VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Mike Harrison]

Some of you might know that Peter Thomas was a very early inspiration for me. His storytelling draws listeners in.

Being a nerd, I was also very much into technology at an early age, so I was impressed by the achievements of what had been known as the "Bell System." While AT&T made available the facilities (the country's original copper wire network, microwave, satellite, fiber optic and more), those facilities and the equipment that made them functional were designed/invented by Bell Laboratories, and built by Western Electric; all of which were part of the Bell System.

My understanding of telecommunications and other technologies is due to those companies (as well as several of the individual regional Bell Telephone companies) being clients of the corporate multimedia production house I worked for beginning in 1977.

So, I was very happy over the weekend to have found this video, which exemplifies Peter Thomas' ability to effectively tell a story about anything, as well as explains Western Electric's commitment to the individual Bell Operating Companies.

Oh, yeah, one more note: Bell Labs also gave us the UNIX operating system, which would become the "underlying language of the internet" and the framework on which Mac OS X runs. This video, from 1982, does not feature Peter Thomas, but instead includes the people responsible for UNIX.

Have fun!
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Bruce]

Boy, talk about your voiceovers in perpetuity!

And talk about ancient, they were making brand new dial phones, too.

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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[Mike Harrison]

Yeah, weird, huh?

As late as 1978, there were still some communities that did not even have dial service; phones didn't have dials and operators in central offices manually routed calls with switchboards using patchcords. Smaller versions of those switchboards, like the one used by Lily Tomlin as Ernestine on "Laugh-In," were used in offices. My Dad's office had one until about 1969.

Touchtone service was first introduced in two Pennsylvania towns in 1963, but it wasn't until the 1980s that push button phones were in the majority of homes.

And time marches on...
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Bruce]

I spent four days roller skating through Death Valley in 1978, a multi-radio station stunt for the City of Hope. In Death Valley Junction I got to use a crank style telephone to call the operator who hooked me up for a call home. That was a trip. Both the skate and the phone call.

For the kids who may not know what I mean:




B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[Mike Harrison]

[Lee Gordon]

When I was a kid, our home phone was on a "party line" with the Melhorns, down the street. Essentially, we shared the phone line with another household to keep the cost down. If the call was for us, the phone would ring a certain way, and if it was for them, it would ring a different way. And if either of us were so inclined (which, of course, we never were), either family could listen in on the other's phone calls. As soon as my dad could afford it, we switched to a private line.

Our phone, at the time, looked something like this

and we had a five-digit number.

I also remember seeing an exhibit at the Museum of Science in Boston in which one of the futuristic gadgets on display was a touch tone phone.
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Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

[Bruce]

Yeah, party lines were not fun like they sound. My parents lived in a brand new house on "the edge" of boomtown Phoenix back about 1950 and because the phone company couldn't catch up with demand they were on a single party line with four homes with four different rings. You had to pick your ring pattern out of all the different rings to answer, and if someone was on a long call and you had an urgent call to make you picked up the line and asked, hoping they'd agree to get off.

There was a fire fighter in the group who started getting 4:30 am wake up calls from his station, which of course they heard. My folks eventually found out where he lived and gave him an alarm clock and a request.

Yeah, the good ol' days.

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .