A generation ago, when the poetry of PEnnsylvania and BUtterfield was about to give way to telephone numbers in unpoetic strings, a critical question arose: Would people be able to remember all seven digits long enough to dial them?
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***** Moderator's Note *****
Alan Sherman sang it best:
"Can you see him smirking and smiling? 'cause he's got us all-digit dialing! So, let's all call up AT&T and protest to the President march So protest! Do you best! Let us show him that we march in unity! If he won't - change the rules - we'll take our business to another phone company!"
[Sadly, Alan Sherman was a comedian we lost too early. I have his record, "My Son the Folk Singer", though I'm not sure today's audiences would get all the jokes about working in the garment district. But I think "hello mudder hello fadder" would still get laughs.]
Comedian Alan King also criticized ANC and was mad they added the requirement that he had to dial 516 to call home. "The other night I called my barber and forgot his area code. Before I could say I was sorry, Stragetic Air Command bombers penetrated ten miles inside Russia". He also criticized the business office and dealing with the phone company in general. King thought people spent too much time on the phone; I wonder how he'd react to cell phones of today.
The article mentions an experimental push button phone. One is described in an early ESS research effort in BSTJ--the "chest" of the phone has a series of buttons like a cash register.
The article describes, "It is not so much that Mr. Karlin trained midcentury Americans how to use the telephone. It is, rather, that by studying the psychological capabilities and limitations of ordinary people, he trained the telephone, then a rapidly proliferating but still fairly novel technology, to assume optimal form for use by midcentury Americans. "
Human engineering used to be a major priority for the old Bell Labs. Indeed, back in the 1950s, when a commuity was to covert to dial, the phone co sent out representatives to call upon households and businesses to show them how to work the dial. (This also also a p/r move since some towns liked having manual service and the free extras that went along with it.)
I wonder if today's technology makers, from TV/stereo remote controls to computer screens and 'smart phones' devote as much effort toward usability as Bell used to do.
Side note: IMHO, the pressure required to press a Touch Tone button on the Western Electric 2500 set--selected after extensive research-- is too heavy. Later Touch Tone sets by other makes require less pressure and are easier to use.
***** Moderator's Note *****
I could never understand how they got two tones from one transistor.
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