Bell Telephone Laboratories

David W Hagelbarger

Peter Steve Kubik

Douglas L Bayer

Robert V Anderson

General-purpose electronic telephone set base

The power of computer-based services is made available to telephone subscribers by a telephone station set (10) including a telephone handset (17) for audio transduction, a video output display screen (13) and manual input key facilities (16,20,23) coupled for interaction by a data processing facility (43). All of those elements are included in a common station set housing for programmable interaction under control of the station set user. The input key facilities include a full ASCII key set, additional buttons (30-32) for signaling standard computer service functions, and keys (16) for user selection of predetermined different text portions of the display screen. Also shown are various electrical and mechanical features which facilitate the combining of the functional parts into the common housing and illustrative processes (FIGS. 8-12) for demonstrating the programmable facility interaction.

General-purpose electronic telephone station set

In a multitone pushbutton dial array each switch in the array has a variable impedance coupling between a fixedly mounted conductive plate and a movable conductive plate spaced apart from the fixedly mounted plate. Digitally synthesized signals having a predetermined phase and frequency are sequentially and recurrently used to scan interconnected columns of movable plates in the pushbutton dial array. Signals having an opposite phase from the scanning signals are continuously applied to the fixedly mounted plates. When a pushbutton is depressed variable impedance coupled summation signals are produced and these signals have a phase which is opposite to that of signals coupled to the detector from an unoperated switch. The detected digital signals are used to generate digital multitone row and column frequency signals. These digital row and column signals are converted to analog form and are transmitted to a telephone central office as a dialed digit code.

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Morris Township, NJ, United States of America

David W Hagelbarger