. Special phones were available as well, such as panel phones, or button fields for use in dispatch consoles, etc.

[snippage]

***** Moderator's Note *****

In New England Tel, the LG and L leads were called "Lamp Gain" and "Lamp": the "L" leads were wired in common, and the "LG" leads were connected to the lamp voltage from the KSU's.

Was this a common practice outside NET?

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

Going back to rotary days, both my memory and what I see in old movies is that 6 button rotary keysets were almost always black, maybe beige in a manager's office. In contrast, back then rotary Call Directors seemed to be always in color, often green or beige in an office (popular colors of that era).

Cordless PBX consoles, which were modeled after Call Directors, seemed to be almost always in beige.

In the late 1960s the Bell System came out with new types of rotary key sets where the buttons were much bigger and had the line number on the button head instead of on a separate strip. The buttons ran horizontally above the dial and the set had a squarer profile. Many of these, both wall and desk, just seemed to be to more buttons in a newer style. But there was a _separate_ product line known as ComKey which had extra features, tone ringers, and came in three sizes*. Anyway, these newer style keysets seemed to be always in color.

Touch Tone keysets seemed to be often in color.

I think ComKey was last the "traditional" (G handsets, incandescent lamps) system developed; after that they had the fancy Merlin key system which were very different.

In our area the Bell System charged an one-time extra fee to have a color phone in rotary days. But when Touch Tone came out colors were free. (Tariffs in other regions may be different). The also started offering packages for home in which color was free as well. It seems into the later 1960s charging for color ceased.

• I worked in an office that had ComKey sets. I didn't like them, but perhaps I'm prejudiced since I didn't like that job. I didn't care for the tone ringers or tone/voice intercom loudspeaker.

***** Moderator's Note *****

When I workedin toll at N.E.T., we always took out the small pieces of metal that prevented more than one button being pushed at the same time, so that we could talk on more than one line at a time. This "brute force" conferencing worked surprisingly well.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or I may never see it. Thanks!)

I did the same thing with a 5 line key set in the radio station I worked at in 1970. We had a talk show, and it was nice to be able to conference calls. At the time, our congressman was Leon Panetta. He would call once a week, and we'd conference him with local listeners who called in to the show. I had built a hybrid to do the two wire to four wire conversion out of several resistors and capacitors.

Harold

Occassionally savy customers tinkered with their keysets to allow multiple line buttons to be depressed at the same time so to have a conference circuit. I presume this was forbidding by the phoneco, but was it because it could damage the network (combining two lines causing 'balancing' problems?), or just a loss of revenue from not renting a conference circuit?

I've seen keysets today that have a button to join two lines.

PBX cord switchboards could have an optional conference circuit with two trunks and three extensions or five extensions. I don't know if that circuit had internal components or merely joined wires together. To this day our Centrex Operators make up high volume conference and telelecture calls. We can add on one party for a three-way call from our desks.

At home, everyone has pay-as-you-use 3-way calling (75c a pop or subscription). I've used it from time to time to coordinate dinner arrangements; it does make things easier having everyone all at one to agree on something.

Local Bell operators could arrange coference calls, for a fee. I wonder if they still have that feature. Likewise for long distance operators. That service used to be mentioned in the phone book, but it is not now.

ANY 'tampering' with the telco's property -- even that which you rented from them was strictly forbidden. Your 'own' equipment, behind your own PBX was a different story.

I wouldn't want to guess _if_ the one-line-only engineering was based solely on 'revenues' considerations, but there were risks of a variety of _possible_ problems. "Low probability" ones, but possible, nonetheless.

Contemplate crossing two lines that way, where one line has (accidentally) reversed polarity.

Or 'conferencing' a line in _as_ ring voltage is applied, and the effect of -that- on an in-line amplifier.

Of course, mis-matched audio level was also a consideration. I could see Bell system engineering 'forbidding' line bridging simply *because* it gave an 'inferior' conferenced connection.

It's offered by a different part of what used to be "the phone company", courtesy of deregulation, and the separation of 'basic' and 'enhanced' services. "Conference call bridges" are considered an advanced/enhanced service.

There was a good book written comparing the traditional both Bell System and Independent companies with the mess after divestitiure and deregulation. One major issue discussed was the goal of universal service--to make the cost of very basic telephone service cheap enough for all, paid for by cross subsidies from premium services. State regulators were very nervous that if the premium service surcharges went away then the cost of basic service would go up, reducing its availability. State regulators backed the strict telephone company (both Bell and Ind.) policies of no additions or changes for that reason. (Unfortunately, I gave the book away and don't recall the title/author).

As we know, after divestiture and deregulation local rates DID go up. So regulators added a "universal service fee", among other special fees, to the telephone bill to subsidize poor people, and created special low rate service classes.

In the era of deregulation it's amazing what lousy line quality consumers will accept. I noticed this when consumers began to buy cheap phones that sounded terrible and easily cut out. Later, cordless phones that sounded equally bad came out. Now we suffer with poor quality cellular phones where bandwidth is squeezed down to max out capacity and profits. [I don't pay per cell phone call, but if I did I'd be annoyed since often I must hang up and reconnect due to an awful echo on the connection.]

But back in Bell System days consumers had higher expectations, they were after all paying for quality service. Then Bell had TOTAL responsibility for the connection, from telephone set, house wiring, local loop, exchange plant, long distance wiring, and connection at the distant end. I can certainly understand the frustration of Bell System staff when a problem surfaced--which they were responsible to fix--that was obviously the result of user tampering or unauthorized equipment. Bell didn't like bad disconnects since it resulted in subscriber complaints and the need to credit for bad call, plus was inefficient use of C.O. equipment. Back in school there were lots of kids who "experimented" with their phones, screwed something up, and had to call in repair. Naturally they removed all evidence of their tampering first.

(One kid successfully converted his rotary dial to 20 pulses per second, apparently it was an easy modification and the C.O., either a Panel or #1 XBAR, took it fine. Bell did give some PBX customers 20 pps dials. I don't know why they didn't give all their big city customers fast dials since it would've reduced the holding time of expensive markers and senders in the Panel or #1 XBAR switch in use in cities. I experimented with my dial up modem set to rotary and 20 pps and it worked fine on a modern office, though I switched it back to Touch Tone.)

Not to put too fine a point on it: male bovine excrement.

The famous CarterPhone decision had the side effect of allowing *customer*

*owned* equipment to do _anything_ the equipment manufacturer could dream up -- as long as the phone line 'interface' met the technical requirements for physical direct-connect access to the PSTS.

Telco-operated conference bridges were, by just a handful of years post CarterPhone, priced at just 'break even plus a little bit' -- They -had- to be, to be competitive with the unregulated third-party offerings.

And, needless to say, CarterPhone occurred _years_ before divestiture.