5 Jun
2019
5 Jun
'19
9:40 a.m.
On 6/5/19 12:30 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2019 at 18:27, John Labovitz via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Why? Handheld touchtone generators were very common in the
the early 90's. Even the late 80's. I bought mine in Radio
Shack. They were often needed if your employer used an in
house private phone network (like MMDS where I worked) or
a phone accessed Email system (like IBM's PROFS) because
the phone company had this habit of turning off the keypad
on payphones after the first connection.
bill
I do recall a little handheld device with a touchtone keyboard that you could fit over
the microphone of a normal handset. It wasn?t automated, but at least you didn?t have to
use the rotary dial.
This was a built-in feature of the Psion range of PDAs. The address
book app could dial any number in the address book, merely by holding
it up to the phone mouthpiece.
It blew people's minds at the time (very early 1990s).