Lets go back to POTs

Guest
Damned kids and their POTs.

I want to go back to dial phones and make and break calling. No number
tones.

Yeah, that'll put folks back to work. Build more of these...

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZePwin92cI>
 
On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 15:11:58 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Damned kids and their POTs.

I want to go back to dial phones and make and break calling. No number
tones.

Your wish is granted:
<https://play.google.com/store/search?q=rotary%20phone%20dialer&c=apps>

> Yeah, that'll put folks back to work.

The mine owner and the labor union representative were watching a new
steam shovel move huge amounts of dirt around the mine. The union rep
declared "Such things are evil because they have taken away the jobs
of 100 men with shovels". The mine owner asked "Why not 1000 men with
teaspoons?" Are you sure you really want to raise the dead? Most
often, the result is a zombie rather than whatever you were expecting.

Build more of these...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZePwin92cI

That's a Strowger switch:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strowger_switch>
The Ma Bell CO's were full of those back in the 1960's. I later used
the rotary version in various radio repeater controllers. One was
mounted on the panel near the middle of the rack, with the rotary dial
on the right:
<http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/Old%20Repeaters/slides/wb6eep-01.html>
My 1970 college senior project was a solid-state emulation of a rotary
selector pulse dial decoder (Secode selector):
<https://www.google.com/search?q=uniselector&tbm=isch>
used for calling mobile telephone customers.

They don't make 'em like that no more, for good reason.

First rule of machinery: If it moves, it breaks.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 13:46:33 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 15:11:58 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Damned kids and their POTs.

I want to go back to dial phones and make and break calling. No number
tones.

Your wish is granted:
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=rotary%20phone%20dialer&c=apps

Yeah, that'll put folks back to work.

The mine owner and the labor union representative were watching a new
steam shovel move huge amounts of dirt around the mine. The union rep
declared "Such things are evil because they have taken away the jobs
of 100 men with shovels". The mine owner asked "Why not 1000 men with
teaspoons?" Are you sure you really want to raise the dead? Most
often, the result is a zombie rather than whatever you were expecting.

Build more of these...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZePwin92cI

That's a Strowger switch:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strowger_switch
The Ma Bell CO's were full of those back in the 1960's. I later used
the rotary version in various radio repeater controllers. One was
mounted on the panel near the middle of the rack, with the rotary dial
on the right:
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/Old%20Repeaters/slides/wb6eep-01.html
My 1970 college senior project was a solid-state emulation of a rotary
selector pulse dial decoder (Secode selector):
https://www.google.com/search?q=uniselector&tbm=isch
used for calling mobile telephone customers.

They don't make 'em like that no more, for good reason.

First rule of machinery: If it moves, it breaks.

I was just thinking of an app that would do just this, this last week
! I figured something existed. Thanks. Hadn't checked yet.


And don't forget Panel switching ! Similar but different...

Sounds of old phone systems....

http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips/
 
On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 18:32:33 -0800, boB <boB@K7IQ.com> wrote:

Your wish is granted:
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=rotary%20phone%20dialer&c=apps

I was just thinking of an app that would do just this, this last week
! I figured something existed. Thanks. Hadn't checked yet.

There's an app for (almost) everything. Never mind the rotary retro
dialer. I'm waiting for someone to write an ASL (American Sign
Language) recognition app that will dial the phone from the camera.
<https://media.istockphoto.com/vectors/hand-sign-language-numbers-vector-id1092195342>
If I wasn't such a lousy programmist, I would probably scribble it
myself.

One of the wonders of human psychology is how we manage to switch
between the number pad layout on a telephone (123 on the top row)
to the layout on a computah keyboard or calculator (789 on the top
row) without brain damage. Even more remarkable is how we've
accepted this ergonomic abomination without the usual complaining,
blogging, and litigation.

I vaguely recall that there was at least one retrotech dialer that
resembled a Motorola DynaTAC handset, but now all I find are dinosaur
games and DynaTAC retro-clones:
<https://www.amazon.com/Higoo-Classic-Vintage-Tri-band-Standby/dp/B00XAF4J04>

>And don't forget Panel switching ! Similar but different...

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_switch>
I didn't have much experience with the switching equipment. The only
switches I saw were Strowger, Crossbar, and 5ESS.

Sounds of old phone systems....
http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips/

Yep, that was me in college. I was a teenage phone phreak.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 10:39:54 PM UTC-5, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 18:32:33 -0800, boB <boB@K7IQ.com> wrote:

Your wish is granted:
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=rotary%20phone%20dialer&c=apps

I was just thinking of an app that would do just this, this last week
! I figured something existed. Thanks. Hadn't checked yet.

There's an app for (almost) everything. Never mind the rotary retro
dialer. I'm waiting for someone to write an ASL (American Sign
Language) recognition app that will dial the phone from the camera.
https://media.istockphoto.com/vectors/hand-sign-language-numbers-vector-id1092195342
If I wasn't such a lousy programmist, I would probably scribble it
myself.

One of the wonders of human psychology is how we manage to switch
between the number pad layout on a telephone (123 on the top row)
to the layout on a computah keyboard or calculator (789 on the top
row) without brain damage.

Who said we switch. I mentally convert the numbers of a phone into the numbers of a computer keypad and touch dial the phone as if it were a computer keypad. Seems simple to me. There are only six digits to actually convert.


Even more remarkable is how we've
accepted this ergonomic abomination without the usual complaining,
blogging, and litigation.

I hadn't thought of litigation. Thanks for the idea. Great reason to sue the phone company.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
 
On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 20:48:18 -0800 (PST), Rick C
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 10:39:54 PM UTC-5, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 18:32:33 -0800, boB <boB@K7IQ.com> wrote:

Your wish is granted:
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=rotary%20phone%20dialer&c=apps

I was just thinking of an app that would do just this, this last week
! I figured something existed. Thanks. Hadn't checked yet.

There's an app for (almost) everything. Never mind the rotary retro
dialer. I'm waiting for someone to write an ASL (American Sign
Language) recognition app that will dial the phone from the camera.
https://media.istockphoto.com/vectors/hand-sign-language-numbers-vector-id1092195342
If I wasn't such a lousy programmist, I would probably scribble it
myself.

One of the wonders of human psychology is how we manage to switch
between the number pad layout on a telephone (123 on the top row)
to the layout on a computah keyboard or calculator (789 on the top
row) without brain damage.

Who said we switch.

That would be me.

I mentally convert the numbers of a phone into the numbers
of a computer keypad and touch dial the phone as if it were
a computer keypad. Seems simple to me. There are only six
digits to actually convert.

Very clever, but that's not what most people do. The majority look at
the keys and read the labels. You can convince yourself how this
works by trying to use a keyboard with the numbers covered. Be sure
to also cover the zero and the decimal point. Extra credit for also
covering the arithmetic symbols. On my HP calculator, the four
arithmetic symbols are on the left in a vertical column. On my 101
keyboard, they are across the top, and make a right angle turn along
the right column. If you have ever tried to dial a phone number using
a calculator or 101 keyboard layout, you will probably notice a
problem.

If you're still not a true believer, try randomly re-arranging the
number pad keys on a 101 keyboard and remapping the key assignments
using a key remapping program. I've done this and found that it takes
me about 15 minutes of swearing to adjust to the new layout. After
that, as long as I can look at the keys, I make about the same number
of mistakes with a scrambled layout as with the original layout.

What happened is that I switched over to using the same method I use
to find icons on my messy desktop:
<http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/crud/desktop.jpg>
I don't look for an icon by a row or column linear search. I also
don't type the first letter of the label. I tend to remember what
area of the desktop the desired icon might be located, and limit my
search to that area. That's also what I did with the scrambled number
pad.

The remaining users are professional bookkeepers and people who do
data entry. These are very accustomed the calculator and 101 keyboard
layout that they can enter data without even looking at the keyboard.
However, if someone makes even a minor change in the number pad
keyboard layout, they fumble badly until they become accustomed to the
change.

Way back in about 1960, I read an article in Bell Systems Technical
Journal on the layout of the new Touch-Tone "signaling" system. Bell
Labs was agonizing over the layout of the touch-tone keyboard.
Different schemes were suggested and tested. The 123 across to top
was selected allegedly by an opinion poll of the subjects involved in
testing the keyboard layouts. Oddly, the 123 across layout was not
used by calculators and bookkeeping machines of the day, which used a
columnar layout.
<https://www.google.com/search?q=bookkeeping+machine+keyboard&tbm=isch>

In a heroic effort to maximize the damage, the ATM industry decided
that more people were familiar with dialing a telephone than punching
a calculator keyboard, and therefore adopted the touch-tone keypad
layout for ATM keyboards:
<https://www.google.com/search?q=atm+keypad&tbm=isch>

Some net wisdom on the topic, all of which misses the real reason for
the rather drastic change in layout.
<https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/16666/why-do-numpads-on-keyboards-and-phones-have-reversed-layouts>
<http://web.archive.org/web/20180102203929/http://www.vcalc.net/Keyboard.htm>

So, why would Ma Bell (AT&T) in 1960 select a then rarely used
keyboard layout and back it up with an ambiguous user study? I'll
provide the answer in a day or two, after all the regulars have had
time to provide the usual bad guesses.

Even more remarkable is how we've
accepted this ergonomic abomination without the usual complaining,
blogging, and litigation.

I hadn't thought of litigation. Thanks for the idea. Great
reason to sue the phone company.

Ah, that explains why your logic circuits appear to be damaged. Having
to mentally remap every keyboard you encounter can certainly be
difficult and eventually debilitating. I suggest you consult an
ambulance chasing attorney for a projection on how much you might
collect. Incidentally, if you can't document that you've had
sufficient exposure to operating a numeric keypad, you might claim
that you were exposed to second hand "radiation" from other users
keyboards in the office.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 19:39:55 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 18:32:33 -0800, boB <boB@K7IQ.com> wrote:

Your wish is granted:
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=rotary%20phone%20dialer&c=apps

I was just thinking of an app that would do just this, this last week
! I figured something existed. Thanks. Hadn't checked yet.

There's an app for (almost) everything. Never mind the rotary retro
dialer. I'm waiting for someone to write an ASL (American Sign
Language) recognition app that will dial the phone from the camera.
https://media.istockphoto.com/vectors/hand-sign-language-numbers-vector-id1092195342
If I wasn't such a lousy programmist, I would probably scribble it
myself.

One of the wonders of human psychology is how we manage to switch
between the number pad layout on a telephone (123 on the top row)
to the layout on a computah keyboard or calculator (789 on the top
row) without brain damage. Even more remarkable is how we've
accepted this ergonomic abomination without the usual complaining,
blogging, and litigation.

I vaguely recall that there was at least one retrotech dialer that
resembled a Motorola DynaTAC handset, but now all I find are dinosaur
games and DynaTAC retro-clones:
https://www.amazon.com/Higoo-Classic-Vintage-Tri-band-Standby/dp/B00XAF4J04

And don't forget Panel switching ! Similar but different...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_switch
I didn't have much experience with the switching equipment. The only
switches I saw were Strowger, Crossbar, and 5ESS.

Sounds of old phone systems....
http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips/

Yep, that was me in college. I was a teenage phone phreak.

Oh really ??!!!?? Early 70s, late 60s, so was I !!

That picture at the top of the phonetrips page is mine actually and
that's me on the left. Except high school, not college.

What GREAT times those were ! At least we still have a couple good
phone museums. The one in Seattle has most of the common switches
working and talking to each other. Panel, #5 Xbar, #1 Xbar, Step and
I think its' a #5 or #1 ESS.
 
On Monday, February 24, 2020 at 1:50:18 AM UTC-5, boB wrote:
On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 19:39:55 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:

On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 18:32:33 -0800, boB <boB@K7IQ.com> wrote:

Your wish is granted:
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=rotary%20phone%20dialer&c=apps

I was just thinking of an app that would do just this, this last week
! I figured something existed. Thanks. Hadn't checked yet.

There's an app for (almost) everything. Never mind the rotary retro
dialer. I'm waiting for someone to write an ASL (American Sign
Language) recognition app that will dial the phone from the camera.
https://media.istockphoto.com/vectors/hand-sign-language-numbers-vector-id1092195342
If I wasn't such a lousy programmist, I would probably scribble it
myself.

One of the wonders of human psychology is how we manage to switch
between the number pad layout on a telephone (123 on the top row)
to the layout on a computah keyboard or calculator (789 on the top
row) without brain damage. Even more remarkable is how we've
accepted this ergonomic abomination without the usual complaining,
blogging, and litigation.

I vaguely recall that there was at least one retrotech dialer that
resembled a Motorola DynaTAC handset, but now all I find are dinosaur
games and DynaTAC retro-clones:
https://www.amazon.com/Higoo-Classic-Vintage-Tri-band-Standby/dp/B00XAF4J04

And don't forget Panel switching ! Similar but different...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_switch
I didn't have much experience with the switching equipment. The only
switches I saw were Strowger, Crossbar, and 5ESS.

Sounds of old phone systems....
http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips/

Yep, that was me in college. I was a teenage phone phreak.


Oh really ??!!!?? Early 70s, late 60s, so was I !!

That picture at the top of the phonetrips page is mine actually and
that's me on the left. Except high school, not college.

What GREAT times those were ! At least we still have a couple good
phone museums. The one in Seattle has most of the common switches
working and talking to each other. Panel, #5 Xbar, #1 Xbar, Step and
I think its' a #5 or #1 ESS.

My home town in Ohio had one of the first ESS systems, with a single digit serial number. It replaced a very worn out Strowager exchange that barely worked. They would haul in wrecked out equipment from smaller exchanges for spare parts, to keep it limping along.

Sometimes you had to make a call three or four times to get a decent connection, and it could take over a minute for the dialed number to ring because the old 20Hz ring generator was worn out. Backup power was an old farm tractor and a PTO driven generator. A local steel mill told Ohio bell that they either install a new exchange, or they would take their 10,000 block of numbers private.

A few years later I was in the Army, and stationed in Alaska. I could call my family in Ohio and get a better connection than I could get when calling anywhere in town, when I left. The irony there was I had to use White Alice to make the calls, and it was older than I was. It was the first 'Over the Horizon' microwave telephone system, built during WW II for the Military.
 
On Monday, February 24, 2020 at 1:18:34 AM UTC-5, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 20:48:18 -0800 (PST), Rick C
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 10:39:54 PM UTC-5, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 18:32:33 -0800, boB <boB@K7IQ.com> wrote:

Your wish is granted:
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=rotary%20phone%20dialer&c=apps

I was just thinking of an app that would do just this, this last week
! I figured something existed. Thanks. Hadn't checked yet.

There's an app for (almost) everything. Never mind the rotary retro
dialer. I'm waiting for someone to write an ASL (American Sign
Language) recognition app that will dial the phone from the camera.
https://media.istockphoto.com/vectors/hand-sign-language-numbers-vector-id1092195342
If I wasn't such a lousy programmist, I would probably scribble it
myself.

One of the wonders of human psychology is how we manage to switch
between the number pad layout on a telephone (123 on the top row)
to the layout on a computah keyboard or calculator (789 on the top
row) without brain damage.

Who said we switch.

That would be me.

I mentally convert the numbers of a phone into the numbers
of a computer keypad and touch dial the phone as if it were
a computer keypad. Seems simple to me. There are only six
digits to actually convert.

Very clever, but that's not what most people do. The majority look at
the keys and read the labels. You can convince yourself how this
works by trying to use a keyboard with the numbers covered. Be sure
to also cover the zero and the decimal point. Extra credit for also
covering the arithmetic symbols. On my HP calculator, the four
arithmetic symbols are on the left in a vertical column. On my 101
keyboard, they are across the top, and make a right angle turn along
the right column. If you have ever tried to dial a phone number using
a calculator or 101 keyboard layout, you will probably notice a
problem.

If you're still not a true believer, try randomly re-arranging the
number pad keys on a 101 keyboard and remapping the key assignments
using a key remapping program. I've done this and found that it takes
me about 15 minutes of swearing to adjust to the new layout. After
that, as long as I can look at the keys, I make about the same number
of mistakes with a scrambled layout as with the original layout.

What happened is that I switched over to using the same method I use
to find icons on my messy desktop:
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/crud/desktop.jpg
I don't look for an icon by a row or column linear search. I also
don't type the first letter of the label. I tend to remember what
area of the desktop the desired icon might be located, and limit my
search to that area. That's also what I did with the scrambled number
pad.

The remaining users are professional bookkeepers and people who do
data entry. These are very accustomed the calculator and 101 keyboard
layout that they can enter data without even looking at the keyboard.
However, if someone makes even a minor change in the number pad
keyboard layout, they fumble badly until they become accustomed to the
change.

Way back in about 1960, I read an article in Bell Systems Technical
Journal on the layout of the new Touch-Tone "signaling" system. Bell
Labs was agonizing over the layout of the touch-tone keyboard.
Different schemes were suggested and tested. The 123 across to top
was selected allegedly by an opinion poll of the subjects involved in
testing the keyboard layouts. Oddly, the 123 across layout was not
used by calculators and bookkeeping machines of the day, which used a
columnar layout.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bookkeeping+machine+keyboard&tbm=isch

In a heroic effort to maximize the damage, the ATM industry decided
that more people were familiar with dialing a telephone than punching
a calculator keyboard, and therefore adopted the touch-tone keypad
layout for ATM keyboards:
https://www.google.com/search?q=atm+keypad&tbm=isch

Some net wisdom on the topic, all of which misses the real reason for
the rather drastic change in layout.
https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/16666/why-do-numpads-on-keyboards-and-phones-have-reversed-layouts
http://web.archive.org/web/20180102203929/http://www.vcalc.net/Keyboard.htm

Certainly Benford's law holds true for base 2 numbers.

It would not hold true for phone numbers. Originally you only dialed exchanges, not area codes. Area codes were detected by a zero or one in the middle and there were no zeros or ones in the exchange at all. It was not until much later with the advent of digital switching equipment and the universal use of area codes that this rule could be relaxed. But to this day area codes do not start with a one or zero.

With this original distribution of digits in the early system I'm pretty sure Benford's law was not in operation.


So, why would Ma Bell (AT&T) in 1960 select a then rarely used
keyboard layout and back it up with an ambiguous user study? I'll
provide the answer in a day or two, after all the regulars have had
time to provide the usual bad guesses.

That's easy. The dial phone was 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0. They thought this was important to preserve for some reason.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
 
On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 22:50:11 -0800, boB <boB@K7IQ.com> wrote:

On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 19:39:55 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:

Sounds of old phone systems....
http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips/

Yep, that was me in college. I was a teenage phone phreak.


Oh really ??!!!?? Early 70s, late 60s, so was I !!

That picture at the top of the phonetrips page is mine actually and
that's me on the left. Except high school, not college.

Oops and my apologies. Bad choice of words. I meant that at the
time, I was also a teenage phone hacker, not that I was in one of your
photos. Sorry for the confusion. Some random old photos of me:
<http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/jeffl/>

>What GREAT times those were !

In retrospect, my high skool and college daze were the best times of
my life. My only real worry was getting drafted, which was a suitable
inspiration for obtaining an education and getting tolerable grades.

At least we still have a couple good
phone museums. The one in Seattle has most of the common switches
working and talking to each other. Panel, #5 Xbar, #1 Xbar, Step and
I think its' a #5 or #1 ESS.

I've never seen any of them. My involvement in phone hacking largely
ended when I graduated college and became involved in businesses that
could generate revenue, such as printing, smuggling, military
adventures, 2way radio, lingerie manufacture, computahs, etc.

About 25 years ago, I managed to obtain guided (and guarded) tours of
the local central office and some of the remote switching offices.
Inside were rows and rows of Strowger and Crossbar switches, doing
nothing. Of course, I asked, why were they still in the building. The
answer was that they were "depreciating". Tax law required the telcos
to depreciate their assets over an extremely long time (40 years?).
So, it was financially beneficial to leave all the old equipment in
place, long after they had been replaced, so as not to lose the
deduction or possibly get hit with a recapture charge. Any of these
building would have made an excellent working museum with all the old
equipment still in place and ready to be demonstrated with the flick
of a switch.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Mon, 24 Feb 2020 19:19:08 -0800 (PST), Rick C
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

So, why would Ma Bell (AT&T) in 1960 select a then rarely used
keyboard layout and back it up with an ambiguous user study? I'll
provide the answer in a day or two, after all the regulars have had
time to provide the usual bad guesses.

That's easy. The dial phone was 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0. They
thought this was important to preserve for some reason.

If it were necessary to preserve the layout and order of the rotary
telephone dial, the touch-tone pad would have been something like:

1 2 3 or 0 1 2
8 9 4 9 3
7 6 5 8 4
7 6 5

which form a circle or spiral of sequential digits. Methinks that the
2nd layout was one of the original suggestions in the 1960 user test.
I don't recall exactly what was done with the 0 digit, but I vaguely
recall something like these were proposed (with a circle drawn around
the keypad to make it look something like a dial):

0 1 2 3 or 1 2 3 4
8 9 4 9 0 5
7 6 5 8 7 6

Ma Bell went through the same agony once again with the layout of the
DynaTAC mobile phone handset, which originally used:
<https://www.firstversions.com/2015/01/motorola.html>
I've been told that the original 2 column version was awkward to use.

1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 0

I've only used the later 3 column TynaTAC version:

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
* 0 #

Here's a Nov 1960 test by Ma Bell in Bell System Tech Journal.
Unfortunatly, it's not the article that compares various touch tone
pad layouts.

Signaling Systems for Control of Telephone Switching
<http://www.historyofphonephreaking.org/docs/breen1960.pdf>
Pg 1434 Various international rotary dials. Notice the zero and ten
conflict in the dial from Sweden. The chart showing the various
interoffice signaling systems was the basis of many blue boxes and
telco hacks.

Digging for more goodies, I found:
Tone Ringing and Push Button Calling, Mar 1958
<http://explodingthephone.com/hoppdocs/meacham1958.pdf>
Interesting, but nothing on testing various pad layouts. Photo of a
modified Model 500 phone with touch tone keypad indicates that the
layout decision was probably made prior to 1958. Also note that in
Section 1.2, the purpose of the keypad was to provide signaling, not
ringing, as in a 10 user party line. I guess(tm) this might have been
before someone thought it might be useful for something else.

More (maybe):
<http://explodingthephone.com/docs.php>

Anyway, this is all rather disappointing. I expected more bad guesses
from this group. I'll wait one more day before disclosing why AT&T
selected a rather odd touch tone pad layout. Hint: There was no
testing involved and you probably won't find it using Google or
DuckDuckGo.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Mon, 24 Feb 2020 20:54:22 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

Anyway, this is all rather disappointing. I expected more bad guesses
from this group. I'll wait one more day before disclosing why AT&T
selected a rather odd touch tone pad layout.

Sigh. I guess nobody is interested, so I'll just provide a short
answer instead of my usual overly long and detailed rant on the topic.

In the 1950's, AT&T had a problem. It was a monopoly. In order to
prevent being accused of abusing its monopoly status, it had to
conform to certain business limitations. One of these was that AT&T
should not be allowed to own every part of its business sector. It
was agreed that AT&T should stay out of the growing computer business.
AT&T suspected that if the proposed touchtone pad looked too much like
a computer or calculator data entry device, someone might suggest that
AT&T was selling poorly disguised computers. The easiest way to
differentiate the telephone from a computer or calculator was to
re-arrange the keypad layout. Since their 15 person population
research showed that the layout had little effect on speed or
accuracy, not using a calculator keyboard was an easy decision.

The original 1960 human factors study on touchtone pads:
"Human factors engineering studies of the design and use of pushbutton
telephone sets. The Bell System Technical Journal, 995-1012."
<https://archive.org/details/bstj39-4-995/mode/2up>
The keypad layouts are shown on Pg 999.

"Here’s why telephones and calculators use different numeric keypads"
<https://uxdesign.cc/a-brief-history-of-the-numeric-keypad-59112cbf4c49>

Potentially interesting reports hidden behind pay walls:

"Expected locations of digits and letters on ten-button keysets" 1950
<https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fh0048722>

"Human factors engineering studies of the design and use of pushbutton
telephone sets" July 1960:
<https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6773609>


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Tue, 25 Feb 2020 20:30:32 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

On Mon, 24 Feb 2020 20:54:22 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:

Anyway, this is all rather disappointing. I expected more bad guesses
from this group. I'll wait one more day before disclosing why AT&T
selected a rather odd touch tone pad layout.

Sigh. I guess nobody is interested, so I'll just provide a short
answer instead of my usual overly long and detailed rant on the topic.

In the 1950's, AT&T had a problem. It was a monopoly. In order to
prevent being accused of abusing its monopoly status, it had to
conform to certain business limitations. One of these was that AT&T
should not be allowed to own every part of its business sector. It
was agreed that AT&T should stay out of the growing computer business.
AT&T suspected that if the proposed touchtone pad looked too much like
a computer or calculator data entry device, someone might suggest that
AT&T was selling poorly disguised computers. The easiest way to
differentiate the telephone from a computer or calculator was to
re-arrange the keypad layout. Since their 15 person population
research showed that the layout had little effect on speed or
accuracy, not using a calculator keyboard was an easy decision.

The original 1960 human factors study on touchtone pads:
"Human factors engineering studies of the design and use of pushbutton
telephone sets. The Bell System Technical Journal, 995-1012."
https://archive.org/details/bstj39-4-995/mode/2up
The keypad layouts are shown on Pg 999.

"Here’s why telephones and calculators use different numeric keypads"
https://uxdesign.cc/a-brief-history-of-the-numeric-keypad-59112cbf4c49

Cool paper !

I don't know.... I liked the Bell TT pad myself. NOW, I use its
layout to sometimes remember sequences of numbers by imagining that
number on the TT pad.

The QWERTY keyboard numbers were, I am guessing, layed out the way
they were after all the letters were layed out ?

Remember also that the TT pad also had the extra 1633 Hz column
including Flash and Flash Overrride, etc. from the old AUTOVON
netowork.

You probably know this but the # or "diamond' as Bell Tell called it
was going to also be used for completing an overseas call back in the
day, when otherwise you would have to wait for the call to be put
through. This was because there were varying numbers of digits to
different countries phone systems. I don't know if that feature was
ever actually used though since I rarely dialed overseas by the usual
means way back then. A friend and I would have the habit and I still
do sometimes press # after dialing just for old times sake.

boB




Potentially interesting reports hidden behind pay walls:

"Expected locations of digits and letters on ten-button keysets" 1950
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fh0048722

"Human factors engineering studies of the design and use of pushbutton
telephone sets" July 1960:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6773609
 
On Tue, 25 Feb 2020 21:54:40 -0800, boB <boB@K7IQ.com> wrote:

I don't know.... I liked the Bell TT pad myself. NOW, I use its
layout to sometimes remember sequences of numbers by imagining that
number on the TT pad.

The ability of the human mind to adapt to minor changes without
exploding is IMNHO (in my never humble opinion) rather amazing. While
I was considering the possibility of inscribing a long dissertation on
the topic of keyboard layouts, I asked about 7 friends if they were
confused by the changes in key arrangement between the phone, ATM, and
computer keyboards. While some knew that they were different, nobody
could remember the general arrangement of keys. Worst was the ATM key
layout, which everyone (including me) wrongly assumed was the same as
a calculator layout:
<https://www.google.com/search?q=atm+keypad&tbm=isch>
The ability to adapt to different layouts is much like what happened
when man learned to carry around a stick. We now "feel" things at the
tip of the stick, not where we grasp the stick.

The QWERTY keyboard numbers were, I am guessing, layed out the way
they were after all the letters were layed out ?

Yes. The numbers (and misc symbols) were located along the top row of
keys:
<https://www.google.com/search?q=antique+typewriter+keyboard&tbm=isch>

You might be amused by the WWII Enigma cipher machine keyboard, which
provided no numbers or symbols.
<https://www.google.com/search?q=enigma+keyboard&tbm=isch>
To send a number, the Germans spelled out the numbers, much like is
done on bank checks.

Remember also that the TT pad also had the extra 1633 Hz column
including Flash and Flash Overrride, etc. from the old AUTOVON
netowork.

Yep. Those were highly prized at the time.

>You probably know this but the # or "diamond' as Bell Tell called it

Not diamond, but rather "octothorpe":
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octothorpe>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign>
The best conspiracy theory is that Isaac Newton tended to scribble
various abbreviations thus converting the "lb" into "#". In the
1950's, # and * were respectively "hash" and "splat". However, I've
heard different usage in different parts of the country.

was going to also be used for completing an overseas call back in the
day, when otherwise you would have to wait for the call to be put
through. This was because there were varying numbers of digits to
different countries phone systems. I don't know if that feature was
ever actually used though since I rarely dialed overseas by the usual
means way back then. A friend and I would have the habit and I still
do sometimes press # after dialing just for old times sake.

I don't recall ever seeing the # and * used for long distance
signaling. Mostly, that was handled by a DTMF to MF (multi freq) tone
converter when the call hit international circuits.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-frequency_signaling>

Marginally related drivel:
[Q] How can one tell the difference between a number juggler and a
word juggler.
[A] Ask them both to produce a list of items. The number juggler
will produce a vertical list, with one item per line. The word
juggler will produced a long line and word wrapped list with items
separated by commas. I sometimes use this to guess(tm) if someone
asking a question on Usenet wants a numerical derivation full of
equations, or a word salad description of the problem. Incidentally,
the purpose of a tech writer is often to convert number juggler output
into word juggler output.


--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 

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