The following note was in the Owensboro (KY) Messenger-Inquirer:
May 20, the Owensboro office of the Southern Bell Telephone Co. will have a new type of monthly billing for long distance calls. In addition to the present information on each bill, it will give the phone number called. The new statements are the result of machine billing. The operator will mark the necessary information on an IBM card when a call is completed. These cards are sent to the accounting office where they are sorted, rates are figured and the toll statement is printed -- all automatically.
Such IBM cards were still an integral part of an operator's supplies in TSP/TSPS units despite the automation. Apparently there were enough special situation calls that AMA couldn't handle and the operator would manually write up a charge ticket. There was a slot in the board face to hold the ticket during the call. When we had a tour of a TSP office in 1971 they said manual ticketing was a critical part of the job.
IBM cards used were called "mark sense" cards. They were read by a particular tabulating machine known as the "reproducer" which punched holes in correspondance to the marks, under control of the machine's plug board. (This was 1948 technology, but stayed in wide use into the 1970s). Other machines, either tabulator or computer, then read and processed the cards. The marks were read by touching the card with brushes--the graphite in the pencil conducted electricity. IBM directed that special pencils be used with extra graphite so that a good mark would be made (there's a manual on bitsavers explaining all this). Bell operators had mechanical pencils.
On one of the websites out there they described a semi-automated computerized _cord_ long distance switchboard. Apparently the operator had a small sized CRT terminal at her position and entered data via keyboard instead of marking a card. I think the computer dialed the number and timed the call, too. (If anyone knows more would you share it with us?)
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