The “Petite,” a compact new extension telephone with illuminated dial, has been introduced by Stromberg-Carlson Division of General Dynamics for the independent telephone industry. The dial light glows dimly when the ‘phone is not in use, lights up brightly for dialing when the handset is picked up. Subscriber can turn off the light entirely by a switch in the base. Although the “Petite” has no built-in ringer, a compact wall-type bell box is available so that it can be used as a primary telephone instead of as an extension. The new narrow shape is intended to make the instrument more convenient for bedside table and other applications.

Sound Film Now Repeats Dialed Telephone Numbers

THE principal convenience of the dial telephone was that it enabled you to pick your own wrong numbers, but even this is done away with now by a sound film which repeats the number which you have just dialed and enables you to correct the mistakes which you may have made.

The new invention does not necessitate the use of the subscriber’s voice. The subscriber merely dials the number and that number is called to central as the sound film automatically repeats the number through a loud speaker. The new method is expected to be put in use before the end of the year.

Miss Catherine Marie Shaugnesy, who was picked to record the various sounds when tests showed her to possess the clearest voice, is shown here listening to the numbers being repeated from the loud speaker while Sergius P. Grace of the Bell Telephone Laboratories dials the numbers.

Light Me Up by Phone Some Time!

MERRIAM HOPKINS, Paramount motion picture star, has had installed at the studio a telephone which flashes a light instead of ringing the well-known bell.

This arrangement becomes necessary if a star or other picture employee expects phone calls while working in the sound-proof talkie studio.

Phone Booth Needs No Door
A DE LUXE telephone booth, utilizing a sound absorbent material instead of glass or wood panels, is the latest development of the Burgess Battery Company, of Chicago, Ill. Open around the base, and because of the remarkable absorption qualities of the lining, no door is required. This feature of the design facilitates natural ventilation and easy cleaning, yet greater privacy is achieved than in the ordinary closed booth.

Raising a Switchboard One Floor without Stopping the Telephone Service

The novel expedient of raising a main switchboard from the first to the second floor of the telephone exchange at West Palm Beach, Florida, was accomplished recently without at all interfering with the telephone service. The telephone company had added a floor to the building and then decided to get the switchboard up on it in such a way that the change would not embarrass the subscribers.

The decision to do this was made before the floor had been completed, so that a large opening was left among the rafters of the new floor, big enough to permit the switchboard to go through on a temporary platform, supported by powerful chains. Back of the board the cables of wires leading to it had been extended so as not to hamper the movement of the platform.

Three telephone girls continued at work while the platform was being slowly raised and though it was a rather shaky operation, none of the operatives paid much attention to it, answering calls as though nothing had happened. Nor did the telephone users become aware of what was going on. When the switchboard had been lifted to the second floor, the placing of it in position was a comparatively simple task

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HOW TO TAP A PHONE

By Tony Karp

THERE are many ways to tap a phone; most of them against the law. Our little gadget, however, is quite legal and can be used to great advantage at home or in the office.

Basically, the unit consists of a pickup coil, an amplifier and a speaker. The pickup coil is placed under, or near, any transformer-type telephone without being in physical contact with it. As the electrical currents pass through the phone, part of the energy is induced into the pickup coil. This energy is fed into the amplifier where it is amplified to the point where it will operate the loudspeaker, enabling everyone within range to hear what is being said at the other end of the telephone line. This will come in handy when some relative is calling long-distance; your whole family can hear what he is saying. Or, in the office, the whole staff can hear a salesman’s report. There are other uses for the pickup, limited only by your own imagination.

The unit is a four-transistor audio amplifier with three transformer- coupled stages. The last stage is push-pull for greater clarity and higher output. When idle, it only draws about five milliamperes because the last stage does not draw any current until a signal is applied to it. Yet it has plenty of “sock” and on a good signal will put out over a quarter of a watt, enough to drive the four-inch speaker with plenty of volume. Since the amplifier draws 25 to 35 milliamperes only when there is a signal, the battery will give many hours of use before it needs replacing.

The first step in construction is to drill the holes to mount the chassis and the speaker in the meter case. Remove the decorative moulding on the front of the case. The two holes under the moulding must be drilled or reamed to a half-inch so that the nuts on the volume control and the jack will fit snugly and serve to support the front of the chassis. The case is made of light steel and no trouble in drilling the holes will be encountered if a sharp drill is used. Punch a slight indentation before the hole is started.

Since the amplifier is built in a fairly large case, there is plenty of space for a chassis that will hold all the parts without crowding. An unusual feature is that everything is attached to the chassis. This includes the input jack, the volume control and the battery.

By removing the two nuts holding the brackets in the back, the chassis can be removed intact for servicing.

Before construction of the chassis can be started, the mounting holes for the battery holder, transformers and brackets must be drilled. Using the photo and drawing of the chassis as a guide, lay out the transformers on the chassis and drill holes with a No. 30 drill. The same size holes should be made for the battery holder and brackets; the jack and volume control are mounted under the chassis. Make sure that the brackets for these parts are positioned carefully so that the nut on the volume control and the jack will match up with the two holes in the front of the case.

Next, mount the parts on the chassis. The first stage of the amplifier is mounted at the front of the chassis and the other two follow along the side with the push-pull stage being at the back. Flea clips are used to hold the transistors; they also act as binding posts. As a result, the usual rectangular holes for sockets do not have to be drilled. Three clips are used for each transistor. Mark the flea clip that holds the collector (C) of each transistor with a spot of red nail polish or paint so that you will be sure to connect the transistor with its proper polarity.

Insert the leads of the components into the holes in the chassis. Bend them slightly so they will stay in place. Now you can begin the soldering. Check the schematic carefully as you perform this operation. Be sure that the color coding on the leads of the transformer are correct to avoid oscillation. Another cause of oscillation is neglecting to ground the black lead on the output transformer. Solder this wire to a ground on the chassis and run a wire from there to the speaker. A solder joint on the frame of the speaker will not work. Check also for correct polarity on the electrolytic condensers.

Before testing the amplifier go over the schematic again to be sure that all connections are correct. A few minutes spent checking at this time may save you the trouble of later replacing a transistor.

Slide the chassis into the case so that the nuts pass through the holes in the front and support the chassis. Hold the chassis level and drill two holes for the bolts that will pass through the brackets in the back. Now remove the chassis and insert the transistors in the flea clips, making sure that the collector side is next to the red dot. When you clip the leads of the transistors, leave them a little long; this may save you trouble later. Put the battery into its holder and put on its snaps.

Insert the speaker and grille cloth. Now, install the chassis and bolt it in place. Solder the two leads from the speaker to the two flea clip binding posts on the rear of the chassis. Leave a little slack in these wires so that the chassis can be removed without unsoldering.

Solder the shielded cable from the phone pickup to the miniature plug. The inside wire goes to the short side of the plug, the braided part to the long part. Now the unit is ready to be tested.

Turn the amplifier on. If the unit is functioning correctly, the only sound from the speaker will be the normal hiss generated by the transistors. If the unit oscillates, check the ground on the input, the volume control and the output. If it still oscillates, check the leads on the transformers and be sure that R4 is the right value.

If no sound is heard, check the battery polarity and make sure that the transistors are inserted properly. If this fails to produce results, a check of the schematic against your unit is in order.

Now plug in the phone pickup jack for a final test. Turn on the amplifier and place the pickup coil underneath the base of your telephone. Remember, it must be the kind of telephone which has its transformer in the base and not in a separate box on the wall. In the latter case, the pickup coil of course must be placed near the wall box. At any rate, you should now be in business and all your family or friends will be able to listen in comfort to long distance calls. •

Here is the new push-button office telephone…

the CALL director

for the person who makes a lot of calls, or takes a lot of calls This is the most advanced and flexible telephone ever offered to business! More than a new product, the Call Director is a new concept in telephone design and service.

It provides fast, easy handling of outside and interoffice calls plus special features to fit your communications needs. By pushing a button you can—
• Connect with other office telephones
• Set up interoffice conference calls
• “Add-on” other office extensions to incoming calls.

The modern, space-saving Call Director comes in two models. One has up to 30 buttons—the other up to 18— for any combination of features. Each comes in ivory, beige, green or gray.

The Call Director’s many advanced features make it the ideal telephone for busy executives, for secretaries or clerks who answer for a number of people — for anyone in business who makes or takes a lot of calls.

Find out how the Call Director can speed your business by improving your communications. Call your Bell Telephone Business Office. A representative will visit you at your convenience — no obligation, of course.

BELL TELEPHONE SYSTEM

Bill-Saving Lock for Dial Phones

LONG distance and other expensive calls made over your telephone without your consent can be prevented by a dial lock now being marketed. The lock consists of a metal cover which fits snugly over the dial, and is equipped with a lock which holds it firmly in place, as illustrated in the accompanying photo. Key may be carried on ring.

Pushbuttons replace dials on telephone

Tests in regular service last winter at Carnegie and Greensburg, Pa., suburbs of Pittsburgh, have shown it’s easier and more than twice as fast to press buttons for a phone call than it is to twirl a dial. As each “touch-tone” button is pushed, it sounds a pleasing musical tone.

Bell is introducing the phone area by area, will nave it in general use within the next 10 years.

Linemen Train on Grove of Junior Phone Poles
This is how you learn to climb poles in the Air Force. The grove of stub poles makes an open-air classroom for future linemen at Warren Air Base in Wyoming. The poles last about a month—by then the students’ spikes gouge them so badly they must be replaced.

Mike and Speaker on Phone Make Talk More Convenient

THE latest gadget for attachment to your telephone is an amplifier and loudspeaker which permits you to speak and listen without holding the transmitter up to your face.

As shown in the photo at the left, the transmitter-receiver piece is hung on a special device which feeds into an amplifier that boosts both the incoming and out-coming voice. The former issues from a loudspeaker, while the latter is picked up by a super-sensitive microphone.

Dialing is accomplished in the usual manner. The device is the invention of Hans Schmidt, a Berlin Engineer, who labored for five years on the development of his creation.

SAFETY PHONE GUARDS AGAINST EXPLOSIONS
A new type of explosion-proof telephone, exhibited in Chicago, is a recent addition to the roster of curious safety appliances developed especially for use in industries where dust, gunpowder, or inflammable gases present the constant hazard of a blast. Not only does the construction of the instrument guard against the possibility of an electrical spark igniting any combustible material in the surrounding air, but even the mechanical working parts have been designed particularly with a view to reducing friction so that a spark cannot be produced.

SUPER-ROBOT SPEEDS PHONED TELEGRAMS

When a New Yorker calls one of the city’s principal telegraph companies on the phone to send a wire, he now sets in motion a super-robot so swift that a stopwatch often cannot time it.

Within the short space of one second, on the average, he hears the answering voice of one of 110 girls, who sit at desks as shown in photo above. This is made possible by the “automatic call distributor, ” called one of the most important inventions in recent years.

This intricate machine, a maze of contacts and wires twice as tall as a man, instantly detects an incoming call, hunts for and finds an unoccupied typist, plugs in a connection to her desk, and signals that there is a message for her to take. If she fails to respond, the robot switches the call to another typist.

Similar “robots” are planned for Chicago and Boston, according to Western Union officials who installed the first one.

PHONE CALLS ARE ANSWERED BY MACHINE (May, 1924)
I’d seen a lot of answering machines in later magazines but I was pretty surprised to see this one in a 1924 Popular Mechanics. It even features a dial indicator that shows how many calls the owner has missed.

Device Answers Phone and Tells Caller When You Will Return to Office (Aug, 1932)
This later product called the “Ansophone” is a an answering machine in the literal sense of the word. It will answer the phone and play a message to the caller, but it doesn’t record any incoming messages.

The Perfect Secretary—a Machine (Apr, 1933)
This gigantic contraption seems to be functionally equivalent to the first machine above. You’d think after almost a decade that the technology would allow a smaller device, not a bigger one. I’m guessing that it probably worked a lot better though.

Making a Telephone Talk Through Loudspeaker

“WILL you speak a little louder please?” That request is unnecessary for users of a new telephone loudspeaker invented by H.O. Rugh, of Chicago, Ill. The installation consists of a horn loudspeaker operating from the telephone receiver through an audio amplifier similar to amplifiers used in radio. The latter is supplied with current from the house lighting circuit and is contained in a small cabinet upon which the telephone instrument rests.

The turn of a knob is said to lift the telephone receiver automatically so the voice of the person at the other end of the wire can be heard through the speaker. When the telephone is not in use, the speaker can be used with a small radio receiver especially designed for the purpose and connected with the amplifier. It is tuned with a dial like any other radio set.

Directory Dials the Phone

A NEW desk telephone directory not only finds the number you want but actually dials it for you. All you have to do is slide the knob on the face of the device, called an Auto Dial, to the name you want, then press the small lever at the foot of the machine. When the lever returns to its normal position, in five or six seconds, your call is made and you pick up the phone.

The Auto Dial was invented by a German before the war. The only sample in this country is owned by Alfred Altman, President of the National Dairymen Association. The machine can handle any 50 telephone numbers desired by the user, and changes can be made at will.

The signals can be made up of any number of letters and digits, according to the system used in the local exchange. The regular hand dial on the telephone can be used in the ordinary way when the automatic device has been attached.

What the Telephone Map Shows

EVERY dot on the map marks a town where there is a telephone exchange, the same sized dot being used for a large city as for a small village. Some of these exchanges are owned by the Associated Bell companies and some by independent companies. Where joined together in one system they meet the needs of each community and, with their suburban lines, reach 70,000 places and over 8,000,000 subscribers.

The pyramids show that only a minority of the exchanges are Bell-owned, and that the greater majority of the exchanges are owned by independent companies and connected with the Bell System.

At comparatively few points are there two telephone companies, and there are comparatively few exchanges, chiefly rural, which do not have outside connections.

The recent agreement between the Attorney General of the United States and the Bell System will facilitate connections between all telephone subscribers regardless of who owns the exchanges.

Over 8,000 different telephone companies have already connected their exchanges to provide universal service for the whole country.

American Telephone and Telegraph Company And Associated Companies
One Policy One System Universal Service

Related posts

• Sixty billion vibrations per second (Sep, 1914)
• We dug and refilled a 4000-mile trench to protect 9300 communications circuits against disaster (Sep, 1914)
• New Bell Solar Battery Converts Sun’s Rays Into Electricity (Sep, 1914)
• One finger works all this (Sep, 1914)
• Bell System Data-Phone (Sep, 1914)
• TRANSISTORS-first family of electronics (Sep, 1914)

“Finger” Speeds Dialing

Easily attached to the top of a dial-telephone receiver, a metal finger now on the market fits snugly into the dial holes, helps prevent inaccurate dialing, eliminates the danger of broken finger nails, and speeds up the dialing process by about ten percent.

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Heroes of the Switchboard and Phone Lines

FIRES, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes— these are some of the hazards that bring drama into the work of telephone employes. Keeping communication lines open during disasters is a vital matter. As long as nature behaves herself, as long as things go along normally, the work of the lineman, the operator, and the man on the test board is routine, but when trouble begins heroes are made.

When fire swept through the Cleveland Clinic, in 1929, the telephone employes stuck to their posts and kept the lines open, greatly facilitating the rescue work, while more than 120 persons died around them. In the wake of the fire, explosions shook the building. Poisonous chemical fumes billowed through the halls. Gladys Gibson, branch exchange operator, stayed at her position calling ambulances and the fire and police departments. Rescuers found her crumpled over the switchboard. The cords plugged into lines throughout the building bore mute witness to her efforts to spread the alarm, while a window a few feet away provided a means of escape, had she preferred to take it. The usual award of the phone company for valiant action was used to erect a fitting memorial.

Gerald Mahaffey, Walton Turner, Benjamin Spaeth, James Roonan—these are names of other telephone employes on the Cleveland Clinic roll of honor. Dampened handkerchiefs over mouths and noses, they went again and again into the building, carrying out victims and keeping up communication service from the switchboard. Saticoy, Calif., was in the path of a wall of water sweeping down from the bursting St. Francis Dam. Mrs. Althea Marks, warned of the disaster, stayed at her switchboard calling residents of the threatened Santa Clara valley, sending messengers to those she could not reach by phone. After the flood had subsided, she continued for three days and two nights without respite to direct the relief workers in the stricken area. In the same disaster a lineman swam through the flood, a line end tied around his waist, to reestablish a broken circuit. Another worked on for hours although he knew his own home and family were in the danger area, and might have been swept away.

The Bell Telephone company recognizes heroic acts of individual employes by giving gold, silver, or bronze medals and cash awards from the Theodore N. Vail memorial fund, but when southern California was rocked by earthquakes in 1933, practically all employes in the area performed outstanding service, and a group award of a special plaque was made. Typical of the spirit shown was an incident in an exchange in the center of the disturbance. A call had been sent out for volunteers to aid harrassed operators. Among many others one woman, a former employe, responded and was assigned a station. Some time later the superintendent noticed she was so nervous she could hardly go ahead with the board. He learned she had left her baby ill at home, in the care of its bedfast and helpless grandmother. She was excused.

At the Long Beach toll office, a water tank on the roof had been turned over by the first tremor and volumes of water were pouring down through the operating room. A chandelier crashed, narrowly missing some of the operators. Falling debris littered the floor. In the darkened room, with only the switchboard lights to provide illumination, and with hastily thrown up * timbers supporting the walls, the operators worked until finally ordered to leave the building.

Major disasters like these sometimes bring the work of the telephone employes to public notice. But day in and day out scattered instances of the same type occur and are recorded only in the company reports. A woman, succumbing to the effects of leaking gas, groped her way to the phone and knocked it over before she collapsed. A telephone patrolman, always on the alert for trouble, cut in on the line to learn why the receiver was off. Turning in a powerful set of batteries, he amplified the sound on the open line until the labored breathing of the woman became clearly audible. Minutes later a repair man, with the help of a neighbor, broke into the house and rescued the woman. Some-times it is the operator who senses trouble. Alarmed by a woman’s weak voice and her failure to hang up the receiver, an operator had the test board man cut in with the “howler tone,” a gradually increasing sound that calls the subscriber’s attention to the fact that the line is open. Getting no response, she called a doctor, who arrived in time to save the woman, suffering from an overdose of medicine.

The work of telephone linemen and repairmen, in spite of safeguards, is not always safe. High-voltage lines near by are an ever-present hazard. One repairman was inspecting overhead cables when the cable car in which he was riding came into contact with a trolley wire. A fellow workman, on the ground nearly fifty feet away, heard his cry in time to run beneath and catch the man as he fell, saving him from possible death.

Another lineman, encumbered with a heavy tool box and climbers, fell into a flood-swollen river. His companion jumped from a twenty-foot trestle, brought the victim to the surface and fought his way through floating debris to the river bank but, with his helpless burden, he was unable to reach firm ground. Climbing on the submerged branches of a tree, he hauled the unconscious man out of the water, cast off the equipment and swam with him to where some logs had lodged against a tree. There he applied artificial respiration, restoring the man to consciousness, and together they made the shore.

All linemen are trained in the principles of first aid and artificial respiration, and many times this knowledge has been used to save lives. And not always is it a fellow workman who benefits. In Boston, James Geagan was laying conduit near a drawbridge under which a diver was working. Hearing cries for help, Geagan ran to the water and found that the boat from which the diver had been working was attached to the underspan of the bridge and had been lifted up when the bridge raised, spilling the diver’s assistants, air pump and equipment into the water. Geagan jumped in, found the lines attached to the diver, and pulled him to the surface. At that moment, the ropes holding the boat suspended broke and the boat, in falling, struck Geagan’s outstretched hands, knocking the lines loose. The diver began to sink again and to make matters worse, one of the assistants, still struggling in the water, accidentally kicked and broke the window of the diver’s helmet, sinking him like a plummet. Geagan climbed to some piling and dived, but failed to locate the lines. Once more he dived and when almost exhausted, he found the diver, brought him to the surface, swam to a raft, and there helped to pull the unconscious man out of the water. Although dizzy and bleeding from the nose, he alternated with a fellow employe for nearly an hour in applying artificial respiration before the diver regained consciousness.

It is not heroism alone that is recognized with a Vail award. Hazel Haase, chief op-Clinton, Ind., learned that five Lad robbed a bank in her town making their escape in an automobile with the police in pursuit. She no-county sheriff and the authorities towns in the direction taken by the Bandits’ car. Then she broadcast a description of the car to citizens of the countryside/and requested them to keep her informed of the bandits’ movements. Though the bandits commandeered other cars and frequently changed their course, she immediately relayed such information to the authorities. After a pursuit of more than fifty miles they were surrounded, three of them killed, two captured and the loot was recovered.

Thus the story unfolds daily of these modern Paul Reveres whose voices travel the countryside to warn of impending danger or to bring help where needed. Like modern Horatios, the telephone men and women stick to their posts with fire, crumbling walls, or rising water about them and count it all part of the day’s work.

People do have video crib monitors, solar panels are available, but are not quite efficient enough to power a house, as he predicted. Video phones are only now really practical because of the bandwidth limitations spelled out in the article. We don’t have ultrasonic washing machines in our houses, but ultrasonics are used in a number of areas for cleaning. We do (did) rent movies for our color VCRs, and there are megahertz range computers managing very complicated factory production with very little human intervention. Not to mention touch tone phones and microwave ovens. Plus, if you showed that picture of a flat screen tv on the first page to someone without any context they’d probably guess that someone had hacked an LCD monitor to look all “retro”. By the way, if you’re interested in flat screen TVs, you should check out this one from 1958.

I’ve actually been wanting to post this article for a few years. When I was posting this piece about a pocket transistor radio, I noticed that the author used the word “stereatronics”, which I’d never heard. I googled it and found the complete text of this article, with no pictures, here. After reading it I learned that stereatronics was a word created for this article, which they hoped would catch on. It didn’t. I thought it would be perfect to post to the site, so I tracked down a copy. Then when I got it I realized that Colliers magazine was 11×14″ and I couldn’t fit it on my scanner. However, I recently bought an 11×17″ scanner for the site, and so here it is.

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Stereatronics – A New Science that Will Change Your Way of Life

Tiny solids are turning the electronics industry upside down. Some vibrate, others change light to energy or energy to light, or direct current to alternating. Together, they spell revolution

A NEW science, stereatronics, has been creeping up on us in the last few years and has started to make major changes in the way we live. Few of us have noticed any difference; the changes have come so quietly that even many of the people who are closest to the new science are surprised at what it has been doing. Yet the evidences have been all about us.

—Television sets are a great deal less expensive now than they were a relatively few months ago.

—More and more tape recorders are being sold. Five years back, they were too costly for most people. Ten years ago, they weren’t to be had at any price.

—New phonographs sound better than models just a few years old. There are many reasons, but one important contribution is made by a new-style pickup.

—A recent innovation in automobiles is a headlight that dims automatically as another car approaches.

—Are you reading this magazine by fluorescent light? Its glowing tube was one of the first harbingers of the new science. The photoelectric cell that opens doors automatically was another.

The exciting fact is not only that these changes are occurring (they’re insignificant compared to what’s coming), but that they are caused by little bits and pieces of solid matter—tiny, brightly colored rings, wafers and blocks, many of them no larger than the letter “o” on this page.

Some of these devices are taking the place of complicated wire and metal electronic gadgets; others are performing jobs that are entirely new, even revolutionary.

These little objects, or stereatrons, are tipping the electronics industry upside down. New ways to use them are being discovered literally faster than they can be developed. Some of the solids give off power when light is applied. Others give off light when power is applied. Some vibrate with tremendous speed, a characteristic with great promise. Some change alternating to direct current, or amplify an electronic signal, or delay a signal for an instant—or remember it indefinitely.

In the latest television sets, certain stereatrons are replacing old-style rectifiers and transformers, at a considerable saving in cost (in addition, of course, the cost of TV sets has been cut sharply because of improved production techniques). The coating on the TV screen is composed of thousands of tiny stereatrons, and other stereatrons are beginning to take over the functions of the small tubes in all sorts of electronic equipment. The magnetic surface of the tape recorder, which “remembers” sounds fed to it, also consists of many tiny solids. Other solid devices are being used to help translate the vibrations of a phonograph needle into enjoyable sound.

Those are all present uses of the stereatron, and there are many more. The future uses—those expected in just a few years—are countless.

A dentist’s drill being developed consists principally of a piece of nickel, one of the vibrating stereatrons; by vibrating 29,000 times a second, it sets up sound waves which drill quietly and less painfully. In the next few years, another vibrating solid may be used to operate a washing machine in which it is the only important moving part; its vibrations will literally shake the dirt out of clothes. Through the use of tiny stereatrons, refrigerators and air conditioners with no moving parts whatever also may be developed. Another device under consideration is a television screen so thin that it can be hung on the wall like a picture. A new clinical thermometer being made available to doctors makes use of a stereatron that reacts to heat; powered by a tiny battery, it shows a patient’s temperature within seconds. Someday, not too many years from now, your house will light up automatically as the sun goes down—and the artificial illumination will come from the entire surface of your ceilings (or walls, or windows, if you wish), instead of from isolated bulbs.

Hundreds of other stereatronic devices are being planned which promise cheaper, more efficient, longer-lasting appliances, better communications, improved transportation, new kinds of entertainment—even a general rise in the standard of living, through stereatronically operated factories. One of the most exciting projects envisions a tiny portable radar set which may provide the blind with a “picture” of the obstacles that lie in their path.

Progress in the field has been so fast that the scientists working in stereatronics—electronics engineers, physicists, chemists, metallurgists, ceramicists and mathematicians, among others—haven’t even had time to compare notes. As a result, stereatronics hasn’t developed a language of its own, as sciences usually do. In fact, until recently the science itself didn’t have a name; physicists said they were working on “solid state physics,” chemists referred to “materials research,” and others used such names as “electronic solids,” “solid state electronics,” or simply “solid state.”

How the New Science Acquired Its Name.

While this report was being compiled, the word stereatronics (ster’e·a·tron’ics) was suggested by Collier’s to fill a need felt by all of these scientists. It was derived, after consultation with both electronics experts and etymologists, from the Greek word for solids, stereos, and the word electronics. Defined as, “the science of the controllable electronic performance of solids,” it is already in use among scientists in the field.

The lack of a name, according to some researchers, was a major handicap. It prevented co-operation among scientists working on various aspects of stereatronics, because they were unaware of the work being done by others. It added just one more complication to a science already beset by complexities.

“It takes nearly a full year of close teamwork on these solid devices,” Dr. Lloyd T. DeVore, chief of General Electric’s electronics laboratory, told me, “before our scientists and engineers can even begin to understand one another.”

Stereatronics is a difficult science largely because it deals with the electrical and mechanical properties of matter—properties which defied comprehension for years and which even now experts find astonishing. In its 40 years of existence, the electronics industry has produced a variety of complex tubes, coils, transformers and so on, which have made possible the marvel of modern radios, television sets, lighting and the like. Now scientists are finding that the stereatrons do many jobs just as well, and some a great deal better.

The ironical fact is that radio engineers stumbled on the first practical stereatron long before there was any such object as an electronic tube, but failed to realize its significance.

Do you remember the galena crystal in the “cat’s whisker” radio of the 1920s? Nobody knew why it worked, but it did unscramble radio waves as they came in on an antenna, and at the same time transmitted enough energy to vibrate the diaphragms in a pair of earphones, so the radio waves became audible sound. The galena crystal had major shortcomings as a radio receiver. It wouldn’t amplify the sound it received, and it was exasperatingly inefficient at pulling the right signal out of the ether; you might spend hours poking at it before getting the station you wanted. It ultimately was abandoned in favor of the more effective vacuum tubes.

“For all the years since,” said Dr. DeVore, “we’ve been inventing wonderful gadgets in glass, wire and metal to make all our electronic equipment work efficiently—while all the time, if we’d only known it, nature, with a little help from us, could have done the same jobs at a fraction of the power and cost.”

Today nature is getting a second chance. One of the most important results will be the miniaturization of all sorts of electronic apparatus, from bulky computers to portable radios.

Some of the computers now in use are so big they occupy whole buildings. The same machines, using stereatrons, will be packed into a space not much larger than a couple of filing cabinets. Furthermore, they’ll be more efficient, more economical and longer-lasting than any computer which can be made today.

Other examples are even more striking.

“Most modern electric-powered locomotives,” Dr. Paul Jordan of GE told me, “operate on alternating current because direct current is impractical to transmit for long distances. Alternating current is less effective than DC, though; the locomotive would be much more efficient if it could change the AC to DC before using it. But the rectifier required for the job would have to be ridiculously large—about the size of the locomotive itself. At least, it would have had to be that large once.” He reached for a box and sifted a dozen silver-colored wafers into his hand. “These will do the trick soon,” he said.

Dick Tracy’s Wrist Radio Was Prophetic.

Some years ago, cartoonist Chester Gould imaginatively presented his comic-strip character, Dick Tracy, with a portable radio which could be worn on the wrist. Today the electronics industry is catching up with Gould’s imagination; there’s scarcely a concern in the highly competitive industry that doesn’t have plans for a vest-pocket-sized radio receiver that will dispense with present-day tubes, wires, sockets, transformers and chassis.

“The innards of tomorrow’s little portable receiver,” Dr. Irving Wolff of RCA told me, “will be nothing more than a small loud-speaker and a plastic plate with some lines and bumps in it. The lines will be a printed electrical circuit—metal strips etched into the plastic—and the bumps will be the little solids that will do all the work. A tiny battery will run the whole works for a year.”

It will be some years before you can buy one of the little portables. They’re expensive—and military needs come first. Nearly every type of stereatronic device now being manufactured is going to the armed services. Solids are replacing various components in radio transmitters and receivers, radar sets, antiaircraft target calculators, weapons-control systems, submarine acoustical apparatus, aircraft computers, guided missiles and the like.

But once the requirements of the services have been filled you can expect a gradual flow of stereatronic equipment which, over the years, will touch on nearly every aspect of your life.

The greatest impact will occur in your home.

For years, there has been talk of a dream house that would be equipped with telephone-TV, ranges that cook meals in seconds, electronic temperature controls, automatic room lighting, and a long list of other highly desirable features.

“All of those advances have been technically possible for a long time,” Dr. Wolff said, “but they were impractical, physically and economically.” Hundreds of vacuum tubes, numerous metal components, miles of wire and great quantities of power would have been needed to make the equipment work—all at great cost.

Today the dream house has been made practical by stereatrons. Stereatron-studded wiring, strung inside your walls, will provide plugless and shock-less induction power; a stereatron touching the outside of the wall will pick up current without requiring an outlet. Electric power will be less expensive, too: stereatrons used by the power company will help cut the cost of producing electricity, and the stereatronic appliance in your home will need less power.

Some of the most important changes impending will be caused by the phosphor particle, a stereatron that gives off light when power is applied to it. A coating of phosphors is what makes the inside of a fluorescent light tube glow; and the same kind of coating, made bright in some places, dark in others, causes the picture to appear on your television screen.

A wall or ceiling panel coated with phosphors would become a source of light if an electric current were passed through it. Hook up a series of such panels to another of the stereatrons, one that reacts to the slightest change in outside light—and you have a setup that will turn on your house lights automatically as twilight falls, and keep increasing the intensity of the artificial light as the outside darkness increases.

Prospects for Picture-on-the-Wall TV.

A new method of carrying electronic impulses to the phosphors on your TV screen will ultimately make possible picture-on-the-wall television. Instead of the bulky picture tube which now comprises nearly half your TV set, you’ll have a flat screen that will be connected to your receiver by a few wires, and can be hung anywhere. The reason for today’s long tube is the need for a so-called electron gun at the small end; it bombards the phosphor-coated screen with impulses that cause the tiny stereatrons to glow. The new screens will have a network of hair-thin wires which intersect behind each phosphor dot; as a signal hits the point where the wires cross, the phosphor speck will light up to any degree of brightness that’s ordered. The pictures can be in full color, of course.

Stereatronic advances will bring down the cost of television sets so that it will be practical to have a number of receivers and screens in your house. They will provide not only entertainment, but closed-circuit communication within the home, when used in conjunction with small, portable TV cameras (RCA calls them TV Eyes). The new cameras, about half the size of a telephone directory and weighing only a few pounds, will let you keep an eye on Junior in the playroom at the flick of a switch, or check to see who’s calling when the front doorbell rings. The effectiveness of these midget cameras lies in a stereatronic coating on the face of a tube known as the Vidicon. This substance, a compound of antimony and sulphur, is sensitive to light. It also has certain properties which enable it to transmit as a TV signal the light variations (or pictures) it picks up—skipping a whole series of complicated amplifying operations required by large studio cameras.

The RCA Vidicon tube (other companies have cameras of their own, some employing the Vidicon) costs about $100 at present. The tube which does the same job in a studio camera is considerably more sensitive—but it’s also 15 times as expensive, partly because it’s so hard to manufacture that every second tube made has to be discarded because of imperfections. Of course, the Vidicon tube is only part of the camera; the complete Vidicon camera costs about $900, far too much for general household use. However, the addition of other stereatronic devices is expected to lower the price substantially—perhaps down to $150 or $200.

And that will be a bargain indeed—because besides watching the baby, the Vidicon camera can be adapted to take home movies on magnetic tape. No processing will be required and you won’t need a special projector. You’ll simply play the video tape back through the recording apparatus and see on your TV screen, in full color and with sound, the pictures you shot a few minutes before.

New Fields for Tape Recordings.

You’ll also be able to use your recording apparatus to tape your favorite television shows. Moreover, you’ll be able to buy video tape recordings of musical stage shows, just as you now purchase your phonograph records or 16-millimeter home movies.

Color video tape recording has already been developed experimentally, but for studio use only. The method is somewhat similar to standard sound-recording techniques on magnetic tape, but much more complicated.

The tape is covered with magnetic oxide particles. As it passes through the recorder, the tape picks up and stores away five signals, which comprise a sort of electronic shorthand. There’s one signal each for the three primary colors, another for the sound track and a fifth which synchronizes sight and sound (the tape “remembers” the five signals because the electronic impressions rearrange the form of the magnetic coating). When the video tape is played back, this compact code, like a punched music roll on an old-time player piano, reproduces all the signals simultaneously as sound-and-color TV. Right now the process requires a complicated battery of equipment which fills one whole wall, but in time, RCA Chairman David Sarnoff says, “low-cost video tape equipment of simpler and more compact design than the studio-type apparatus we now have can be made available.”

Television also will be adapted, eventually, for use in conjunction with the telephone. But that advance will take a while, perhaps 20 years or more. Sending a TV picture from one room to another is a fairly simple procedure. Sending it to the house down the block is somewhat more difficult, because no simple equipment now known will transmit a picture over any substantial distance without amplification. City-to-city transmissions require the use of coaxial cables; the latest cables are capable of carrying 3,600 voice signals (that is, 1,800 conversations) —but of the cable’s 3,600 channels, no less than 1,200 are needed to carry a television picture! To be sure, TV pictures can be transmitted through the air without the use of wires, but there simply aren’t enough frequencies in the spectrum to carry the number of pictures that would result from widespread use of TV-phones.

It’s a difficult problem, but not insoluble. As more and cheaper circuits come into existence and new transmission methods are developed, the videophone will become available. You’ll just have to wait a little longer than for some of the other stereatronic advances.

But you won’t have much of a wait for another telephonic development. By making use of the transistor (the most famous of the stereatrons, consisting of a tiny solid within a plastic or metal case), Bell Telephone engineers have already made direct long-distance dialing available in some communities, and they hope to have 20 exchanges converted to it by the end of this year.

The transistor will improve telephonic communication in other respects, too. Jack A. Morton, in charge of transistor development at Bell Laboratories, explained how.

“In a modern telephone switching office, to handle 10,000 subscribers at top speed we need 40,000 to 50,000 relays or switching units,” Morton told me. “We’d like to replace these metal units with vacuum tubes, which work 1,000 times as fast. But the average tube has a life expectancy of only a few thousand hours; with 40,000 tubes, we could expect one to fail every six minutes. And think of the heat the tubes would generate; obviously, tubes would be impractical.

“Transistors may solve the problem. They’ll do the same job as vacuum tubes, using only a fraction of the power. Unlike tubes, they need no warmup. And above all, they’re rugged: you can drop them or shoot them out of a gun—there’s nothing to break. Properly made, they should last years.”

Transistors for Smaller Hearing Aids.

Some transistors are already on the market, but they cost from $3.75 to $50. Ultimately they should be available for less than a dollar. Meanwhile, they are being built into at least one consumer product. Zenith, Sonotone and Maico have used the little solids to replace tubes in hearing aids; as a result, the appliances have been reduced to about the size of a cigarette lighter—small enough to be hidden in a woman’s hair.

Within the next few years, more and more transistors will be channeled into civilian production. That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to yank the tubes out of your radio and substitute the little stereatrons. New circuits will be needed; you’ll have to buy another radio. But—eventually, at least— transistorized radios and TV sets will be cheaper than present sets, and much longer-lasting.

Industry is already gearing up for the transistor bonanza. A number of electronic manufacturers— including such major firms as Raytheon, RCA, GE, Philco, Westinghouse, Sylvania and Western Electric—are producing transistors. Others, like Zenith, Capehart, Admiral, Arvin, Emerson, Crosley, Hallicrafter and Stromberg-Carlson, have teams of researchers at work developing experimental transistorized equipment.

“It’s like an Oklahoma land rush,” said Professor Frederick Seitz of the University of Illinois, one of the pioneer solid-state physicists. “Nobody can afford to lag behind.”

Bell Laboratories, which invented the transistor, recently announced another new device that’s even more spectacular (although of limited usefulness so far): the world’s first efficient solar power system.

The sun showers the earth with more than one quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) kilowatt-hours of energy daily—comparable to all the energy in the world’s reserves of coal, oil, natural gas and uranium—and almost every bit of it goes to waste. The greatest efficiency achieved up to now in converting sunlight directly into power has been about one per cent—for example, in the photoelectric cells in photographers’ light meters. Bell’s experimental solar power set (which, incidentally, is not much larger than a light meter) is six times more efficient.

The pocket-sized Bell solar energy converter is simply made. It consists of 10 razor-blade-thin wafers of specially treated silicon, each 2-1/4 inches long and half an inch wide. These sensitive strips are linked together with thin wires which run to two terminals. From the terminals the converter is connected to the power-consuming appliance.

When the sun’s rays hit the sensitive silicon, sufficient power is produced to run low-current equipment; in demonstration, the device ran a cigarette-pack-sized transistorized radio and a toy Ferris wheel. Although Bell scientists estimate that in its present experimental stage it would take about 25 square feet of silicon wafer to keep a 100-watt lamp burning, the efficiency of the device is expected to increase considerably. Even now, telephone engineers are considering using units to run low-power mobile equipment or as battery chargers for amplifiers in rural telephone systems.

To power a small home from the sun’s rays right now you’d need a silicon-surfaced roof covering a quarter acre or more—plus a battery so big it would fill two rooms, to store power for use at night. But scientists believe the solar-powered home may become practical someday, at least in parts of the world where conventional electrical power is now nonexistent or extremely expensive.

Although it’s doubtful that solar power will be cheap enough in our lifetime to power great factories, other stereatronic advances may revolutionize the operation of industry. Chief among these are the projected computers—small in size, efficient beyond anything now known, and cool in operation. Even the relatively clumsy computers of today are taking over many industrial chores, particularly in accounting, inventory-taking, and certain self-service operations. The streamlined “electronic brains” of the near future may take over the whole factory.

“Suppose,” said Dr. Samuel B. Batdorf of Westinghouse, “that a factory requires 100 machines to manufacture its product, all doing different jobs and running at differing speeds. Today, 100 operators are needed to watch the dials and regulate the speeds. In principle, one computing machine could do the job better, ‘reading’ one dial in a few millionths of a second, and instantly sending instructions to motors controlling the speeds. Then the same computer could turn its attention to the next machine, and so on. It would take about one second to control all 100 machines. One reason it hasn’t been tried so far is the limitations of the vacuum tubes. But solid devices make it possible.”

Devices That Will Benefit the Blind.

The new science of the solids seems certain to change the world in highly dramatic fashion. But what may be the most dramatic change of all will affect only a tiny minority of the world’s population: the blind.

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a team of scientists under the direction of Dr. Clifford M. Witcher—himself blind—is developing an electronic-stereatronic bag of tricks which eventually may make it possible for a blind man to “see” where he’s going through a series of impulses communicated to his hand. The scientists have most of the facts they need right now, but—as MIT’s Professor J. Earl Thomas puts it—”the blind man would need a trailerful of tubes, radar equipment and other components.” Stereatrons, by sharply reducing the size of the equipment required, will go a long way toward solving that problem.

At present Dr. Witcher is working on a preliminary device which indicates to a blind person the whereabouts of stairs, curbs and similar “step-down” obstacles. The blind man holds a boxlike apparatus with a light which scans his path; when it strikes something, the reflection causes the handle of the box to vibrate. “At the moment,” said Professor J. B. Wiesner, director of MIT’s electronics research laboratories, “the device is only experimental and years of development are needed before it can be made practical . . .”

“But eventually,” Professor Thomas told me, “by using all types of stereatronic devices, we’ll be able to produce a radar-type instrument which will paint a map in Braille for a blind person. My guess is that this apparatus will be about the size of a woman’s handbag. The blind person will place one hand on the outside of the bag and feel the whereabouts of everything in front of him.”

No one is more impressed by the tremendous new avenues of progress opened up by the stereatrons than are the scientists themselves. “You might sum up the significance of the new science this way,” said Dr. Henry O’Bryan, manager of Sylvania Electric’s physics department. “First came electricity, then electronics. Now we’re beyond electronics into something just as far-reaching.”

Or, as RCA’s General Sarnoff put it: “Science and electronics are moving so fast that in ten years everything we’re now seeing will be so obsolete that we won’t recognize them . . .”

Few things are as useless to a businessman as information that reaches him too late

When vital business information is tardy, something or someone usually suffers. Production is slowed up. A customer has to wait. A decision is delayed.

Remedy: Bell System Data-Phone* service. Connected with the business machine-virtually any type —it converts data (from punched cards or tapes) into a special “tone” language and transmits it over the same nationwide telephone network you use for voice communications.

The result is an integrated information-handling system. You have facts when you need them. You reduce paperwork and clerical man-hours, serve customers better and coordinate all your operations more effectively.

Data-Phone service is solving problems for many business firms today. To find out more about this service, talk with our Communications Consultant. He’s a trained specialist. Just call your Bell Telephone Business Office and ask for his services.

Bell System American Telephone and Telegraph Co. and Associated Companies

Related posts

• Sixty billion vibrations per second (Apr, 1965)
• We dug and refilled a 4000-mile trench to protect 9300 communications circuits against disaster (Apr, 1965)
• New Bell Solar Battery Converts Sun’s Rays Into Electricity (Apr, 1965)
• One finger works all this (Apr, 1965)
• What the Telephone Map Shows (Apr, 1965)
• TRANSISTORS-first family of electronics (Apr, 1965)

Cordless phone

Shown in its recharging tray (immediate right), the Satellite Phone communicates via radio to a transponder (center), which is connected to the phone line. Transmitter and receiver built into a phone (far right) make it cordless. It’s $395 with charger from Keltner Research, 2126 S. Kalamath, Denver, Colo. 80223.

Bricks Test Storm Resistance of Phone Wires
To determine how well telephone wires will carry the extra weight of ice during snow and sleet storms, engineers string bricks along experimental open-wire lines at the Bell Laboratories field station in Chester, N. J. It has been found that an accumulation of ice one inch in radial thickness adds about twenty-two ounces to a foot of wire, or 200 pounds on a 150-foot span.

FOUR-FOOT DIAL SHOWS PHONES MYSTERIES

The intricacies of using the dial telephone come easily to students at a western secretarial school, where a four-foot dial was recently rigged up to explain its mysteries.

Not a dummy, the big dial actually works. It is connected with two telephones, an amplifying apparatus, and a loudspeaker. When the instructor dials a number, the loudspeaker reproduces, so that all may hear them, the typical sounds that will be heard; and the instructor explains to the pupils what they mean.

Extension Arm for Phone Holds the Receiver

THE strain of holding a telephone receiver to the ear for long periods has attracted the attention of inventors and a new telephone instrument recently placed on the market is equipped with an extension receiver that can be adjusted and held stationary in any convenient position, thus leaving the user’s hands free.

The receiver, to which the extension is attached by means of a flexible tube, is hung from a bracket attached to the telephone stem, while a ball weight serves to keep the hook down when the instrument is not in use. When telephoning, the user lifts the weight and places it upon a bracket, thereby releasing the hook. The extension is adjusted by bending the flexible tube.

“Ever Seen Your Telephone Switchboard?”

It’s a fascinating sight — the inside of a telephone central office where your telephone may be connected with the whole Bell System.

Would you like to know more about the telephone and what happens when you make a call?

Your Bell Telephone Company will be glad to show you. Visitors are welcome and we believe you will have a most interesting time. Why not call the Business Office and arrange a visit?

BELL TELEPHONE SYSTEM
You are cordially invited to visit the Bell System exhibit at Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco

Related posts

• Sixty billion vibrations per second (May, 1939)
• We dug and refilled a 4000-mile trench to protect 9300 communications circuits against disaster (May, 1939)
• New Bell Solar Battery Converts Sun’s Rays Into Electricity (May, 1939)
• One finger works all this (May, 1939)
• What the Telephone Map Shows (May, 1939)
• Bell System Data-Phone (May, 1939)

Microphones Run This Office

TENANTS in the Haas Building, Los Angeles, Calif., have “electrical stenographers” to serve them by means of a loud speaker system recently installed. These girls, while seated in a central office, greet callers in any office, answer tenants’ telephone calls, write letters, keep books, deliver messages, and keep undesired visitors out.

Four electrical channels make this system possible. Three of them are connected with the building’s electrical circuit and use alternating current. The fourth, leading from office microphones to the stenographers, derives its power from induction coils and batteries in series.

Each tenant has a complete office organization on his desk—in the form of six push buttons on a small wooden block. If he wants to leave word that he is going out, he pushes the button marked, “office assistant.” This flashes a light on the control board in central office, whereupon the tenant speaks whatever instructions he de- sires. By pushing any of the other buttons, he is connected immediately with the proper person. The devices do everything but think. If a tenant leaves without “checking out,” the act of walking through the doors registers him “out” on the control board in central office. If a visitor tires of waiting, he pushes a button beneath the microphone, and leaves a message. All transactions with the employees are private.

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Meet Bob Wilcox

The one-man telephone system for his town’s 370 party-line patrons.

BOB WILCOX, President of Inland Telephone Company of Caledonia, Mo., a tiny hamlet with only 370 party-line customers, can be found almost any day atop a pole fixing a wire. No deskbound executive, Wilcox is also business manager, maintenance man, installation and repair man and part-time switch-board operator. This one-man telephone system works 16 hours a day, seven days a week—and he likes his job. Maintaining 40 miles of line takes up most of his time. While he’s out during the day, his wife runs the switchboard. Wilcox takes over in evening while she catches up on her housework. Cranking a wall phone to get the Wilcox switchboard, a caller will simply say, “Bob, get me Aunt Mary.” Such a call is put through without delay. Most of Inland’s patrons pay $1.50 a month for party-line service.

Phone Holder Has Bell in Base

A NEW telephone holder, designed to eliminate unsightly bell boxes from walls and desks, contains both bell and wiring connections in its base.

It is constructed entirely of bakelite, is 5-3/4 inches wide and 7-3/4 inches deep. Due to its compact arrangement, it can accommodate all the standard equipment in this small space.

The holder is designed to work either with or without the dial arrangement.

The Perfect Secretary—a Machine
LEAVING his office for a few minutes, M. Keiser, inventor of the televoice, hooks up the gadget shown below with his telephone. Drama ensues. When phone rings, the machine lifts receiver, advises via phonograph record that “Mr. Keiser is not in, but requests that you leave your message, which will be automatically recorded.” Through a dictaphone arrangement, caller’s words are transcribed to wax cylinder, whence they are audibly reproduced for Mr. Keiser at his convenience, as often as he wants to hear them.