Transaction Network, Telephones, and Terminals: Physical Design

A field trial was conducted in the state of Ohio in late 1973 to establish the market potential for a Transaction telephone. Thirty-four sets were installed in 13 merchant locations in Cleveland and Akron for credit verification. The set used in the field trial is shown in Fig. 1. In addition to the parts associated with a telephone, the field trial set contained a motor-driven card reader and electronics required for the card reader and other functions. Instruction lamps, along with brief operating instructions and pockets for storing dialing cards, were located on the front of the set. Some sets also contained a numeric display of information entered from the TOUCH-TONE® dial. The field trial experience established the need for a more reliable card reader, a display of not only locally generated information but also an authorization code generated by the data center computer, and a button to permit correction of manually entered information. In addition, the trial established the usefulness of instruction lamps and instructions, and the importance of making the Transaction telephone set as small as possible, since the space where the sets are likely to be located is at a premium. Utilizing field trial experience, the design of production Transaction telephones began in early 1974. Packaging the electronics of one of the most sophisticated telephone sets the Bell System has ever introduced was a challenge heightened by space and development time constraints. 3503