if you listen close at 12:39-12:41, you'll hear the beginning to the chorus of "Workin' for a Livin'" by Huey Lewis and the News. Funny little tidbit hidden in there.
Good catch. It’s the post chorus/back up singers doing the Woah part. But that’s awesome. I wonder if they used the song as part of their outgoing message one time.
The Tele-Key most likely allows you to check messages remotely (which, in 1965, you'd most likely do from either a payphone or a hotel/motel room phone). Many answering systems up until the invention of remote touch tone access in the late '80's or early '90's included a similar device to the Tele-Key, which you'd hold up to the mouthpiece of the telephone handset, and transmit the tone made when you depress the button on the device. That tone would be a tone that the answering machine could pick up, and then would then signal the tape inside of the answering machine at home (or your office, I guess) to rewind itself, and begin playing your incoming messages. The device below the microphone holder on the back is likely a connection for an external microphone, should you not want to use the cheap one it includes.
It always amazes me how advanced society was to think up and invent things like this so long ago. Now people are too stupid to even know how to drive a car anymore.
Wow. Haven't heard that ring for decades! 😁 What I've read from some ebay listing: "Tele Key" allows the user to call home and access recorded messages from the machine remotely. Playing the beep tone from the portable Telekey initiates playback. Telekey works using a 9V battery (not included).
An even better option is an Xlink cellular gateway, which lets you use your existing cell service. You can hook any landline phone to it and it works (as long as it has an RJ11 plug or has an RJ11 adapter.) It supports both tone and pulse (push button and rotary) and provides enough voltage to trigger a mechanical ringer. I made and received calls with an antique candlestick phone from 1910 on my Xlink and it worked great.
I spent two years in the field as tech repairing these units. A few factoids... The Telekey was used to retrieve messages remotely. You called your machine, and once it picked up, you held the key to your phone mouthpiece, then prossed the switch part way for the first tone, then all the way for the second tone. About two seconds each. That caused the message tape to remind to the beginning, reverse, and play back your messages. If the switch on the rear was on "No Tone", the remote function was disabled. On accumulate, the message tape stopped after you heard your messages remotely. New messages were then recorded after any old ones. They accumulated. The other setting on that switch rewound the tape to the beginning, and old messages were recorded over the old. Listening was a one shot deal in that mode. But, you had less chance of running out of message tape while away for a long time. There were multiple two tone code sets to minimize the chance of someone else from keying into your machine. (With experience, one could learn to whistle their codes. I could "whistle key" any machine) The erase button was spring loaded. After listening to all you messages (Manual playback ) you held it to the left while the tape rewound, erasing the tape. Erasing not only erased the tape but recorded a high pitched tone on the tape. When listening to messages, you know you heard the last message because you heard that tone. Rewinding the message tape to the beginning, the metal sensing tape shorted the fine "cat whisker" contacts stopping the rewind. Leaving the tape at the beginning turned on the "Ready" light. If you looked at the machine and the ready light was out, you knew the machine had answered a call. The endless-loop "Announce" tape had a function beyond the recording. When you released the mic button, the "beep" tone was recorded for several seconds after your voice. When a call was answered, the beginning of the recorded tone was sensed and that was what switched on the record deck. The jumper plug in the back was used on a model that had a full size reel to real tape deck mounted above the base machine. It was used to allow companies to take long messages, such as extended orders from their salesmen. If you had the unit on Auto Answer, you could rub a damp fingertip over the contacts on that plug and it would trigger an answer cycle without having to ring the phone. Great for testing without having to have someone ring you back. Finally, your machine has an optional "MMCO" board installed in the area above the speaker. It allowed the message deck to record as long as someone spoke to a degree. Without that option, one could only record an incoming message while the announce tape loop ran. So, if the loop was a one minute loop, and your announcement was 20 seconds, only a 40 second message could be left. That, and EVERY message was was 40 seconds even if the message was only a word or two . MMCO was Message Motor Cut Off. Once there was 7 seconds of silence it stopped the record deck and hung up the line. Any more questions? I'd be glad to answer them! PS: a model 200 machine had dark case with wood side panels.... For Executive desks. There was also an Answer Only unit with no record deck. It was used to make announcements only, like movie showtimes.
i have a question when i hangup the message recorder still keeps on going tho i just noticed when i record my message an let it do its thing it hangs up the line is there a way to make it hangup when i end the call cause i dont think anyones gonna know to just leave the call run when they record there message
Once, I found an old telephone with a builtin answering machine based on microcassete in a dumpster. I got it to home, cleaned it and played the messages on the cassette back. Mine had some creepy messages of someone who seems to had a discussion with their friend and called her repeatedly with increasing desesperation. It was pretty disturbing. The flutter of the recording added to the dramatic effect.
Wow. I never expect such interest. The recording is in spanish and for the moment it is miles away from where I am. Once I get it back I will publish it. It's a promise. Your 'funny' message remembered to me that almost forgotten event.
Yes, the remote I believe is used to check your messages whenever you call in, you would hold the remote up to the receiver and play the tone, I believe that the three positions switch on the back of the machine probably selects which tone you would like, I believe the off position would disable the remote playback feature. Could you please do a follow up video trying that out?
Yes to turn off the remote feature. Accumulate left the messages on the machine after remote access. The other setting rewond the tape to the beginning after remote access and new messages recorded over the old. The key could also be used to skip back a bit to repeat a bit of a message while listening. The two-tone set was not user changeable, but could be set by a tech with a frequency counter, as could the keys to match. The tones were plain tones, not DTMF tones like those produced by touch-tone phones, which were still less common in that timeframe.
It's amazing to think about how the people who were educated in order to engineer something like this. That's just the design aspect, next comes actually making the physical product. Imagine the training it took for each person to do the task required of them In order to make a functioning example of this machine. People had to be cooperative, driven and focused for all this to happen. This my friends, is now a lost art. A fascinating video.
I just got one of these on ebay and I'm already so excited to tinker with it. I love old tape machines and office equipment so this crosses over nicely!
It was big, heavy, expensive, and needed maintenance (the user couldn’t replace the tapes themselves). Billy Joel was right, “the good old days weren’t always good; tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems”
6:30 I think seeburg background music had something to do with this system Noticed that little socket these black under microphone holder. That’s a kill switch. If you remove that it won’t work It pulls out like a socket Another giveaway is the blue name plate tag on back same style in seeburgs :) I own a few seeburg 1000 machines and the encore machine. They all have that style tag and kill plug Don’t ever loose that plug or it will never work
Hey, the handheld device is a remote for checking your messages. You call your own number when away from home, hold it to the phone mouthpiece, then use the tones it generates to prompt the answerphone into playing back your messages. We had these in the UK before touch tone phones were a thing. The weird looking contacts on the back, was a standard DIN socket. Looks like the top half has broken off leaving the contacts exposed. If I had to guess I'd say it was audio out, for recording your messages to an external tape deck.
I just bought one of these at a yard sale. I'm not familiar with electronics but I like to tinker with old things. The one I bought has the robot on the front logo.
very interesting! i have a 1966 Playboy magazine with a feature called: "Gift For Dads and Grads" and the Record-O-Phone is shown, along with many other gadgets, and it lists for a whopping $539.95.
We had one when I was young. My father actually sold them. Ours used a cassette . My father passed away in 1971 and my mother saved the tape...I've often wondered if we could play it or transfer it to a disc.
@databits You need to try this: "the Tele-Key allows the user to call home and access recorded messages from the machine remotely. Playing the beep tone remotely through a phone handset initiates playback."
I wonder what they did to their friend... Guess we'll never know. It is almost overwhelming sometimes to think about the billions of other people on the earth with us right now, and every one of them have lives just as beautiful, awful, stressful, happy and complex as our own.
Outgoing message motor has a fan.... knows how to play it cool. Perhaps that box generates a special tone that you put up to the mouthpiece of the phone you call in on and allows you to remotely playback your messages? Look for a tone decoder on the PCB that goes to a relay that bypasses the playback switch. This was before touch tone phones, so to remotely control your answering machine it would have to be that way. This was one loaded piece of tech from its time, still usable to this day if one had to.
My mum had a fancy answering machine that only used a single microcassette for both the outgoing message and the incoming messages. Fascinated me that it only used one tape, instead of two, like all the other answering machines of the era. It wasn’t until years later that I figured out it had a two track head, and used one track for the outgoing message at the start of the tape, and the other track for recording the incoming messages.
I also had a microcassette answer machine like that. Mine had the outgoing message recorded at the very beginning of the tape, then it would play a beep while it fast-forwarded to a free spot so the incoming message could be recorded. The more messages saved up, the longer the beep. It kept track of the precise cassette positions in RAM, so if there was a power outage, all settings and messages would be lost!
Since the original owners name is on the back J.H. Sherwood, I wonder if you can find them or his relatives and let them hear loved ones from the past. Except Cindy, She doesn't deserve to hear this.
The tel-a-key was used to retrieve messages, the switch on the back determines what happens when you do. No code - it won’t do anything Zero - messages are deleted after being played back. Accum- messages accumulate after being played. (The tape doesn’t rewind). I don’t recall whether this unit would do it, but the newer 100RX model would also allow you to delete messages remotely. To use the remote, call in, listen to announcement then press button to first position a couple seconds then the second for a couple more then release. On units that erase, simply press a couple second for the first position and 15 seconds for the second and then release. If anyone has any other questions, let me know and I’ll do my best to answer them. I’ve enjoyed this walk down memory lane.
Cool video as always, thank you. I have no real landline anymore but I have connected a DECT basis station to my router and with a special box called distybox300 I managed to connect my old dial phone from the 70ies to it. And with an impulse-to-tone converterbox I can even dial a number. Very vintage 🤭
That tone sending device is to send a tone code by phone your machine would recognize when you want to check your messages if you're away from home. I am not sure if that can still be used today though because of the technological changes in phone line circuitry. I know that after that big upgrade the Bell System did in the late 1970s with their billions of dollars of phone switching technology equipment, the Record a Call answering machines from the early 80s were set up with remotes that had a different tone code system that used alternating beeps and a brief sound like an old dial up modem.
databits - Way cool. Great stuff. You wouldn't know the whereabouts (internet or elsewhere) of additional messages from "the mists of time" might be found? I'd be particularly interested in messages from the 60's. It would be awesome to hear messages left by the Pepsi Generation. BTW, the Beatles apparently had very good answering machines sold in Britain (don't know the make) as referenced in their authorized biography by Hunter Davies, the author, who describes all four Beatle's incoming call messages - which were comical.
I just got that phone! Not the one that looks like a big-ass piece of macaroni but the one in the picture lol but mine has the # and * everything lol. It has bells inside and works fine with xfinity. Its a 2500 mgd or something like that. Very heavy!
You could not pay me to get rid of my landline. It's cheap and there's no batteries to be dead. It will always work. It's not slow, it doesn't take minutes to boot up. Just lift the receiver and make a call.
I used to say that too and I held onto my landline until last year when the price was just too high. AT&T keeps raising the price to get people to move to fiber/VOIP. Just for local calling and no long distance it was over $40 per month. My cell service with unlimited calling and internet is $30. I realized I was paying to get calls from tele-marketers as that is all who ever called my land line.
@@RacerX- I think I pay like $22 for the landline, but with no long distance or unlimited calling. But I do have it together (packaged) with my internet, so it may be that I am paying less for the standalone than I otherwise would.
@@christo930 Thats probably it, AT&T doesn't offer above DSL speeds on my street so we have to use Xfinity. I would have kept it if they cut the price to $20 or so. Oh well I have an OBI device and still can use my old phones and devices for free instead.
One of those tones should be the remote playback tone. Back in the 70's many companies 800 numbers could give you access to a dial tone (an "outside line") that employees traveling around the US could use to make free long distnce calls. Phone phreaks would search for these and trade them among themselves. Often when searching they would get an old style answering maching. Instead of hanging up they would wistle a slowly rising or falling tone in the hope that they would trip the message playback sensor that was expecting a single tone.
I've had a MagicJack line for years, and if you catch a special offer it's $99 for 5 years of service, plus taxes, and if you want e-911 service on the line you have to pay that separate on a yearly bases at whatever your state/county charges plus taxes. Still much cheaper than an old POTS line, a good backup to cell service, or just a phone period if you have kids in your home, and don't want to give them a cell phone yet.
That machine is awesome and very clear. I used CC to read along and it got every word. Sounds like Linda wasn’t a nice woman. I used to have a micro cassette one. It was one of those annoying ones that used the beginning of the tape for the outgoing message. Then you’d hear those rapid beeps as it fad forwarded to a blank spot on the tape.
Regarding Magic Jack/Xlink cell gateway... If I just wanted to activate old telephone equipment for fun, without paying for a service, wonder if the parts (or firmware) from an old VOIP router could be repurposed somehow to generate ringing voltage and simulate a phone line?
Those were sold in JCPenney‘s and Sears catalogs. They were pretty expensive. I actually had one, at one point and it was called a code a phone. And it had that remote thing with it to
That thing must have cost a fortune. It's odd that the guy says he bought it in 75 unless they were selling it at a huge closeout discount. In 1965, that thing was probably a couple of hundred dollars or more. Do you happen to know how much power it consumes just sitting there waiting for the phone to ring. .9 amps is over a hundred watts, but there is all those relays which are only very briefly used. But it would still be interesting to know how much power it used just sitting there waiting for the ring.
I did some looking around, and it seems the manufacturer went bankrupt in 1974 (which would explain why it'd be deeply discounted in 1975). I saw a 1971 manufacture date on one of the switches, so this thing was likely sitting around for a while (or was built with NOS parts).
Also, I hypothesize the two tones have some sort of correspondence with reverse and play... Probably the half-press note runs playback and full press does momentary rewind... Having the notes stacked like that on a single button ensures it plays the "forward" note when released
My solution was a small 8 way home office PBX it was so cheap but last time I checked they shot up in price from £8 to hundreds! It got thrown away by mistake 😫
hi im wondering how you connect3ed this all up on a typical answering machine it connects to the landline an then has a phone input on it to plug in the phone this one dosent have that
Have you tried pushing the button on the remote while it's still playing the out-going message ? We had an 80's version with that feature. It was crap. LOL.
Does that MagicJack work with my BTX? :-D (or Prestel or Minitel? BTX was the German version. Most BTX machines have an external modem that most people replace with a RasPi or something and then go on the Internet with theirs. Mine has an internal modem and no one's created a mod for that...)
I'm curious what it does in some edge cases. What happens when it reaches the end of the tape; does it just hang up immediately? What happens when you call and the tape is full; does it ring forever or does the announcement message play and then immediately hang up?
Well, I know it's a year ago, but here's your answer. When the message tape ran out, it let a micro switch on the reel open. Yes, it hangs up if the tape runs out. If the tape runs out, it no longer answers the phone. And, that was an issue if you were using the remote message playback. If you didn't check in and listen and rewind the tape, then you couldn't access the machine until you returned and manually rewound. I once did a service call at a call-girl's residence. She had a "client" who fell in love with her. He would call her machine over and over to run out the tape, so she couldn't be contacted by other guys.
Hey this might be totally random, but I'm working on a screenplay set in 1963, and there's a character that tape records her own phone conversations. What device could she have used at that time to make that possible? For what it's worth, she works at a TV station.
@@databits Hey, would she be able to hook the machine directly to the telephone in some way, or would she need to point the machine's mic at the phone speaker? I'm trying to avoid the latter if possible because it would look clunky on camera.
So I guess we will never know what they did to Carlos and Richard. Maybe whatever was done was deserved. What if Carlos and Richard where the ones being d-bags and they got what was coming to them? Did “they” just rough up Carlos and Richard and called it a day? Something tells me the lady leaving the message hasn’t got the whole story... She’s being a bit judgmental in my opinion. And now she wants presents..... Maybe Carlos and Richard didn’t check themselves so therefore they wrecked themselves..... Just sayin.
@@BrandEver117 True, more true now than it was 2 years ago... But still a bit flakey over here in the UK to rely on cellular, they tend to use carrier grade NAT which is shite
