SECRET CONVERSATIONS BY RADIO “SUPERPHONE”

The apparently impossible feat of transmitting conversation while confining it to the speaker and the person for whom it is intended has been accomplished recently in Washington. It was done by a combination of the “superphone,” the invention of Maj. Gen. George C. Squier, chief signal officer of the army, and the principle of using electric light or telegraph wires, as in the receiving station at Chatham. Cape Cod.
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I’m not sure it would be possible to design a worse set of earphones…

EAR TUBES FOR PHONE MAKE WORDS DISTINCT
Persons hard of hearing, who have difficulty in carrying on a telephone conversation, are said to be aided by the new set illustrated above. When answering a call, the user places a receiver of conventional design (at right of photo) upon the base of an instrument resembling a physicians’s stethoscope. Tubes lead to a pair of earpieces that help to make every word audible. In speaking, the special transmitter, seen in background, is used.

Translation: At Bell Labs even our marketing drones are total geeks.

A MODERN SYLLOGISM

MAJOR PREMISE:
Bell Telephone System serves the American Public.

MINOR PREMISE:
Bell Telephone Laboratories develop the facilities of the Bell System.

CONCLUSION:
Therefore, Bell Laboratories serve the American Public.
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FIRST BROADCASTERS USED PHONE

Who were the earliest broadcasters? Ten years before the first radio programs were put on the air, a group in Chicago., 111., regularly delivered musical programs and news bulletins over the telephone lines of many subscribers. The rare old photograph reproduced below shows these pioneers broadcasting from their studio. Each singer is holding a microphone, while other individual microphones are attached to the instruments. To listen to the music, a subscriber had merely to sit beside the telephone and hold the receiver to his ear. If he received a ‘phone call while listening, the musical program was automatically disconnected.

PHONE-HOLDING BRACKET LEAVES HANDS FREE

Acrobatic skill in holding the receiver between shoulder and chin when telephoning, in an effort to free both hands for something else, is no longer necessary if a receiver-holding attachment is fitted to your phone.

The new appliance is merely a bracket that bolts to the phone back of the transmitter and holds the receiver at the proper elevatiou and angle for convenient use. Slipping back a latch releases the hook and opens the line. When the call is completed, pressing down the hook automatically- locks it shut. The holder attaches in place of the rivet found behind the transmitter.

The device should prove particularly welcome when it is necessary to “hold the wire” for a considerable time.

First Telephone Used to Help Escaping Slaves

America’s oldest telephone, pictured here, was used before the Civil War by abolitionists who helped negroes escape. It consisted of a wire attached between drumlike boxes containing diaphragms. A ringing bell announced that a message was to be sent.

AT&T’s monopolistic motto “One Policy One System Universal Service” sounds an aweful lot like the “One ring to bind them” stuff from Lord of the Rings…

Cave Life or Civilization

Civilized man is distinguished from the cave man by his habit of co-operation.

The cave man lived for and by himself; independent of others, but always in danger from natural laws.

To the extent that we assist one another, dividing up the tasks, we increase our capacity for production, and attain the advantages of civilization.

We may sometimes disregard our dependence on others. But suppose the farmer, for example, undertook to live strictly by his own efforts. He might eke out an existence, but it would not be a civilized existence nor would it satisfy him.

He needs better food and clothes and shelter and implements than he could provide unassisted. He requires a market for his surplus products, and the means of transportation and exchange.

He should not forget who makes his clothes, his shoes, his tools, his vehicles and his tableware, or who mines his metals, or who provides his pepper and salt, his books and papers, or who furnishes the ready means of transportation and exchange whereby his myriad wants are supplied.

Neither should he forget that the more he assists others the more they can assist him.

Take the telephone specialists of the Bell System: the more efficient they are, the more effectively the farmer and every other human factor of civilization can provide for their own needs and comforts.
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Rockets Lay Phone Lines

SIGNAL Corps linemen are adding rockets to their tool kits. The fiery missiles pull telephone wire from a new type of dispenser across streams, ravines, and other obstacles. One man, equipped with the dispenser, a few rockets, and a field telephone, can now set up communications in rough terrain faster than a large crew using conventional methods.

The new wire dispenser was developed from a model used during the war. With it. the wire-laying rocket may be fired without a launcher. The rocket is set off in the original cardboard packing case, which is placed in a wedge-shaped hole dug in the ground. Even when fired in this manner, the rocket will carry wire as much as 150 yards.
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Wow, that is one big ass speakerphone.

Phone Aids Free Hands

The busy executive can now carry on conversations over the telephone without even lifting a finger to hold it. With the Jordaphone (PSM, Oct. ‘45, p. 96), a wartime development of the Jordanoff Corp., he need only transfer the phone from its regular cradle to the special one in the top of the instrument. Here the incoming voice is picked up directly from the phone’s earpiece and amplified through a loudspeaker, eliminating actual wire connections. An ordinary microphone, placed anywhere in the room, transmits the outgoing voice to the mouthpiece.
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REVOLUTIONARY NEW CONCEPT IN TELEPHONE ANSWERING EQUIPMENT

Perfection in Service Free Telephone Answering equipment at a Low-Low-Direct to Diners Club Members Price

NEW! NEW! NEW! MODULAR CIRCUIT CONSTRUCTION marvel in new electronic design

NEW! All electronic unit— complete with its own Cassette Tape Recorder . . . vastly superior to any phone answering device we sold before and the first time ever offered for sale direct to the public.
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I guess that’s one route to keypad dialing.

“Key Caller” Speeds Phone Service
MAKING telephone number connections three times faster than can be done with an ordinary dial device is the work accomplished by a recent London invention. The “key caller,” as machine is called, consists of an instrument resembling a small typewriter.

Usually old articles of the form “Your x of tomorrow” be it house, car, phone, city, plane, etc are full of ideas that are wildly off the mark or just plain ridiculous. This article about the future of phones is remarkable because virtually everything in it has come true. Worldwide Direct Touchtone Dialing, Transistorized Switching, Audio/Video data compression, Voice Recognition and rampant miniaturization. All true. Not to mention that a tiny, touchtone, color videophone you can watch TV on is a pretty accurate description of my Motorola RAZR.

I also love the idea that everyone will get a phone number at birth and keep it for the rest of their life. If you call someone and they don’t pick up, you’ll know they’re dead. Or perhaps just sleeping.

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Your Telephone Of Tomorrow

Future may bring push-button dialing, videophones, direct calls anywhere on earth and pocket-size sets.

By Robert G. Beason

ON SOME night in the future a young man walking along Market Street in San Francisco may suddenly think of a friend in Rome. Reaching into his pocket, he will pull out a watch-size disc with a set of buttons on one side. He will punch ten times. Turning the device over, he will hear his friend’s voice and see his face on a tiny screen, in color and 3-D. At the same moment his friend in Rome will see and hear him.

The disc will be a telephone, a miniature model equipped for both audio and video service. Back in 1952, Harold S. Osborne, retiring chief engineer of American Telephone & Telegraph, envisioned this tiny instrument as the ultimate shape of the phone. In the future, said Mr. Osborne, a telephone number will be given at birth to every baby in the world. It will be his for life. When he wants to call anyone, no matter where, he will merely push the buttons on his Lilliputian phone.
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