Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 23:59:09 -0400 (EDT) From: David Leibold Subject: The beginnings of dial service in Toronto and Montreal During the weekend, I came across a book entitled "Machine Switching in Montreal and Toronto" by the Bell Telephone Company of Canada, dated ca. 1923. This was a publication for Bell staff to prepare them (and Bell customers) for the introduction of step-by-step switches and their interaction with existing manual switches. The book bore a small stamp indicating "Bell Telephone Company, F.H. Cressey, 47 Ontario St. W., Montreal". It's uncertain whether this book originally belonged to said F.H. Cressey long before it arrived in the library, or whether this person was a key contact for Bell. Bell Canada's main Montreal office is not on Ontario Street these days. The dial figures were coloured red, while letters were in black. The arrangement of letters on the dial was the same as it is known in North American practice today (starting with ABC on the 2 hole, no Q or Z, 0 was labelled "OPERATOR"). Numbering in Toronto and Montreal was in a two-letter four-figure format for single-party numbers (e.g. GRover 2468) with an additional letter identifier for party-line numbers (e.g. MAin 2160 J - that is, dial seven digits total). Mention was made of the use of leading zeroes in numbers under the automatic switching format (e.g. LOmbard 0007, with a note not to confuse 0 and O). There were some photographs and drawings included, including a dial diagram with some of its parts labelled: governor, off normal springs, impulse springs, impulse cam. The following numbers were the original dialable services for those customers using "machine switching": 0 Operator 110 Long Distance operator 113 Information 114 Repair Clerk 1191 Reverting Call (i.e. ring other party on a 2-party-line) Calling from manual to automatic exchange: The "A" operators had access to outgoing trunks to the new automatic switches; to dial the GRover 2468 example, an operator would select the trunk to GRover, then dial just the 2468. Automatic to manual exchange calling: Two methods were described, but automatic callers would always dial the local manual exchange number (long distance dialing would not appear in Canada until the mid-1950s). 1) Selector and Connector: from the descriptions, this apparently means SxS switching would connect to the manual phones automatically and directly. This would obviously be a one-way automatic calling arrangement. Initially, the Montreal-Plateau and Toronto-Adelaide exchanges were mentioned as having the Selector and Connector method available. 2) Call Indicator: The "B" boards at the manual offices would have number indicator display boards installed. SxS subscribers would dial the manual exchange number (presumably represented as a dialable letter-number format). The operators at the manual exchange could then determine the dialed number on the call indicator displays. The display panels were formatted like this (with a lamp lit to indicate each digit): 0 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 W 1 4 5 6 4 5 6 4 5 6 4 5 6 M 7 8 9 7 8 9 7 8 9 7 8 9 F 0 0 0 0 J The 0 & 1 at the left would be the "ten thousands" digit, followed by successive digits of the called phone number. The party line letter is indicated on the far right (W, M, F or J; or in another diagram or picture, this was in the order MJFW). The various parts of the modified manual exchange board were: - Cord & plug - Disconnect lamp - Assignment lamp - Teamwork display key - Home display key An incoming call would be indicated by the assignment lamp, then the operator would press the home display key to bring the called number on the display panel. If the number was already engaged in a call, the operator would connect the caller to a busy signal (via a "busy-back jack"). Otherwise, the call would be connected by the operator, and the caller would hear the ringing tone for the called party. The teamwork key would be used to have an adjacent operator handle a call. The called number could then be indicated on the adjacent operator's number display board. Apparently the "busy-back" tones could be encountered by subscribers even before the advent of automatic switching. This might have been seen as more efficient than having the operator announce that the number was busy. In any event, it would at least be a familiar tone for those subscribers whose exchanges converted from manual to machine. ::David Leibold aa070@freenet.toronto.on.ca