Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Touchtone History
Message-ID: <9482@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 6 Jul 90 19:05:47 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 468, Message 6 of 8


	When were the first touchtone phones installed?  I always
thought the answer was that were introduced at the 1964/65 New York
World's Fair.  The fair opened in the summer of 64, so those were
probably installed in late 63 or early 64.

	However, I recently watched a documentary about the
desegregation of the University of Alabama (the incident in which
Governor George Wallace vowed to "stand in the schoolhouse door" to
prevent two black students from registering for classes) which proves
me wrong on that theory.  A touch-tone phone was clearly visible in
President Kennedy's oval office in numerious bits of footage shot at
the time.  The year was 1963 and the students were trying to register
for the summer session, so I would put the date at about May or June
1963.  The phone that Kennedy used most of the time was a multi-line
key set with a rotary dial (looked like about 25 lines) and a
speakerphone attachment.  Sitting on the table behind his chair were
about 3 or 4 single line desk sets, one touch-tone, the rest rotary.
Was touch-tone in general use in May 1963, or did the President just
have a pre-release model?

	Another bit of interesting telecom related trivia was a shot
of the US Deputy Attourny General (I forget his name) on location at
the U of A wanting to place a private phone call to JFK to discuss
tactics as the situation developed.  You see him getting into his car
and asking (telling, really) the press to get back so he can have some
privacy.  Then you see another shot of him, sitting in the car,
talking on the phone.  You clearly hear him saying something like "OK,
they can't hear me now", and clearly hear JFK's voice responding!
This is all real on-location footage, not some recreation.  It's not
clear if the phone line was tapped, there was a bug in the car, some
sound man had a good parabolic mike, or if some reporter had simply
slipped a mike into the car window without the DAG noticing.