atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Telephone Repairs & Equipment Magicall electronic autodialer

I have some Magicall autodialers Model E3 dated 10/73. All the parts are separate having been cut off. The rotary dial plugs in to the main unit so that is not a problem. Does anyone have any idea how to hook up the power supply to the main unit and how is the main unit connected to a telephone or company line? Does anyone know how to program the units? Thanks for any help.

Gee, this must be a "tuffie" or everyone is uninterested. Here's what I found out so far: I examined the power supply and found four connections - R, G, Y, and B. I then opened the main unit and found a corresponding terminal toward the base. I hooked up these wires and actually got one of them to work, at least make all the right noises. I still don't know how to hook this up into the phone system. It has six wires and they are all connected inside the main unit. Could this be for a 1A2 system? The yellow and black wires were taped together. Could that mean they weren't used? Any ideas, anyone?

The "Magicall" is a Bell System Dialer Unit that was manufactured by DASA Corporation (Andover, Massachusetts) for Western Electric. The DASA Corporation doesn't appear to be in business anymore, thus the schematics would/will be difficult to find.

Apparently this is a dialer that was used in conjunction with an intrusion detecting device, i.e. burglar alarm.

There are lots of modern devices that do the same thing, so I would feel free to experiment with that old junk to your heart's content.

If it is an intrusion-detection device, chances are that it's a device that was developed prior to the USOC/RJ program. Based upon the date code of manufacture that you mentioned, that's a fairly safe bet. Without going into that, you probably need to have the phone line enter this unit straight from the CO on one pair of terminals. The yellow and black terminals were probably just for A leads, so disregard them for now. Another pair of terminals would bring the CO line back out of the dialer toward the key system or stations using that line.

By routing the line through the dialer first, this would ensure that it would have priority control over the line in the event of an intrusion. It would cut off any calls in progress and allow the dialer to re-seize the line to dial the emergency call out. Today's emergency dialers are connected through industry-standard RJ31X or RJ38X jacks.

It's not that we aren't interested in assisting, but some of these questions revolve around 35+ year-old equipment. Sometimes, we have to do research or dig into archived manuals to obtain an answer. Sorry for our delay.

I found prints for a "Call-a-matic", a "Rapidial", various "Touch-a-matics" and a bunch of 660 type dialer sets.

If you have any part numbers or pictures, post them. We'll see what we can do.


Sam

This is not a cut and dry situation.
There are many ways to wire this device but
it has to do with what power supply and the issue of it, because there is several rev/issues of this unit.

Connecting the main unit to a phone, keyset whatever also has different wiring options.

I cant promise,but will try and scan this information from Installation manual, and fax it to you.

I do have the manuals but they are faded and yellowed.

I got rid of most old stuff years ago, but still have a few.

It is found in General Tel. of IL. Key telephone System handbook.

Thank you all for your input. Here's what I can add. I don't believe this had anything to do with an intrusion device/detector. I was able to find some info from a British Telecom website as they were used in England also. However, the info posted does not match the operating reality so was not only of no use, but actually potentially harmful.

You are right, the manufacturer, DASA Corp. is no longer in business but I don't know whether it was absorbed or merged or simply ceased operations. I assume the latter because they have lost patent protection on some of their patents.

The Magicall Autodialer was simply this: an electromechanical autodialer of stored pulse-dialed numbers. It was used for businesses that dialed a lot of numbers and in those days before touch-tone dialing, it could save a lot of time. However, this device was almost a dinosaur when it came out - touchtone dialing and other simpler means soon made this machine obsolete: speed dialing from the telephone company, WE's punch card dialer phone, and then the Touch-a-matic to name a few.

I seem to have it connected to the power supply OK, but I still need to know how it hooks up to the CO line. Any help would be appreciated. I would be happy to have STS E fax the info to me and I will e-mail him my fax number.

Take a look at the US Patent Office's information for this device . Under "Background of the Invention", you'll see the Magicall trademark reference. Also, the "Assignee" shown for this patent is the DASA Corporation. Read everything under the Claims section and see if this doesn't sound like the hardware you've got.

You can create a free account here , which gives you access to any images that were submitted during the patent process. Maybe you'll get lucky and run across a schematic or two!

BTW, a site search for Magicall gives a total of four patents, most of which where filed in the early 70's (which squares with the manufactured date on your product). Here is a list of those patents.

I saw the thing on free patents on line website. Didn't find any schematics but my problem now is really finding how to hook them up to different phones.. The Magicall seems to have been an add-on device to older phones.

I found a couple of prints for adding a Magical Dialer to Logic sets. I dont know if this will help you but here they are. Sorry I dont have a scanner so I took a picture.

Thanks, Bob. Anything's a help.

Bill-
Are you still stuck? I have all the info on these. I just need to know exactly which model main unit and dial-in unit you have. There were versions made for the Bell System / Western Electric, and those made for commerical sale.
I'm new to this forum as well!

Jeremy

Yes, I'm still stuck. I am going to let my engineering son try to help me first. It looks like you joined about the same time I did.

GAWD! I'm dating myself - but my grandmother had a couple of these installed at the house when I was about 19. Eventually she swapped them out to the newer "Touchmatics" and I got one of the old units for my use in my room.

Okay - as memory serves me from being a 19 year old phone freak — the MC would interface with single line and 1A2 key equipment. The black/yellow leads were the "a-lead" control that lit the lamp and supported line seizure when a line button was depressed. I got the manual from our Mountain Bell installer and hooked up my own unit all those years ago. I think I had it connected to a 1A2 separate 6 btn key pad, which allowed me to connect the MCall unit to it and still have a single line Trimline with a 25 foot (color matching) six conductor cord on it so I could walk around the room while talking on one of the various lines.

The power supply on the unit came in from the wall power jack and came up over a separate cord as I remember, then it tied together in the base unit. The unit had a dial in a box that plugged into it for programming in the numbers, too. Once a location was programmed, from then on you just pressed the up or down button to scroll electrically (of course) to the name of the listed party and hit the select / dial button.

The dialer could be adjusted for clicks per second but it did not do touch tone — although it would do rotary pulses really fast for a rotary system. The old crossbar CO we were served out of could be outrun by the dialer but when they converted it to an ESS Co I got rid of the Magic Call beast and got some other sort of Dialer on a strip that was an 80's kind of thing. The old Magic Call could be ordered in a version that worked with speakerphones and all sorts of 1A2 key sets. You could fill up the whole desk with a six button 1A2 key set, the Magic call box, a speaker and mike set up, etc. It was not nightstand friendly, that was for certain. Took up too much room! And of course the ubiquitous 25 pair cable running round the room to serve the system. We had five lines, a dial intercom an about 12 or 15 phones in a very large house.

Later they installed some sort of hands free call announce intercom, and later still some sets had Hands Free Answer Back on them. This was STILL 1A2 Key Telephony. Eventually someone talked Grandma into a Merlin system which stayed in the house until she sold it in the late 90's.

Grandma was a ma Bell Stock holder and loved using their toys in the house. Mountain Bell had max residential installation tariffs so they had to install anything the customer ordered for about $35 or $50 per line. And she ordered a LOT! Our library and the front entry hall in the house had six button Panel Phones installed into the walls in both places. The Panel Phone in the Library had both the little separate mike and switch box and the separate Speaker for SpeakerPhone Service in that room. My grandmother was politically active and knew both the Mayor's of Phoenix and the Governors of the State thru the years. Both the Mayor and the Governor joked that she had more telephone lines at home than either of them did. Her usual retort was that she was just doing her best to protect her investments in AT&T! When some stockholder publication would arrive from Western Electric or AT&T, touting some new offering, Grandma would inevitably be on the phone to Mountain Bell special services unit — which took care of high end homes and politicians and other notable citizens — and often she'd know about some new feature or service being available before they'd ever heard of it — necessitating it be backtracked all the way to Western Electric and special ordered and eventually installed for her. When she decided to interface the front gates with the telephone system — so she could answer a special ring, and then dial into the line an unlock code if she wished — and she wanted this for both the drive way gates and the pedestrian gates, it took engineers from Western Electric to design the "special service circuits" for her. But they did it — and tacked some piddly sum on her monthly telephone bill for having installed a lot of equipment and relays and such to make it work. Today we take such things for granted, but back in the 70's and before, it was rare indeed.

Sadly, today it would be such service at any price that would be rare. Much more rare than ever... The idea of giving the customer what they wanted is one that's totally unknown to most of these companies today.,,,,,,,,

Bill-

Did you ever get your info? I have all the prints for these units, including the overhaul manual from the Western Electric Indy Works. I can make you copies or scans if you'd like. I also just came across a small quantity of these units.

Jeremy

Reading these posts brought back memories. I used to work for DASA back in 1971 until it's demise in 1973. I worked in the NY area and my primary job was to install Magicall units at customer locations. I still have a few units sitting in my basement.

If you look at Telephone Collectors International's web site, https://www.telephonecollectors.org/DocumentLibrary/BSPs/index.htm, go to the auto dialers section and there are pdfs on installation, maintenance and general information. Everything you wanted to know about the Magicall is there, including wiring diagrams. Look for BSPs in the 512-125-100 - 300 sections. I was able to connect my Magicall and had it work.

I went there but coulnt get in I guess you need to be a member?

Were you prohibited from getting in, or did you receive a 404 error message?

When you click on the link that Dwight provided, you must delete the comma at the very end, then refresh the page. The comma is causing a search error.