Maybe interesting toy in junk shop...

[Bill Sudbrink]

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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