Greetings, all. This is my very first post on this forum after reading it for many years. I'll try not to blather on too much...
The other night I was watching The Rockford Files. At one point Jim visits the Federal Building in LA, and when he walks in the scene cuts to the view of an agent's desk. The agent is talking to someone via intercom, and what immediately caught my eye was the box that he was supposedly using to control the intercom. It was some sort of adjunct box with what appeared to be two columns of conventional clear 1A2 style keys, like you would see on a 25xx 1A2 desk set of the era (1974). However, to the right of the "conventional" keys was a row of keys, of the same translucent square post design, however smaller and in different colors. There was also enough room on the surface of the box that it may have contained the intercom speaker as well. As far as the phone paired with this adjunct box, it appeared to be an ordinary black 2500 set. I was too busy gawking at the adjunct box to be certain, however; it may have been a 25xx key set.
I say "supposedly" controlling the intercom because TV shows routinely take liberties with these things. The Rockford Files, however, was notorious for being very accurate with phone stuff - any time I have seen a 4A speakerphone used on the show, for example, it was shown complete and apparently functional, instead of the mis-matched and obviously non-functional junk fished out of a dusty prop box that one sees on other shows.
Can anyone enlighten me as to what this box was? One thing that occurs to me as I type this is that the Federal Goverment used to buy a lot of ITT stuff, so it may not have been made by WE. This is assuming, of course, that they were filming inside the real Federal Building and not on a set, but that really is a possibility. One of the reasons that the show went so far over budget (according to the NBC Brass) was too much on-location filming.
If anyone has it on DVD or wants to wade through hulu (wear your rubber boots), it was episode six of the first season entitled "This Case Is Closed." The scene in question is about three-fourths of the way into the second part (it was originally a 90 minute episode, re-tooled into two parts for syndication).
