Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: hutch!robert@cbmvax.commodore.com (Robert L. Oliver) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Phone Design For Humans Message-ID: Date: 14 Oct 89 23:34:24 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: Rabbit Software Corp., Malvern, PA Lines: 55 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 447, message 2 of 9 X-GATEWAY-WARNING: original 'Date' value is too old for posting X-Original-Date: 5 Oct 89 02:36:21 GMT In article , roy%phri@uunet.uu.net (Roy Smith) writes: > With all this talk about non-ergonomic rings, I thought I would > bring up another mis-feature. Our ATT System-25 at work doesn't have call > forwarding, it has what we've come to refer to as call following. We just installed a brand new System 25 here. It DOES have call forwarding AND following. I suggest you look into a software upgrade. The System 25's a nice improvement over our old ITT 3100. I won't restate the gripes about the new desk phones that are too light. Ours are the size of the old 500s, but they're empty, since the electro- mechanical innards have been replaced by silicon and such. The phone bottoms have LARGE cavities, since AT&T decided not to "enclose" the unused space; the bottom of the phone receeds up inside, if you follow. One can actually put the phone down ON TOP of paperweights, bottles of Liquid PaperTM, and such and hide things underneath! I personally haven't found a good use yet. TO THE System 25 DESIGNERS, if you're listening: ITEM 1 Our old ITT 3100 had a very non-Bell feature called "call park" which allowed you to park a call on one of several non-existant extensions. A bit more versatile than being reduced to transferring a call. The System 25 has call park, but you can only park onto YOUR extension number (called a "PDC"). Thus, single-line users can't park more than one call. Bit of a problem when you're trying to answer the night bell from a single line phone and you get a second call. The dedicated park extensions also had the benefit of allowing you to easily refer to them. E.g., since there might be ten of them, 160 through 169, you could page someone over the PA system and say simply "Call for Ken Shaby on Park Zero". With the S25, since ANY number may be a park, you have to be more specific ("Park One-Six-Zero"). And if the pagEE didn't realize the page was for him/her until late into the message (often the case), they may have only gotten the "Zero" which used to be fine; now they need the other two digits they missed. ITEM 2 Single-line phones can't do last-number-redial!!! That's gotta be only a software change, since multi-line phones can do it, I would think (as far as I know, all phones are handled by the same sort of card in the 25). They CAN do "camp-on-a-busy-line", but that only works for INTERNAL calls. I need redial on external calls BUT I LIKE THE SYSTEM 25. Don't get me wrong... Trivia note: The "Master Console" (option, I believe) of the System 25 is a re-labeled AT&T Unix PC! Yes, the original AT&T/Convergent Tech. machine (was it called a system 7100 or something?) that was AT&T's much-touted Byte-front-covered not-so-huge success.