Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!rutgers!att!cbnews!lvc From: lvc@cbnews.ATT.COM (Lawrence V. Cipriani) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore Message-ID: <3894@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 9 Feb 89 02:01:56 GMT References: Reply-To: lvc@cbnews.ATT.COM (Lawrence V. Cipriani) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 18 Summary: In article awm@gould.doc.ic.ac.uk (Aled Morris) writes: >Is it true that the phone company designed touch-tone keyboards upside- >down from calcutaor, etc numeric keypads because data entry people could >punch faster than the first generation switching systems could read? No. The first generation switching systems were invented *long before* touch-tone phones were even imagined. A mortician invented the first switching system, an electromechanical system called step-by-step. He invented it because the operator in the town he worked in routed business to a competetitor; she was either the competitors wife or business accomplice. The touch tone keypads were designed so as to minimize the amount of time required to key in a phone number. Dozens of keypads designs were tried, that one turned out to be the most efficient. Simple economic motivation really. The less time taken for call setup the less it costs the phone company. -- Larry Cipriani, att!cbnews!lvc or lvc@cbnews.att.com swtch(); /* no deposit, no return */