I worked TSPS in 1983 during the work stoppage just prior to divestiture. Although there may have been other reasons I have long since forgotten, we had to prepare mark sense cards under the following circumstances:
Emergency calls to the police/fire/ambulance. This was pre ubiquitous
911 and we had to have a record of how we disposed of the call. As an aside, we had to first look up the number of the local police department based on the caller's NPA-NXX in a card index flip file, in our case in El Monte TSPS II that was most often the Los Angeles Police Department dispatch number in Van Nuys. Before any of you say " Van Nuys and El Monte are 25 miles apart", generally -- in Pacific at least -- a TSPS office did not handle calls from the area in which it was physically located. You cannot believe the horror and frustration we felt when we were placed in queue because the LAPD center was overloaded could not process the call. Many times we could hear yelling, screaming, "he's got a knife/gun, don't hit me, etc."Certain calls from hotels/motels which did not have automated HOBIC (hotel billing) equipment ...
Calls which we completed when an error code illuminated a button on the console indicating that AMA had not engaged for whatever reason ...
I think some international calls ...
Bill Hendley