Ancient obsolete electronics, Nitsuko autodialler

[SeanB]

Have had this sitting in a box for a decade or 5, decided it at least deserves a few photo's for posterity.

Nitsuko Executive dialler, for the busy executive who has a few dozen numbers that he calls regularly, and where you do not have a secretary to do the dialling for you. was used for a good number of years to dial suppliers, as the numbers could be hardwired in, using a form of wire rope memory.

Programmed using a wire threaded through the appropriate core, and terminated to the appropriate push button station. For those under 11 digits you simply routed it through the "S" core as a stop indication.

the figure 8 cores, room enough for a lot of thin wires. Looking at the label likely made in 1979.

not a single IC in sight, all discrete logic and potted modules for the logic and amplifiers. Yes, dialling via loop disconnect, and a speaker so you could listen to the call, and pick up when you heard the called party answer, using your normal telephone.

How it works, it has a sense wire threaded through the core, and sends pulses through the digit lines till the digit line and the wire for the number give a larger pulse.  each cycle through is another loop disconnect pulse, unless it was the stop pulse, which is first, so it does not do the first digit dial, otherwise there are up to 10 pulses, though of course dialling a "0" is the same as not selecting any core.

All made in Japan, using all Japanese made components. It turns on, but, as i no longer ctually have a wired phone any more, no way to know if it still works, but at least the smoke stayed in.

[woofy]

What a curious layout, all those components on random pitches. Even the stand on end components have a random pitch.
It must have been hand assembled only, it would have been an auto inserter nightmare.

It reminds me of TV sets of the era (I used to be a TV engineer in another life).

Thanks for sharing.

[SeanB]

Built in Japan, of course it was all hand assembled, though it was probably wave soldered. In that era Japan was the place to get hand assembled electronics, with incredible detail. Only with the rising prosperity later did they automate, and ship off production assembly to cheaper labour countries.

[cdev]

I have a VOIP ATA that still supports old pulse dial phones, but unfortunately, no rotary dial phones to test it out.

I haven't seen one used in a long time.

[SeanB]

I have one or two rotary dial phones, and one that has as connection method a hand crank, where you ring the local operator to get connected. One ex railways one, and an old farm party line one.

Generic term here is "nommer asseblief", from the typical operator response. I did actually do a few overnight posts in the military as the operator for one, and the local operator of the telecom would phone you at 9 and tell you he was going to sleep, leaving you with both 2 incoming lines, and also 2 free outgoing lines as well, working on the honour system that you would log the calls on these lines, as they were otherwise unmetered except at the link exchange that converted them to interface with the STD network. Those meters were read quarterly, and were never accurate. Your billing was done off of the operator call sheets. Was the only place I saw that had a coin operated phone that would still work with 5c pieces, all the other phones needed 10c and 20c pieces instead for that fully mechanical model. Operator would count the "crrr" of the 5c going into the box, and for a 10c it would do this twice, and for 20c four times.

Would have loved to have picked up one or two of those grey cased phones, but never got the chance, though did get to see the innards of the later fully electronic blue ones that replaced them. Mechanical ones it was easy to get free calls, using either a "long tickie" or a 4k7 resistor to short the one side of the line to ground, emulating the coin pulses. Could not do that with the operator switched calls, though they would often give you a lot more time for free.

Think there are probably only 2 public phones within 10km of me now, all the rest have long gone. Only reason those are still there is they have not been vandalised.