DEVELOPMENT IN TELEPHONE SERVICE 



3 X 7 



NOTES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF TELEPHONE SERVICE 



By FRED DE LAND 

 PITTSBURGH, PA 



VIII. Subscribers' Pioneer Telephone Equipment 



TN the previous chapter it was shown how the primitive telephone 

 -*- set supplied to subscribers by the New Haven and other pioneer 

 exchanges consisted only of a mahogany or rubber magneto hand tele- 

 phone hung on a steel hook screwed into 'wall or board, and how the 

 use of the circuit-breaking push button was the approved method of 

 calling central. No vibrating bell was supplied to the subscriber. 

 When central called, attention was attracted with the aid of a buzzing, 

 squealing noise, that was sent through the telephone by manually and 

 rapidly operating a large induction coil attached to the switchboard. 

 That was the method in vogue early in 1878, and, as already stated, 

 in the beginning it was the custom to use this one-hand telephone as 



Fig. 22. 



transmitter and receiver, dexterously moving it from lips to ear and 

 from ear to lips, as the conversation progressed. From time to time 

 instructions were issued to subscribers on the proper use of the tele- 

 phone. One of the first read : ' Do not talk with your ear, or listen 

 with your mouth.' Where a subscriber was willing to pay for 'two 

 telephones,' he enjoyed the unusual convenience of following the now 

 common method of holding the receiver to his ear while talking into 

 the transmitter, as shown in Fig. 22. Not many duplicate telephones 



