Telephony on TV [telecom]

[David Clayton]

I just finished watching an old TV show on DVD where the telephone network
was the prime factor in the show. It was the use of a company "Tie Line"
between San Francisco to Hawaii that gave away the killer:

(Original) Hawaii Five-O season 3 ep 4 "Time and Memories" (starring a
young Martin Sheen).

The use of the phrase "Tie Line" caught my notice early in the episode,
and it put a smile on my face when it turned out to be central to the
whole plot.

I wonder if there are many other examples on TV or cinema of reasonably
obscure telephone technology being used in such an important manner in a
plot line?

--
Regards, David.

David Clayton
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a
measure of how many questions you have.

[HAncock4]

On Nov 1, 5:52 pm, David Clayton <dcstarbox-use...@yahoo.com.au>
wrote:

> I just finished watching an old TV show on DVD where the telephone network
> was the prime factor in the show. It was the use of a company "Tie Line"
> between San Francisco to Hawaii that gave away the killer:

Could you elaborate how that happened?

I don't think tie-line traffic was billed at that time--the point of a
tie-line was to provide free communication between two PBXs and
billing equipment cost money in that era. Indeed, one of the goals of
Centrex was to provide extension outward toll billing which wasn't
available before except manually via the PBX operator.

> I wonder if there are many other examples on TV or cinema of reasonably
> obscure telephone technology being used in such an important manner in a
> plot line?

Various interesting telephony issues were used to advance the plot in
the excellent 1976 film "Three Days of the Condor".

The 1960s film "Pillow Talk" featured two single people fighting over
use of a shared party line.

While this wasn't a major plot line, in a recent TV show, "2 Broke
Girls", the wall phone (a green 554 rotary set) rang and a roommate
unknowingly answered it. The other roommate explained never to answer
that phone because that was the number bill collectors and the
landlord called on.

In "The Major and the Minor", Ginger Rogers gets a boy to let her use
a school switchboard so she can make a toll call important to the
plot. She gets her own call through, but screws up other traffic.

[Robert Bonomi]

In article <5cfc7214-f973-43b4...@es7g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,

HAncock4 <with...@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote:
>On Nov 1, 5:52 pm, David Clayton <dcstarbox-use...@yahoo.com.au>
>wrote:
>> I just finished watching an old TV show on DVD where the telephone network
>> was the prime factor in the show. It was the use of a company "Tie Line"
>> between San Francisco to Hawaii that gave away the killer:
>
>Could you elaborate how that happened?
>
>I don't think tie-line traffic was billed at that time--the point of a
>tie-line was to provide free communication between two PBXs and
>billing equipment cost money in that era.

"Not exactly."

A 'tie line' was a (usually) telco-supplied 'permanent' voice-grade point-to-
point circuit between two locations. There was a non-trivial one-time
'installation' charge, _and_ a MRC based on mileage. Just like for an OPX,
or FX service.

Tie lines were typically installed between locations where there was 'enough'
traffic between those sites to justify the 'fixed' cost of the permanent
link -- because it was less than the cost that would be incurred in toll
calls.


I've got a _vague_ memory that the 'tie' in the name was actually an acronym
for something.

[Robert Bonomi]

In article <pan.2011.11.01....@yahoo.com.au>,

David Clayton <dcstarbo...@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>
>I wonder if there are many other examples on TV or cinema of reasonably
>obscure telephone technology being used in such an important manner in a
>plot line?

Not particularly 'obscure', but the movie "Sorry, Wrong Number" had the
telephone as a central plot element. It also figured prominently in
"Dial M for Murder".

There are many instances where a "party-line" figured conspicuously into the
plot. There's a Rock Hudson/Doris Day movie -- the name of it escapes me at
the moment -- that revolves around two people being forced to share a party-
line because private lines were in extremely short supply.

There are at least two 'Columbo' episodes where observation of the indicator
lamps on a 1A2 desk set are instrumental in the solution of the case.

Also, a "Banacek' episode where a dial-up computer modem connection is an
essential part of the solution to the 'mystery'.

There's an 'Hawaii Five-0' episode, where 'remote message retrieval' (somewhat
exotic technology for -that- time -- the lab guy has to explain, and _demo_,
to McGarrett how it's possible/done) from an answering machine is a plot
element.

And, of course, there are the games Robert Redford plays with the phone
system in 'Three Days of the Condor'. Especially the bamboozling of the
CIA's 'tracer' system.

There are, also, "who knows how many" shows that involve 'tracing' phone
calls,

[HAncock4]

On Nov 2, 6:09 pm, bon...@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:

> >I don't think tie-line traffic was billed at that time--the point of a
> >tie-line was to provide free communication between two PBXs and
> >billing equipment cost money in that era.
>
> "Not exactly."
>
> A 'tie line' was a (usually) telco-supplied 'permanent' voice-grade
> point-to- point circuit between two locations. There was a
> non-trivial one-time 'installation' charge, _and_ a MRC based on

> mileage. Just like for an OPX,or FX service. Tie lines were

> typically installed between locations where there was 'enough'
> traffic between those sites to justify the 'fixed' cost of the
> permanent link -- because it was less than the cost that would be
> incurred in toll calls.

Yes, of course there were initial and monthly _fixed_ costs, but I do
not think there were _variable_ costs of usage once the tie-line was
up and running; so no records of tie line usage were normally kept
(other than special reasons). Given that, and the general state of
PBX technology of that era, I don't think there was a way a dialed
call could've been _easily_ traced, especially after the fact (if
that's what they did.)

I think in TV/movies they took a lot of liberties on the concept of
'tracing a call'.

In Three Days of the Condor, they showed a CIA office where supposedly
a map came up on a screen showing the location of an originated call.
_If_ the originating exchange had ANI (and not all did in 1976) that
kind of technology was _theorectically_ possible, but it would require
a sizable mainframe to handle the database and the digitization of
geographic information not often done back then, plus some nice
hardware to select the map panel and display it.

As an aside, they looked like Hagstrom street maps on the display.
Hagstrom was a long time top map maker for the NYC area.

Speaking of movies, in North by Northwest a page request for a phone
call was a key element in the plot. Also, the telephone was used in a
number of scenes. In one, two spies are talking to each other while
in a bank of pay phones. IIRC, Cary Grant asked a hotel operator to
trace a call just received, but since it was a manual call the
operator likely would've remember the source. Of course, in a big
hotel like that there were probably several operators handling a high
volume a traffic, and remembering a specific call wasn't a sure thing.

[Robert Bonomi]

In article <731c17e4-45f1-467d...@j20g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,

HAncock4 <with...@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote:
>On Nov 2, 6:09 pm, bon...@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:
>
> Given that, and the general state of
>PBX technology of that era, I don't think there was a way a dialed
>call could've been _easily_ traced, especially after the fact (if
>that's what they did.)

>I think in TV/movies they took a lot of liberties on the concept of
>'tracing a call'.
>
>In Three Days of the Condor, they showed a CIA office where supposedly
>a map came up on a screen showing the location of an originated call.
>_If_ the originating exchange had ANI (and not all did in 1976) that
>kind of technology was _theorectically_ possible, but it would require
>a sizable mainframe to handle the database and the digitization of
>geographic information not often done back then, plus some nice
>hardware to select the map panel and display it.

Sorry, but you "don't know what you don't know" in that respect.

The display technology shown actually existed, and did *not* involve
any digitization of data. Typically driven by something on the scale
of a PDP-8 to a PDP-11/03.

>As an aside, they looked like Hagstrom street maps on the display.
>Hagstrom was a long time top map maker for the NYC area.

No kidding. :)

It was simple _optical_ projection of film images (probably micro-fiche)
data, with stepper-motor-driven X-Y axis positioning. It used a simple
3-coordinate system -- film #, and X-Y values -- to represent any
displayable point in the system.

Very similar to the technology employed in the terminals invented by
The University of Illinois, for their PLATO system.



Aside, ANI wasn't necessary for identifying a calling number, and was
_not_ being used in the purported CIA 'trace' facility. If that trace
was ANI-based, they'd have the calling number before answering the phone.

With electro-mechanical C.O. switches one had to have a tech physically
track the connection through the relays.

With computer-driven control components, a trace needs only remote access
to the switch console, to match the incoming circuit to the outgoing one.
then on to the 'upstream' switch, and repeat. The limiting factor on how
fast you can trace is simply how fast you can access the switches involved.

Before SS7 -- and I believe there is still such a capability in SS7 -- there
was a capability for a telco to issue a command for the switches handling
a call to 'freeze' the connection, such that the circuit was not torn down
when either party hung up. This eliminated the need to 'keep the caller
on the line' until the trace was completed. This was a "lock and trace"
operation.

[David Clayton]

Just watched another classic Hawaii 5-O episode where they tracked down
kidnappers by setting up a call to a public phone and then cut to an
exchange where they showed someone looking at SxS switch equipment and
backtracking the call rack by rack to a piece of jumper wire on the MDF.

Instead of just the info of a trace being delivered as a plot piece, they
basically showed the process (I don't know how accurate the depiction was,
but it looked good to me), very impressive!

I am beginning to suspect whoever they had writing in that old season 3
either knew a bit about the phone system or they had a consultant who did.

--
Regards, David.

David Clayton
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a
measure of how many questions you have.

***** Moderator's Note *****

They just did it because SxS looks cool. However fantasic the film
might seem to techies such as we, let's remember that to the ordinary
public it was marvelous and mysterious.

I bet you guys talk back to the screen in movies, too.

Bill Horne
Moderator

[Adam H. Kerman]

Robert Bonomi <bon...@host122.r-bonomi.com> wrote:

>HAncock4 <with...@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote:

>>I think in TV/movies they took a lot of liberties on the concept of
>>'tracing a call'.

>>In Three Days of the Condor, they showed a CIA office where supposedly
>>a map came up on a screen showing the location of an originated call.
>>_If_ the originating exchange had ANI (and not all did in 1976) that
>>kind of technology was _theorectically_ possible, but it would require
>>a sizable mainframe to handle the database and the digitization of
>>geographic information not often done back then, plus some nice
>>hardware to select the map panel and display it.

>Sorry, but you "don't know what you don't know" in that respect.

All right, Robert. As always, you know better, but don't offer an
explanation. Hancock has used this example a number of times in the past
on Usenet.

>The display technology shown actually existed, and did *not* involve
>any digitization of data. Typically driven by something on the scale
>of a PDP-8 to a PDP-11/03.

If the map isn't digitized (I assume you mean in a GIS sense), then there
has to be a database of origin points for each street segment from a
given intersection, plus points at which a street changed direction
between intersections, as well as a ratio between house number increment
approximations and how far to move the image. For coordinates, you'd need
to know the house numbers of the intersections themselves. Plus you'd
require some logic to resolve conflicts of two streets with multiple
intersections.

This could have been done at the time with a hell of a lot of data input.
The Census Bureau began the process of mapmaking from DIME based on
the 1960 census, which was used until TIGER was built based on the 1980
census. DIME maps were attrocious. Intersections lined up on one end
but not the other, and they weren't made human-readable by cartographers.

Did they have the ability to relate locations to commercial maps of the
era? Again, with a lot of additional data input, it probably could have
been done, but I doubt the results would have been as satisfactory as
what we saw on screen.

DIME map making did use USGS topographic maps as their base. Regardless,
DIME maps looked nothing like topo maps.

This was all part of a process that led to associating addresses with
block-level data, ZIP+4 codes so that future censuses could rely more
heavily on mailed-in results, and assignment of Census blocks to
latitude/longitude coordinates, the result of which was lots of targeted
marketing thanks to vastly improved demographic data mostly paid for
by taxpayers.

I agree with hancock that what we saw on screen in that movie was somewhat
fantastic.

>>As an aside, they looked like Hagstrom street maps on the display.
>>Hagstrom was a long time top map maker for the NYC area.

>No kidding. :)

>It was simple _optical_ projection of film images (probably micro-fiche)
>data, with stepper-motor-driven X-Y axis positioning. It used a simple
>3-coordinate system -- film #, and X-Y values -- to represent any
>displayable point in the system.

It had to be more than that, for each intersection needed an association
between the map's coordinates and the street addresses of each intersection.
Then you'd need to know what angle the street was on as a tangent originating
from that intersection plus how many feet an address increment represented.

[HAncock4]

On Nov 3, 4:57 am, bon...@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:

> >In Three Days of the Condor, they showed a CIA office where supposedly
> >a map came up on a screen showing the location of an originated call.
> >_If_ the originating exchange had ANI (and not all did in 1976) that
> >kind of technology was _theorectically_ possible, but it would require
> >a sizable mainframe to handle the database and the digitization of
> >geographic information not often done back then, plus some nice
> >hardware to select the map panel and display it.
>
> Sorry, but you "don't know what you don't know" in that respect.
>
> The display technology shown actually existed, and did *not* involve
> any digitization of data. Typically driven by something on the scale
> of a PDP-8 to a PDP-11/03.

> It was simple _optical_ projection of film images (probably micro-fiche)
> data, with stepper-motor-driven X-Y axis positioning. It used a simple
> 3-coordinate system -- film #, and X-Y values -- to represent any
> displayable point in the system.

The mechanical part of automatically selecting and displaying a
microfiche is not that hard.

I suggest that _in that era_ the real-time translation of a phone
number to a street address and then street address to a specific fiche
frame would have been a technical challenge. Doable, but not easy nor
cheap.

First, they would need dynamic information from the phone company of
the physical address associated with every telephone number in the
metropolitan region. In those days there was a high volume of service
changes. Due to the high volume, the telephone company itself had
trouble maintaining that information accurately and that was a
contributing factor toward the service crisis of that era. So,
maintaining a separate accurate database would have been a big
challenge.

Secondly, they would need to translate a specific street address to
the proper map location for the entire metro area and keep that up to
date and accurate. I'm not sure computerized databases of that sort
of thing existed back then(remember, we're covering both the city and
suburbs in three states down to the house level). It could've been
created of course, but that would be a big job since so much of it
would be done by hand.

As an aside, in the old days many addresses were shown as
intersections eg "Fifth & Main Streets". while today many addresses
are shown with a street number, eg "3 Fifth Street". I suspect that
change is due to making it easier to have computerized databases for
public safety and the post office.

> Very similar to the technology employed in the terminals invented by
> The University of Illinois, for their PLATO system.
>
> Aside, ANI wasn't necessary for identifying a calling number, and was
> _not_ being used in the purported CIA 'trace' facility. If that trace
> was ANI-based, they'd have the calling number before answering the phone.

If they didn't use ANI, what did they use to identify the calling
number _quickly_ as shown in the movie?

> With electro-mechanical C.O. switches one had to have a tech physically
> track the connection through the relays.
> With computer-driven control components, a trace needs only remote access
> to the switch console, to match the incoming circuit to the outgoing one.
> then on to the 'upstream' switch, and repeat. The limiting factor on how
> fast you can trace is simply how fast you can access the switches involved.

Most exchanges in 1976 were electro-mechanical of all three types. A
few exchanges were independent with very basic switches, such as on
Fisher's Island.

I believe ANI was fairly widespread back then, but I know from
personal experience that not all city exchanges had it and still
depended on ONI.

Of course, special trunks and arrangements would be required from all
exchanges or tandem offices to the CIA office in order to pass through
the calling number. Doable, but not cheap in those days. (The CIA
wasn't supposed to be meddling in domestic affairs, that was the FBI's
job. But we can assume that the CIA got whatever it wanted from the
phone company as long as money changed hands to cover the cost.)

> Before SS7 -- and I believe there is still such a capability in SS7 -

> there was a capability for a telco to issue a command for the
> switches handling a call to 'freeze' the connection, such that the
> circuit was not torn down when either party hung up. This
> eliminated the need to 'keep the caller on the line' until the trace
> was completed. This was a "lock and trace" operation.

I believe a feature in the early 911 systems was the ability for the
911 operator to seize the circuit and ring back the caller if he hung
up.


As an aside, in the movie Redford tracked a phone number to area code
202 and the CIA. But the CIA was in Langley VA, so wouldn't their
area code be the one for Virginia? Likewise, when he tracked a call
to the rouge manager at his suburban home, wouldn't he have had a
different area code? I suspect the movie just used some dramatic
license for that (as they did in the central office scenes).

***** Moderator's Note *****

Um, you do realize that the voice of HAL didn't come from a computer,
right?

Is there any question in your mind that Dustin Hoffman and Robert
Redford were not the reporters who broke the Watergate Coverup story?

OK, here's a trick question: can you accept that "Bedtime for Bonzo"
was not filmed in the OVal Office of the White House?

This thread has wandered into a discussion of how many angels can fit
in the heart of a Hollywood agent, so it's time to close it.

Bill Horne
Moderator

[David Thompson]

On Tue, 1 Nov 2011 20:13:54 -0700 (PDT), HAncock4
<with...@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote:

> > I wonder if there are many other examples on TV or cinema of
> > reasonably obscure telephone technology being used in such an
> > important manner in a plot line?

<snip others>

> In "The Major and the Minor", Ginger Rogers gets a boy to let her
> use a school switchboard so she can make a toll call important to
> the plot. She gets her own call through, but screws up other
> traffic.

Several movies featured women working as PBX or telco operators, but I
wouldn't call that an obscure technology, nor AFAIR vital to plots.

'The Sting' relies on interception of newswire (race results). Quite a
few movies showed Teletypes, either newswire, cable (e.g. WU, C&W), or
business telex/TWX. They are nicely cinematic with the thudding and
the dinging and the typehead moving and the words appearing. Ordinary
people wouldn't encounter a Teletype but I'm not sure they're obscure.

'Fail Safe' is set almost entirely on the US-USSR hotline.
'Dr Strangelove' uses it some -- also an ordinary payphone, with the
wonderful threat by Keenan Wynn "If you don't get the president on
that phone, you'll have to answer to the Coca-Cola company."

[Moderator snip]

'The President's Analyst' has important roles for several fictional
(we hope!) telco -- but not quite telephone -- technologies.

TV series 'Cannon' frequently used an IMTS (I believe) car phone at a
time when they were uncommon and 'sexy' but not unknown.

'Green Acres' had Eddie Albert (often?) climb a pole to directly use
the cable, but this was just a yuk, not important to plot.

[Neal McLain]

On Nov 1, 5:52 pm, David Clayton <dcstarbox-use...@yahoo.com.au>
wrote:

> I just finished watching an old TV show on DVD where the telephone
> network was the prime factor in the show. It was the use of a
> company "Tie Line" between San Francisco to Hawaii that gave away
> the killer:
>

> I wonder if there are many other examples on TV or cinema of
> reasonably obscure telephone technology being used in such an
> important manner in a plot line?

In Hitchcock's "The Trouble with Harry" (set in a small town in
Vermont), Sheriff Calvin Wiggs (Royal Dano) interrupts a bridge game.
Suspicious (correctly) that the bridge game is a staged setup to
deflect his attention from what's actually happening, he plays along.
But he's really there to use the old manual wall phone to call the
state police. He picks up the receiver, waits for the local operator
to answer, then asks for "Montpellier 2000." One of the bridge-game
players recognizes the number and says, under his breath to the rest
of the bridge players, "That's the State Police." It takes a few
minutes for the local operator to get the call established. During
this time, Wiggs makes small talk with the bridge party, stopping
occasionally to answer questions from the operator.

Neal McLain

[HAncock4]

On Nov 21, 2:39 am, David Thompson <dave.thomps...@verizon.net> wrote:


> 'The Sting' relies on interception of newswire (race results). Quite a
> few movies showed Teletypes, either newswire, cable (e.g. WU, C&W), or
> business telex/TWX. They are nicely cinematic with the thudding and
> the dinging and the typehead moving and the words appearing. Ordinary
> people wouldn't encounter a Teletype but I'm not sure they're obscure.

If memory serves, the closing scene of "All The President's Men" show
a Teletype printing out a news story ending the story. That film also
had extensive of use of telephones (black rotary 500's with plastic
dial) in the office and in phone booths (modern lower case "phone"
sign, but with old Bell System logo).

Many offices had Teletypes for one reason or another, so they weren't
that unusual in the workplace. Many had receive only to get news,
weather, or special bulletins from headquarters. Others had TWX or
Telex for two-way communication. News programs often showed a bank of
Teletypes in the background, and newsradio stations used the thudding
noise in the background. They continued using that noise even after
mechanical Teletypes were replaced with computer screens. The classic
film Casablanca opens with a police officer ripping an urgent bulletin
from the Teletype, a common cinematic theme.

The film, "Airport", recently available on cable. made extensive use
of telephone and radio conversations to move the plot along. The
airport manager had a fancy telephone setup on the wall behind his
desk. The maintenance supervisor had a mobile phone in his car.
Other personnel had radios in their cars with the handheld microphone
pulled out on its coiled cord, a popular cinematic device. The film
was made around the time Touch Tone was coming out, and important
people in the film had colored Touch Tone sets, while mere mortals had
plain black rotary sets. Ironically, the airport's PBX switchboard
was a quiet board--for a crazy busy airport like that in a snowstorm
the board should've been a lot busier.

> 'The President's Analyst' has important roles for several fictional
> (we hope!) telco -- but not quite telephone -- technologies.

In "The Day the Earth Stood Still", a somber army general picks up the
phone, spins the dial at zero, and states grimly, "get me the
President!". That was a common cinematic device.

> TV series 'Cannon' frequently used an IMTS (I believe) car phone at a
> time when they were uncommon and 'sexy' but not unknown.

Did Mannix have a car phone? I remember back then that VIPs would be
shown with a car phone, which were very rare back then. You're right,
it added some "sexy" or coolness to the show.

> 'Green Acres' had Eddie Albert (often?) climb a pole to directly use
> the cable, but this was just a yuk, not important to plot.

That was an ongoing joke that the backward town couldn't or wouldn't
get enough wire to finish extending the line from the pole into the
house. It served for other jokes such as dropping the phone to the
ground and hitting someone or having a tough time talking in bad
weather. I think the phone portrayed was actually a butt test set.


In old days Bell dials made a scratchy sound when dialed while AE
dials were much quieter. But in old movies that scratchy sound could
add to the drama of a scene when a character was slowly and
deliberately making a phone call of importance to the plot (such as
toward the end in Casablanca with Capt Renoit forced to make a call at
gunpoint or several times in Maltese Falcon).


Question: In conducting business, Hollywood studios made extensive
use of the telephone, even going way back. I wonder if they Bell
System provided them with advanced PBX switchboards or networks to
accomodate their demand. I wonder if studio lots had more telephone
extensions than a typical industrial site.


[public replies, please]

[danny burstein]

[snippeth]

>Did Mannix have a car phone? I remember back then that VIPs would be
>shown with a car phone, which were very rare back then. You're right,
>it added some "sexy" or coolness to the show.

Don't recall about Mannix, but if we go back to the 1950s,
"The Adventures of Superman" [a] featured publisher Perry
White with a car phone. None of the reporters or other
secondary people...

[a] As Scotty of Star Trek might have said, "no A, B,
C, or D. Just Superman, dammit"
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

[Andrew Carey]

I can't believe no one has mentioned Sidney Pollack's "The Slender
Thread" yet. Not really an obscure technology but the entire movie is
based on tracing the call of a suicidal women. According to a blurb on
TCM, everything except the crisis center was filmed on location in the
Seattle area.

Chunks of the movie are on Youtube. I don't think it has been released
on DVD or Blu-ray. Part 3 has an operating room (not the surgical
kind) starting at 3:19 and goes on to a c.o.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkJlpLT_L7M

[Wes Leatherock]

> HAncock4 <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
[Moderator snip]

> Question: In conducting business, Hollywood studios made extensive
> use of the telephone, even going way back. I wonder if they Bell
> System provided them with advanced PBX switchboards or networks to
> accomodate their demand. I wonder if studio lots had more telephone
> extensions than a typical industrial site.

It's easy to forget that a lot of the L.A. area was served by
independent telephone companies where AE tlephone and dials were very
common, so probably not a conscious deviation in film in many cases.

Some of the independent compahies were pretty progressive and their
telephone service may have provided by independent companies which
could also supply such equipment and networks.


Wes Leatherock
wlea...@yahoo.com
wes...@aol.com

[Wes Leatherock]

--- On Wed, 11/23/11, danny burstein <dan...@panix.com> wrote:

> Did Mannix have a car phone? I remember back then that VIPs would
> be >shown with a car phone, which were very rare back then. You're
> right, it added some "sexy" or coolness to the show.

> Don't recall about Mannix, but if we go back to the 1950s, "The

> Adventures of Superman" featured publisher Perry White with a car

> phone. None of the reporters or other secondary people...

When I was a reporter at The Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City) we
had two cars with car phones. You got a car with a phone if there was
a reason it might be needed on an assignment. I used it a number of
times on such an assignment. I believe [the phone number] was
WJ7-2954.


Wes Leatherock
wlea...@yahoo.com
wes...@aol.com

[HAncock4]

On Nov 24, 10:30 am, Wes Leatherock <wleat...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> > Question: In conducting business, Hollywood studios made extensive
> > use of the telephone, even going way back. I wonder if they Bell
> > System provided them with advanced PBX switchboards or networks to
> > accomodate their demand. I wonder if studio lots had more telephone
> > extensions than a typical industrial site.

> ...Some of the independent compahies were pretty progressive and their

> telephone service may have provided by independent companies which
> could also supply such equipment and networks.

Let's use 1940 as a base year. What kind of advanced PBX systems and
special features for high volume users did the Bell System and
Independent companies offer at that time? My recollection of the Bell
System history is that except for a few cordboard features (eg
automatic ringing), _advanced_-dial features wouldn't come until well
into the 1950-60s when crossbar was developed for PBX use. But, some
Bell companies developed special services on their own and perhaps
some were offered to Hollywood studios since presumably they were
major customers.

Did the Independent equipment providers (eg Leich, Automatic Electric,
Kellogg, Stromberg Carlson) offer any advanced technology for large
PBX customers in 1940? How about after the war*?

I think at that point for large users Bell basically had its 701 dial
PBX, with special features mostly handled manually by the PBX
attendant or someone's own secretary via an office key system. For
instance, if an executive barked "get me John Smith over at
Paramount!", a secretary or PBX attendant would look up Mr. Smith's
phone number, dial it, get Mr. Smith (or his secretary on the line),
and announce the call to the caller when it was ready. If Mr. Smith
wasn't available, the secretary would manually leave a message or
search him out elsewhere. Other businesses worked the same way,
indeed these practices continued well into the 1970s.

The studios probably were liberally equipped with extensions, trunks,
and, key systems in offices. My guess is that they may have had more
trunks and extensions than other large businesses. Back then, some
offices had their own intercoms between a manager and his secretary
and staff--these are often depicted in old movies, and such 'squawk
boxes' may have been cheaper than a Bell provided key system intercom.

Studios may have extensively used "code call" which was a system of
coded flashing lights that signalled a particular person to call in.

Studios sometimes had branch offices in New York City to deal with
financing or the theatre community. I wonder if studios had cross-
country tie-lines back then (very expensive to carry, but eliminated
expensive a la carte toll charges and may have allowed faster
calling.) Perhaps they had cheaper private TWX or Western Union
lines. In those days telegraph traffic was "piggybacked" on low bands
of voice trunks. Slow at a rate of 60, but cheaper.

Like many industrial sites of the time, they may have owned a separate
in-house telephone network for internal calls. Someone who had two
phones on their desk, particularly two different types of phones,
often had one Bell phone and one internal phone. A privately owned
system saved on monthly Bell rentals, but meant that the owner had to
do his own maintenance. If an organization was large enough, it would
already have a staff available for that. (Many school classrooms had
such networks).


In those days one could ask the long distance operator to "get me John
Smith in Scranton" and the long distance operator would call distant
directory assistance to get the number, then place the call person to
person. Long distance back then was expensive partially for that
reason. In the immediate postwar era, the Bell System urged callers
to place calls by number to save on time and make better use of
[the] operator distance dialing [service] which was becoming available.


Going forward into the modern era. I wonder if Hollywood studios were
quick to go onto Centrex service. Step by step, which widely served
the LA area, was easily adaptable to providing Centrex. (When did the
Independent telephone companies begin to offer Centrex?)


* Getting a detailed history of the AE company hasn't been easy.

[Robert Bonomi]

In article <jajdh8$c2o$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
danny burstein <dan...@panix.com> wrote:
>[snippeth]

>
>>Did Mannix have a car phone? I remember back then that VIPs would be
>>shown with a car phone, which were very rare back then. You're right,
>>it added some "sexy" or coolness to the show.
>
>Don't recall about Mannix, but if we go back to the 1950s,

>"The Adventures of Superman" [a] featured publisher Perry

>White with a car phone. None of the reporters or other
>secondary people...

Yes, Mannix had one. As with Cannon, it was used infrequently. Both used
'operator assisted' dialing.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Someone told me that 'Mannix' was the trade name of a drug used for
treatment of manic-depressive illness, now called bipolar
disorder. Was that a little bit of a Hollywood inside joke?

Bill Horne
Moderator

[Robert Bonomi]

In article <dtKdndkP_Jml6FLT...@posted.nuvoxcommunications>,

>
>***** Moderator's Note *****
>
>Someone told me that 'Mannix' was the trade name of a drug used for
>treatment of manic-depressive illness, now called bipolar
>disorder. Was that a little bit of a Hollywood inside joke?

You shouldn't believe everything people tell you. :)

There is a drug with the registered trademarked name of 'Mannix" in THAILAND.
it is a muscle relaxant.

There is a 'herbal remedy' called 'manix' -- primarily used as a diuretic.

[Wes Leatherock]

--- On Thu, 11/24/11, HAncock4 <with...@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote:

> Let's use 1940 as a base year. What kind of advanced PBX systems and
> special features for high volume users did the Bell System and
> Independent companies offer at that time? My recollection of the
> Bell System history is that except for a few cordboard features (eg
> automatic ringing), _advanced_-dial features wouldn't come until
> well into the 1950-60s when crossbar was developed for PBX use.
> But, some Bell companies developed special services on their own and
> perhaps some were offered to Hollywood studios since presumably they
> were major customers.

> I think at that point for large users Bell basically had its 701
> dial PBX, with special features mostly handled manually by the PBX
> attendant or someone's own secretary via an office key system. For
> instance, if an executive barked "get me John Smith over at
> Paramount!", a secretary or PBX attendant would look up Mr. Smith's
> phone number, dial it, get Mr. Smith (or his secretary on the line),
> and announce the call to the caller when it was ready. If Mr. Smith
> wasn't available, the secretary would manually leave a message or
> search him out elsewhere. Other businesses worked the same way,
> indeed these practices continued well into the 1970s.

There were tariffs for "speial assemblies" which provide how costs
would be charged for items and services not listed in the approved
tariffs. Each one was costed for its particular assembly, and there
were many special assemblies written and installed by telephone
companies everywhere. Customers, especially business customers, had
useds for all kinds of things not enumerated in the tariffs.

In the 1940s, I worked as a reporter and editor for the Daily
Oklahoman / Oklahoma City Times in Oklahoma City. On the
switcchboard multiple, besides the local dial trunks, there what we
could now call s "rotary group" of toll trunks, assigned number
L.D. 343, which gives an idea of the volume of toll traffic.

There were also tie lines to and from other related businesses, as
well, I believe to the Washington, D.C., bureau.

There was also L.D. 419 which appeared on a regular black set on a
desk behind the city editor, bypassing the switchboard.

In my experience, the switchboard operators were more then pluggers.
If someone asked for Mr. Smith, the PBX operator probably knew the
number and would connect to it without further discussion.

They also took incoming calls and messages, and were uncanny in
guessing where someone was if they were away from their desks.

> The studios probably were liberally equipped with extensions,

> trunks, and, key systems in offices.0 My guess is that they may have

> had more trunks and extensions than other large businesses. Back
> then, some offices had their own intercoms between a manager and his

> secretary and staff - these are often depicted in old movies, and

> such 'squawk boxes' may have been cheaper than a Bell provided key
> system intercom.

Newspapers were also very big users of communications services, by the
nature of the news business. Many of the buzzers and squawk boxes were
part of the telco provided quipment and integrated with the key
systems.

> Studios may have extensively used "code call" which was a system of
> coded flashing lights that signalled a particular person to call
> in. Studios sometimes had branch offices in New York City to deal
> with financing or the theatre community. I wonder if studios had

> cross-country tie-lines back then (very expensive to carry, but

> eliminated expensive a la carte toll charges and may have allowed
> faster calling.)

Many of them were arranged so they could be dialed like a local
extension.

> Perhaps they had cheaper private TWX or Western Union lines. In
> those days telegraph traffic was "piggybacked" on low bands of voice
> trunks. Slow at a rate of 60, but cheaper.

Telegraph channels were also provided by the telecos, presumably at
competitive rates, in view of the number that were provided by the
telcos.

TWX was a switched service. A private line system connecting
Teletypes was called just that, not TWX. The nation was blanketed by
such systems of the United Press (for which I later worked),
Associated Press and International News Service, with local, regional
and national wires. All of them I was familiar with were
telco-provided, except on Saturday afternoons and nights in the fall
when W.U. had rights to various stadium and private circuits were
ordered from them to the selected wire service bureau or to some
newspaper that sent thir own sportswriters. Sometimes W.U. would
provide Morse operators with their keys and sounders. It was always a
pleasyure to get them because they were so skillewd and understood
what they were doing and could break immediately and send a query if
there was some question that needed to be raised.

> Like many industrial sites of the time, they may have owned a
> separate in-house telephone network for internal calls. Someone
> who had two phones on their desk, particularly two different types
> of phones, often had one Bell phone and one internal phone. A
> privately owned system saved on monthly Bell rentals, but meant that
> the owner had to do his own maintenance. If an organization was
> large enough, it would already have a staff available for
> that. (Many school classrooms had such networks).

As I recall, all Montgomery Ward stores had their own isolated
systems. On the other hand, later when I was working for the Bell
System, I knew of one industiral installatiion on the Gulf Coast
that chose to go with Bell even thought it was higher in cost
because of the massive ability of the Bell System to restore service
after a hurricane.

> In those days one could ask the long distance operator to "get me
> John Smith in Scranton" and the long distance operator would call
> distant directory assistance to get the number, then place the call
> person to person. Long distance back then was expensive partially
> for that reason. In the immediate postwar era, the Bell System urged
> callers to place calls by number to save on time and make better use
> of [the] operator distance dialing [service] which was becoming
> available.

I remember the first time I had a call handled by interoffice dialing.
I worked in the Dallas bureau of United Press and called for our
correspondent or client in Corpus Christi, passed my call and expect
the next thing I heard would be the Corpus Christi inward operator
answering and the Dallas operator passing the number. But the next
thing I heard was the C.C. number ringing.


Wes Leatherock
wlea...@yahoo.com
wes...@aol.com

[HAncock4]

On Nov 27, 11:41 am, Wes Leatherock <wleat...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> In the 1940s, I worked as a reporter and editor for the Daily
> Oklahoman / Oklahoma City Times in Oklahoma City. On the
> switcchboard multiple, besides the local dial trunks, there what we
> could now call s "rotary group" of toll trunks, assigned number
> L.D. 343, which gives an idea of the volume of toll traffic.

Many businesses had trunks like this on their PBX switchboards. In
some cases access was limited to the PBX attendant who had to place
calls on them, in others users could dial on them using special access
codes, such as 8 or 8n.

> There was also L.D. 419 which appeared on a regular black set on a
> desk behind the city editor, bypassing the switchboard.

Many business people, especially high executives, had a direct line
telephone that was separate from the PBX. In several offices I worked
in the head man had such a phone and no one answered it if he wasn't
around.

> In my experience, the switchboard operators were more then pluggers.
> If someone asked for Mr. Smith, the PBX operator probably knew the
> number and would connect to it without further discussion.

Absolutely. The Bell System strongly encouraged that business
customers train their PBX attendants thoroughly in good telephone
manners as well as merely how to work the keys and cords.

However, going way back PBX attendants were also gatekeepers to making
outside calls. Many extensions could not dial out and needed the
attendant to place any outside calls. Some companies were restrictive
with even local calls, most companies were restrictive with toll
calls. Often the PBX attendant dialed any toll calls and wrote up an
internal charge ticket for the calling extension.

One big feature of Centrex when it came out was that each extension
would get a separate toll call listing (even when ONI was used.)

Question: when did the phone company start providing machine-readable
media to customers of their phone bill as an option in addition to
paper? I know it was available in 1976.

> They also took incoming calls and messages, and were uncanny in
> guessing where someone was if they were away from their desks.

The amount of 'extra service' rendered by a PBX attendant varied by
each business. On large busy boards, the attendants tended to handle
traffic only--connecting outside calls to the desired extension. On
boards with less traffic the attendants would take messages, offer
alternative extensions if one was busy, page people, etc.

Today, I find PBX service very frustrating if I need assistance.
Switchboards today are so automated there is little service for a
caller who needs help. For instance, if you don't know Mr. Smith's
extension, you'll be asked to key in his name and it will look it up
for you. If Mr. Smith isn't around you'll be routed to his voicemail.

The problem is that sometimes you don't know the proper spelling or
department of the desired extension, or, the voice-mailbox is full, or
the call is urgent. PBXs are supposed to have an exit to get a human,
but far too often no human is available or the caller just ends up in
dead air or cut off. They seem to go all out to design a system to
make it as difficult as possible to get a human. I know they want to
save money on labor, but it seems to me they're pushing it way too
far.

(If there are any PBX administrators reading this would you share your
comments on this issue?)

> Newspapers were also very big users of communications services, by the
> nature of the news business. Many of the buzzers and squawk boxes were
> part of the telco provided quipment and integrated with the key
> systems.

I remember in 1973 the city desk of a large newspaper had lots of
'space saver' ('pharmacist') telephone sets. Instead of a handset, a
headset dangled from the hookswitch.

Reporters carried lots of dimes and knew the location of payphones to
call in urgent stories. (In the 1960s, city reporters also carried
transit tokens and a transit map to get around on the transit system).

> Telegraph channels were also provided by the telecos, presumably at
> competitive rates, in view of the number that were provided by the
> telcos.

On bitsavers, the IBM introduction to telecommunications has some
early statistics of private line telegraph mileage between AT&T and
Western Union. Although we thought of Western Union as the 'telegraph
company', AT&T had a substantial amount of mileage, both switched and
dedicated.

Both AT&T and Western Union would advertise large corporate and
government private Teletype networks they operated. These included
the Pennsylvania State Police, US Steel Corp, and the national Blue
Cross/Blue Shield. In the 1960s WU installed a large system for the
US Air Force.

> TWX was a switched service. A private line system connecting
> Teletypes was called just that, not TWX. The nation was blanketed by
> such systems of the United Press (for which I later worked),
> Associated Press and International News Service, with local,
> regional and national wires.

For various reasons, many businesses had a news teletype in the
office, well into the 1980s (the old dark green Teletype). Stock
brokers had it alongside the stock ticker to give business news.
Businesses that were weather-sensitive had weather information.

> All of them I was familiar with were
> telco-provided, except on Saturday afternoons and nights in the fall
> when W.U. had rights to various stadium and private circuits were
> ordered from them to the selected wire service bureau or to some
> newspaper that sent thir own sportswriters.

WU literature made a big deal of their ability to quickly set up
telegraph lines to cover major sports events, political conventions,
and other big news stories.

(Old copies of a WU general newsletter are available on disk from the
WU retirees association. Interesting stuff, but about an era that is
long gone. WU was proud of the many branch offices located in smaller
cities and towns. Sadly, today many of those old business districts
have fallen on hard times*).

> As I recall, all Montgomery Ward stores had their own isolated
> systems. On the other hand, later when I was working for the Bell
> System, I knew of one industiral installatiion on the Gulf Coast
> that chose to go with Bell even thought it was higher in cost
> because of the massive ability of the Bell System to restore service
> after a hurricane.

The Phila department stores had, at least in the 1960s, Bell provided
systems, included tie lines connecting all the stores (downtown and
branches). This way if a customer wanted something that was out of
stock, a clerk could call the equivalent department in another branch
and see if the item was available.

(As an aside, when I was little I get lost in a branch department
store. They took me to the PBX room where the attendants were very
nice to me while they paged my mother "we have a little lost boy...".
Even though it was a branch store, there were at least two operators,
maybe three. Also a bag of jelly beans.)

When they got Centrex the phone book listings were detailed with the
direct dial number of every department of the store. I think today
they discourage customers from calling the sales floor.

Department stores had separate "order turret" lines for sales-by-
phone.

* When I read an old article about a business district, I look it up
on Google Street View to compare the photos of then and now. Only
once did I see a "Main Street" that hadn't changed--and that was
because the 1950s Main Street was rundown already. In the 1950s view,
it was clear the people seen were poor, and the main corner had a big
pawn shop on it. The current view isn't much changed, and the pawn
shop is still in business under the same name.

[Justin Goldberg]

On Thu, 03 Nov 2011 03:57:20 -0500, bon...@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:
> Before SS7 - and I believe there is still such a capability in SS7 -

> there was a capability for a telco to issue a command for the
> switches handling a call to 'freeze' the connection, such that the
> circuit was not torn down when either party hung up. This
> eliminated the need to 'keep the caller on the line' until the trace
> was completed. This was a "lock and trace" operation.

Is this what the "malicious call trace" feature which is seen on many
modern PBXs does?

[Moderator snip]

[Robert Bonomi]

In article <ca0be8e4-34d3-4eac...@k28g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,

No. All a PBX can do is issue the standard 'Vertical Service Code'
for a 'customer originated trace' request. (AFAIK, this is not an
actual _physical_ traceback through all the switches, but a capture of
the originating 'caller-ID' info (even if the suppress flag is set),
and the 'ANI' fields from the SS7 call-set-up packets.)

A full-blown 'lock and trace' takes explicit advance arrangement with
the LEC, with special CPE to generate the request, and explicit
enabling of the 'recognition' for that request at the C.O.

The lock & trace is still labor intensive, because it requires a tech
to access the console of the destination switch, find the incoming
circuit that matches the outgoing circuit to the customer, and then
either repeat the process for each 'upstream' switch that that tech
can access, or to contact another tech who _does_ have access to that
upstream switch. It's a lot easier then when one actually had to
'follow the wires' through an electromechanical C.O., but it's not
exactly trivial. There's no telling how may different 'telephone
companies' may be involved in handling a single call, and it will take
a minimum of one tech from -each- company to complete the actual
trace. This just one of the reasons telcos "resist" doing actual lock
& trace these days. <wry grin>