SAID THE ELECTRICAL MOUTH TO THE ELECTRICAL EAR . . .
“Joe took father’s shoe bench out. She was waiting at my lawn.”

If you were passing through the Bell Telephone Laboratories today you might hear an electrical mouth speaking this odd talk, or whistling a series of musical notes, to a telephone transmitter.

This mouth can be made to repeat these sounds without variation. Every new telephone transmitter is tested by this mouth before it receives a laboratory or manufacturing O.K. for your use.

This is only one of the many tests to which telephone equipment is subjected in the Bell Telephone Laboratories. And there is a reason for the selection of those particular words.

It happens that the sentence, “Joe took father’s shoe bench out,” and its more lyrical companion, “She was waiting at my lawn,” contain all the fundamental sounds of the English language that contribute to the intensity of sound in speech.

Busily at work in the interest of every one who uses the telephone is one of the largest research laboratories in the world. The outstanding development of the telephone in this country is proof of the value of this research. In times like these, the work of the Bell Telephone Laboratories becomes increasingly important.

The Bell System is doing its part in the country’s program of National Defense

BELL TELEPHONE SYSTEM

Yes, at Bell Labs we’ve been disemvoweling you since 1956!

An intrstng exprmnt
in spch
Some day your voice may travel by a sort of electronic “shorthand” when you telephone. Bell Laboratories scientists are experimenting with a technique in which a sample is snipped off a speech sound —just enough to identify it—and sent by wire to a receiver which rebuilds the original sound. Thus voices can be sent by means of fewer signals. More voices may economically share the wires.
This is but one of many transmission techniques that Laboratories scientists are exploring in their search for ways to make Bell System wire and radio channels serve you more efficiently. It is another example of the Bell Telephone Laboratories research that keeps your telephone the most advanced on earth. The oscilloscope traces at right show how the shorthand technique works.
BELL TELEPHONE LABORATORIES
World center of communications research Largest industrial laboratory in the United States

What does now taste like? Sweeter or more bitter than then?
What sound does purple make?
What does 12 smell like?

At Bell Labs, we’re working on all these questions and more!
Bell Labs, for all your existential research needs.

Also, I love the fact that they didn’t spring for a color ad.

WHAT TIME IS GREEN?
In color television, the colors on the screen are determined in a special way. A reference signal is sent and then the color signals are matched against it. For example, when the second signal is out of step by 50-billionths of a second, the color is green; 130-billionths means blue.

Read the rest of this entry »

These signals find the way

When you dial a telephone Dumber, high-speed switching mechanisms select your party and connect you. Through a new development of Bell Telephone Laboratories, similar mechanisms are doing the same kind of job in private wire teletypewriter systems which America’s great businesses lease from the telephone company.
Company X, for example, operates an air transportation business with scores of offices all over the country. At one of these offices, a teletypewriter operator wishes to send a message, let us say, to Kansas City. Ahead of the message, she types the code letters “KC”. The letters become electric signals which guide the message to its destination.
Any or all stations in a network, or any combination of stations, can be selected. Switching centers may handle 50 or more messages a minute . . . some users send 30,000 messages a day. Delivery time is a few minutes.
Defense manufacturers, automobile makers, airlines and many other American businesses are benefiting by the speed and accuracy of the new equipment — another example of how techniques developed by the Laboratories for telephone use contribute to other Bell System services as well.
BELL TELEPHONE LABORATORIES
Improving telephone service for America provides careers for creative men in scientific and technical fields.

THE TRANSISTOR

A picture report of progress

A tiny amplifying device first announced by Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1948 is about to appear as a versatile element in telephony.

Each step in the work on the transistor . . . from original theory to initial production technique . . . has been carried on within the Laboratories. Thus, Bell scientists demonstrate again how their skills in many fields, from theoretical physics to production engineering, help improve telephone service.
Read the rest of this entry »