"Martin Rich" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 2 Jan 2005 08:17:13 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at
14:57:34 on Sat, 1 Jan 2005, Martin Underwood remarked:
Nowadays no buttons
are needed because the coin is automatically consumed if the call is
answered (equivalent to pressing A) and automatically returned (if not
used)
when the handset is replaced (equivalent to pressing B). I'm not sure why
this functionality wasn't included in old callboxes: surely it wasn't
difficult even in valve-amplifier and relay days.

Almost certainly because the button A/B callboxes weren't powered. All
the work was done by pressing the buttons very hard.

That explains a lot. My experience of A/B boxes is limited: they were
on their way out in London at least by the time that I was old enough
to use phone boxes, though I came across them in significant numbers
in Ireland as late as 1985, and at least one in a remote spot in the
north of Scotland even later than that. But I always had the sense of
buttons that were extremely heavy to use and some chunky thumb-powered
mechanisms within the box.

Incidentally http://www.bt.com/archives/history/19241931.htm and
scroll down to 1925 reveals that the A/B button system was introduced
in 1935 and the very last ones in the UK weren't discontinued until
1992

Gosh, I hadn't realised that Button A/B phones lasted as long as 1992 in
some places - that's about the time that the post-payment "pips" phones were
starting to be replaced with modern pre-payment phones. Life goes
full-circle!

Surely all phones have always had a very ready source of power: the standing
voltage on the phone line. Couldn't that have been used to power coin-return
etc in Button A/B phones? Or was it just that there was enough current
available?

In message , at
11:36:50 on Tue, 4 Jan 2005, Martin Underwood remarked:
Surely all phones have always had a very ready source of power: the standing
voltage on the phone line. Couldn't that have been used to power coin-return
etc in Button A/B phones? Or was it just that there was enough current
available?

A combination of the latter, and "why complicate things" if a cheap
mechanical solution works.
--
Roland Perry

On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 11:36:50 -0000, "Martin Underwood"
wrote:

"Martin Rich" wrote in message
.. .


Incidentally http://www.bt.com/archives/history/19241931.htm and
scroll down to 1925 reveals that the A/B button system was introduced
in 1935 and the very last ones in the UK weren't discontinued until
1992

Gosh, I hadn't realised that Button A/B phones lasted as long as 1992 in
some places - that's about the time that the post-payment "pips" phones were
starting to be replaced with modern pre-payment phones. Life goes
full-circle!


The pay-on-answer phones must have almost disappeared by 1992. BT's
archive web pages have the first 'blue payphone' (the first
modern-type prepayment phone) in 1979 and the 'blue payphone 2'
(presumably the production model used in large numbers) introduced in
1983. My memory, which could be inaccurate, is that for a couple of
years around 1983/4 the prepayment phones were common in busy places,
but pay-on-answer phones were the norm elsewhere. However, after that
the pay-on-answer phones were phased out rapidly.

In fact one possible explanation is that in 1992, modern prepayment
phones were finally being rolled out to remote areas, and this
included the few public phones that skipped the pay-on-answer phase
completely. According to the BT archives, the handful of A/B button
phones in Scotland survived because they used radio links which didn't
support the meter pulsing necessary for the pay-on-answer phones. So
it's possible - and I wonder if anybody reading this actually knows -
that the last A/B button boxes disappeared at around the same time as
the last pay-on-answer phones.

Martin

In article , Martin Rich
writes
According to the BT archives, the handful of A/B button
phones in Scotland survived because they used radio links which didn't
support the meter pulsing necessary for the pay-on-answer phones.

Could it be that A/B phones could only be used for local calls?

There was a time in the mid-1970s when some rural exchanges still didn't
have Subscriber Trunk Dialling when most places did. I remember seeing a
placard in a phone box saying that local calls were 2p unlimited if STD
was not available, or 2p per [3 minutes, I think] if it was.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

"Clive D. W. Feather" wrote in message
...

Could it be that A/B phones could only be used for local calls?

You could only use them for local calls. STD didn't exist, so you had to
call the operator. She (or he at night) told you how much to insert for your
trunk call, and when to press button A.
--
Terry Harper, Web Co-ordinator, The Omnibus Society
75th Anniversary 2004, see http://www.omnibussoc.org/75th.htm
E-mail:
URL: http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/

In article , (Terry
Harper) wrote:

Could it be that A/B phones could only be used for local calls?

You could only use them for local calls. STD didn't exist, so you had to
call the operator. She (or he at night) told you how much to insert for your
trunk call, and when to press button A.

And the only way the operator knew how much you put in was by listening to
the sound of the different coins dropping - quite an acquired skill, I should
think.

--
Peter Beale