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That clear contempra set ... and a card dialer discussion

Started by Dominic_ContempraPhones, September 23, 2015, 12:57:35 AM

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Dominic_ContempraPhones

I sold JKL a new old stock yellow 711 princess from 1961, which got the white glove treatment from me and its previous owner, not even knowing they were the ones who kept outbidding me back then on rare items that are now gone.  I still can't figure out what happened there.  I'm hearing rumours the collection wasn't even insured -- never mind you can't even replace that stuff.

Dave F

Quote from: Dominic_ContempraPhones on September 26, 2015, 12:40:31 AM
Blue ... like this?
Dominic,

Yes, that would do it.  You still have my email address?  Contact me and let's see what we can do.

Dave

Dave F

Quote from: Dominic_ContempraPhones on September 26, 2015, 12:44:31 AM
I sold JKL a new old stock yellow 711 princess from 1961, which got the white glove treatment from me and its previous owner, not even knowing they were the ones who kept outbidding me back then on rare items that are now gone.  I still can't figure out what happened there.  I'm hearing rumours the collection wasn't even insured -- never mind you can't even replace that stuff.
John is certainly a voracious competitor.  His deep pockets allow him to win most (but happily not all) the auctions he goes after.  If he does actually rebuild the museum, we can expect to see much more of him as he tries to restore what was lost.

I don't know anything about his insurance, but I bet they managed to rescue much of the one-of-a-kind stuff before the fire.  Because many of those items are essentially irreplaceable, if too much was lost it would not be feasible to duplicate the collection even if the museum building was rebuilt.  It will be interesting to see what happens next.

DF

Dominic_ContempraPhones

Hi Dave,

The blue card dialer isn't mine I'm afraid, but I have a black 10-button card dialer.  The blue was on eBay recently and I missed it.  I didn't get an alert.

Dave F

Quote from: Dominic_ContempraPhones on September 26, 2015, 05:13:36 PM
Hi Dave,

The blue card dialer isn't mine I'm afraid, but I have a black 10-button card dialer.  The blue was on eBay recently and I missed it.  I didn't get an alert.
Gee, that's too bad.  I missed it also!

DF

Dominic_ContempraPhones

You have an ansi card dialer ... when you punch stop does it insert a pause, or does the card actually stop?  I also heard you don't have to punch the top field for 1, 2, 3, or a.  Is that true?

Dave F

Quote from: Dominic_ContempraPhones on September 26, 2015, 10:55:55 PM
You have an ansi card dialer ... when you punch stop does it insert a pause, or does the card actually stop?  I also heard you don't have to punch the top field for 1, 2, 3, or a.  Is that true?
I'm not familiar with the term "ansi".

DF

Dominic_ContempraPhones


Dave F

Quote from: Dominic_ContempraPhones on September 26, 2015, 10:55:55 PM
You have an ansi card dialer ... when you punch stop does it insert a pause, or does the card actually stop?  I also heard you don't have to punch the top field for 1, 2, 3, or a.  Is that true?
For the benefit of others who may not know what we are discussing here, Dominic's questions refer to the prototype F58554 (and F58555) Card Dialers which use cards with the rectangular punch holes.

For more info, see the short discussion that starts here:
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=7944.msg92192#msg92192

I don't have too many of the special cards that this phone uses, and I have not punched out any "stops".  However, as the purpose of this feature is the same on this and all other Card Dialers, I would bet that doing so would cause the card to stop.

As to your other question:  Yes, it's true that you don't have to punch the top field for 1, 2, 3, or a.  The clever designers at Bell Labs realized that, with the proper application of logic circuitry, this could be accomplished.  A standard touchtone dial has oscillators activated directly by switches - there is no logic circuitry involved.  In that case, both sets of switches are required to produce the two tones.  However, the TT dial in the F58554 Card Dialer is a new design that uses I.C. logic, rather than toroid-coil oscillators.  The internal logic incorporated into the new dial makes it possible to accomplish the one-switch trick.  In fact, the card reader in the F58554 doesn't even read the card's top field for 1, 2, 3, or a.  It doesn't matter whether or not you punch them out, the phone doesn't care.  It's really quite clever.  This is an obscure tidbit of Card Dialer lore -- how did you hear about it?

DF



Dominic_ContempraPhones

#24
ANSI (American National Standards Institute) required a default, so my understanding is that row is "energized" by default.  However, I interpreted the ANSI STOP as a 2-second pause because a STOP was always required in the other machines in column 1 to hold the card down after insertion.  The ANSI cards have no stops punched in column 1 and do not require them -- is this correct?

On the old cards, say you wanted to dial *67 (pause) *70 (pause) to block caller ID and call waiting, followed by 555-2368.  There would be a default stop punched on the * in column 1, but another stop would be punched under the 2nd * and again on the first 5.  Pressing START would dial out * 6 7, and then the card would stop.  You would have to press START to get it going again once your dialtone was steady again.  After the *70, the card would stop again, and you'd have to press START a third time.

However, in the ANSI implementation there is no stop in column 1 (supposedly), and a stop instead inserts a 2-second pause without you having to press start again -- the card just rolls out and it goes into memory.  I wanted someone who has the phone to test it and see if that behavior was implemented, or if the person has to press START a 2nd time and a 3rd time.

How do I know all this?  I don't remember.  I worked at Bell and Northern Telecom and I just remember hearing about it, or reading it somewhere there.  It's just like the rotary card dialers -- did subsequent models require a punch in the lower field for 0?  Has anyone tested it?  The 10-button touch-tone models absolutely do need two punches for 0.

Dave F

Quote from: Dominic_ContempraPhones on September 28, 2015, 07:42:11 PM
ANSI (American National Standards Institute) required a default, so my understanding is that row is "energized" by default.  However, I interpreted the ANSI STOP as a 2-second pause because a STOP was always required in the other machines in column 1 to hold the card down after insertion.  The ANSI cards have no stops punched in column 1 and do not require them -- is this correct?

On the old cards, say you wanted to dial *67 (pause) *70 (pause) to block caller ID and call waiting, followed by 555-2368.  There would be a default stop punched on the * in column 1, but another stop would be punched under the 2nd * and again on the first 5.  Pressing START would dial out * 6 7, and then the card would stop.  You would have to press START to get it going again once your dialtone was steady again.  After the *70, the card would stop again, and you'd have to press START a third time.

However, in the ANSI implementation there is no stop in column 1 (supposedly), and a stop instead inserts a 2-second pause without you having to press start again -- the card just rolls out and it goes into memory.  I wanted someone who has the phone to test it and see if that behavior was implemented, or if the person has to press START a 2nd time and a 3rd time.

How do I know all this?  I don't remember.  I worked at Bell and Northern Telecom and I just remember hearing about it, or reading it somewhere there.  It's just like the rotary card dialers -- did subsequent models require a punch in the lower field for 0?  Has anyone tested it?  The 10-button touch-tone models absolutely do need two punches for 0.
You are correct that there is no "stop" punched out in column 1 of the (ANSI) cards.  Looking at the BSP for the F58554 (502-690-100), it is not entirely clear how it works.

Section 3.07: "If a stop is punched after the last telephone number digit, the R bar must be operated to release the card."

I interpret this to mean that the card actually stops in this case.

Section 3.08: "If a second dial tone is required, punch out the STOP in the appropriate row.  Punching out the first STOP will result in a wait after the first digit."

The use of the word "wait" is ambiguous and does not tell us whether or not the card actually stops.  If the card does not stop and the subsequent digits go temporarily into memory before being dialed, the dialer circuitry is more sophisticated than I would have guessed.  The only way to really find out is to sacrifice some cards and do some tests.  Eventually, I will probably do that but, like I said, I don't have a lot of cards to expend. (If you happen to have a few sacrificial cards that you would like to donate to the cause, I would be happy to play with them and give you a full report!)

As to the rotary Card Dialers, the original model 661 (with the 40A dialer mechanism) did not require a "0"punch in the lower field.  Subsequent versions (with the redesigned 41A dial) may or may not require the "0"punch in the lower field.  That should not be a difficult thing to test, assuming that somebody actually takes the time to test it!  One clue, however, is that when the new sets were introduced, the cards were modified to indicate that both "0"s were required.

DF


Dominic_ContempraPhones

#26
Well, that was so they would be compatible on rotary and TT.  TT needed both punches.  The ANSI literature is unclear.  The stop punch on the old machines is before, whereas on ANSI, it's after.  If I wanted to dial *67 P *70 P 555 2368 ...

On an old machine, stops are punched on the *'s and the first 5
On an ANSI machine, stops are punched on the first 7 and the 0 and it just rolls out -- similar to Northern's digipulse memory buffer.

However, if you punched stop on a column and no other number was punched in that same column, then it would stop.

And for Pete's sake, they had mark sense card technology (pencil) by the early 70s.  Why wasn't WE using those?

Anyways, test it and see what happens.  I'm curious.

Dave F

Quote from: Dominic_ContempraPhones on September 29, 2015, 03:04:04 AM
<snip> ...Well, that was so they would be compatible on rotary and TT. ...
That may or may not be true.  The change made to those cards coincides with the release of the newer rotary-dial sets (660 & 662), but TT Card Dialers were not yet available.  However, they might have been anticipating the TT sets and made the new rotary cards to be compatible.  Or, the new 41A rotary card dialer mech simply needed both "0"s punched.  All my Card Dialers are packed up.  To do some rotary testing I would have to dig one out and then find where my 2012B/D transformers are hiding.  If any other Forum members have a 660 or 662 Card Dialer in use, maybe they can do the "0" test and finally provide an answer.  (See what the dialer does if you only punch out the "0" in the upper field of the card.)

As far as the ANSI set is concerned, I need to locate more cards before doing any card-destructive testing.

One additional detail (see photo below):  The STOP punchouts on standard cards are in line with the other punchouts in their respective columns.  On the ANSI cards, the STOPS are midway between the columns.  So, the ANSI phone could be made to recognize whether or not other digits followed a STOP request and respond differently depending on what, if anything, followed.

DF

Dominic_ContempraPhones


Dave F

Quote from: Dominic_ContempraPhones on September 30, 2015, 05:53:08 AM
If you ever decide to sell it, let me know.
Probably not any time soon.  In the meantime, feast your eyes on this:  Both versions together!

DF