Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway
From: ab4@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (A. M. Boardman)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Centrex
Message-ID: <telecom-v09i0130m05@vector.dallas.tx.us>
Date: 9 Apr 89 12:36:41 GMT
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X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 130, message 5 of 7

>There are a half a dozen companies that sell telephones with a "Flash" button:
>press it and it flashes the switchhook for exactly the appropriate amount of
>time for call waiting or 3-way calling.

This can, however, be taken to extremes.  The telephones of Columbia's new
digital CBX have, among a plethora of other buttons, a flash button.
In no detectable way, however, does this button actually flash the line
in any traditional sense; it is instead just another signal to the exchange.
Really flashing will disconnect the line every time.  I'd love to find out
more about how the system works, but, as in everything related to IBM,
the information is proprietary.  (It's an IBM/Rolm 9751 CBX -- a half-
decent buisness system, but totally unsuited for a university environment.
It replaced a vastly more popular Centrex system.)

                       "ROLM is a four letter word"
Andrew Boardman ab4@cunixc.[columbia.edu|bitnet] {backbone}!columbia!cunixc!ab4