Maybe interesting toy in junk shop... - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

3 Jul 2016

Bill, I hope that you can snap a few pictures with your phone to show us.
This is quite the mystery device.

On Sat, Jul 2, 2016 at 8:56 PM, Bill Sudbrink <wh.sudbrink at verizon.net>
wrote:

...
  No, I don't think so.  I'm pretty sure that
the paper
 tape on this thing is for output, probably printed or
 marked in some way because the paper seemed too flimsy
 to hold a readable punch pattern.  But now I'm pretty
 determined to go back tomorrow and see if I can get
 some more info.  I didn't look at the bottom of it, maybe
 there's a label.

  -----Original Message-----
 From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck
 Guzis
 Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2016 11:30 PM
 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
 Subject: Re: Maybe interesting toy in junk shop...

 On 07/02/2016 07:32 PM, Bill Sudbrink wrote:
  I was poking around a junk shop that I visit from
time to time and I
 saw a toy.  It didn't really strike me as that interesting when I saw
 it but I've been wondering about it since I left the place this
 morning.  The thing was mostly red plastic with a cardboard bottom.
 It had a two-prong AC cord and a four prong "old fashioned" telephone
 jack.  It had two big buttons and a spool of paper tape mounted on
 the front.  The tape was about 1/4 inch wide.  I call it a toy
 because it had that sort of feel about it.  It was not clearly
 labeled as such.  It was also styled in a way that suggested late
 1960s to me. The whole thing was the size of a small shoe box.  I
 can't find anything like it in google searches.  I wonder if it might
 have some early modem like device in it.  Does this description "ring
 a bell" with anyone? 

 Sounds like a late-model Kilburg Dialaphone.  1960-ish.  Early models
 directly operated the dial of the desk telephone--later ones just
 pulsed
 the line appropriately--something that AT&T objected to and that
 Kilburg
 unsuccessfully fought.  This was years before the Carterfone episode.
 Memory was a paper tape with printed names on it.

 That particular unit sounds like a very rare piece of kit.

 Am I getting close?

 --Chuck

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-- 

Thanks,
-AJ
http://MicrotechM1.blogspot.com