The prototype of today's TT phones just sold on Ebay for $17,899.99.


First Touch Tone Telephone

wish I had it.....to sell...

18 grand! I wonder if it actually used DTMF or it pulse dialed.

-Hal

Thats probably more then the crossbar switch it was used on cost. I got to go see my friend and dig around in his old shop he has lots of that old stuff.

That is absolute madness! I hate to think of the tons of this type of hardware that ended up in my office dumpster in the 1980's. I recall even having to pay extra fees for the dumpster due to it having been overweight. Man, there were plenty of missed opportunities in there for sure.

It was used on the first tone-dial trials. About 35 Bell of PA families were issued them. It did not use Touch Tones (DTMF) as we know them today, nor was it or its brethren used in public service.

The buttons plucked steel springs that created tones whose volume was very low. This phone was introduced before the invention of the transistor.

There is no CO equipment left that could receive these tones, so it's just (an expensive) curiosity.

I doubt if any of us would have been able to save one as it went into a dumpster. There were only a hundred or so made, and they all were supposed to go back to WE after the trials.


prototype history page

Great link and info Arthur. I have never seen nor heard of such a prototype. Old dog has learned a new trick.

Oh, I know. I wasn't thinking of those particular phones, but I shudder to think of the thousands of A-lead adapters that went out in the trash, along with lots of other 1A2 devices that we considered to be "junk" at the time. Hey, I'd be happy to have half of the rotary dial sets that I threw away that would probably be fetching $$$ on e-bay these days.

Ed, think of how I feel, having been the guy responsible for shoveling 8000 lines' worth of step equipment into a dumpster, back in 1988.

I was noticing the 'Z' in the '0' button, then I glanced at the Panasonic cordless and Vodavi 2701 I can see from my desk and , "When the heck did the 'Q' and 'Z' end up on the '7' and '9' buttons, respectively?" I know most AA/VM's say to push 7 for Q and 9 for Z, but when did the manufacturers start including the letters on the buttons? I guess I need to pay more attention to the 'little' stuff! Sorry, Arthur, Didn't mean to hijack your thread. That IS an interesting bit of history. Let's see, first transistor was 1947? Was the phone a beneficiary of military research from WW2? A question that will probably never be answered. John C.