The Tape Loop Divert-A-Calls are finally working! - Telephone Tuesdays 

As part of the original design team I'm pleased the Divert-a-Calls still work

You need to set up a Dial-a-Disc service. In Manchester in the 70s and 80s if you dialled 160 (the area code for Manchester but backwards) a record played from the charts. The record was changed each week, it was very popular when we were kids. God knows how it worked.

This is such a brilliant working example of some well preserved technology. Incredible effort for making this work.

The PCBs connect via little connectors like arduinos have. I have found alot of those units need to be taken apart and put together again and that sometimes fixes them as it makes a better connection. It could also be the paper cover falling off the EPROMs causing light to get in and erasing them over time. The memory is in the Motorola cpu chip. it has 32 bits of persistent ram built in that does work if there is no power but not for more than 6 months. The card reader is just a module that is completely backwards compatible with the tape versions, only connected to the rest of the unit via the motor power wire and the tap head audio output wire.

I will make a pilgrimage to the museum at some point!

Old Phone stuff is sooooo mad sciencey! Wow am I old. I remember when rotary phones were still everywhere, but finally becoming obsolete with more and more phones going push-button. 😄

"One moment, please.. Your reverse-engineering is being diverted."

Of course you will set them up to divert to the next diverter. And get them to domino topple the call along!

Telephone and Rubber Band - Penguin Cafe Orchestra

Am I the only American that instantly thinks of Pink Floyd when hearing that dial tone?

Diverters were the holy grail for phone phreaks. If you called a # and got diverted you could wait for the remote end to disconnect and you would get access to the remote end dial tone and could then make calls on it. In the US kids would do this and then start AT&T global conferences which would be charged to the remote line of a diverter. These conferences were prohibitively expensive. If a phone phreak found a company using banks of diverters like this they would have run up astronomical charges to that company! Often diverters were set up for after hours doctors offices calls would be diverted to a service that would answer calls for many different companies. You could tell the ones that had already been hit because the people answering the calls would be trained NOT to hang up and instead wait for the dialer to hang up. The trick then became how to convince / trick them into going against such training and hang up first. This is my first time seeing what they actually looked like. Thanks for posting!

we need some international (tunneled) trunks between connections museum in WA US and mum's exchange

I bloody love Telephone Tuesdays ♥

This is a top 10 of the most motion sickness inducing videos on youtube. holy hell

какой же кайф видеть что вы ребята делаете со старым оборудованием :) надеюсь мы пройдем с вами путь от телефонов до интернет связи )

Interesting things I never thought about how the system worked when it was functional. Great to see the BT tower is going to get used as a hotel, I will be staying given the chance. Great video 2x👍

The Telephon at the beginning sounds like the Telephon Pink Floyd used (forgot the Song. In 'The Wall'?) ((it is from the Wall))

Love the videos, it brings back lots of memories of my time as an exchange maintenance TO in the 60's. A question though. In your 'Tape Loop' video, I saw some grey boxes with a round window on a shelf. I recognise them but can't remember what they were. Perhaps you could enlighten me. Thanks.

There were lubricated cassette tapes?

Deep joy, well done chaps….

Mitch, I've just watched another channel and they said that BT could "in the event of a nuclear attack BT could turn off 90% off customers from dialling out so the phone lines could be used by more official calls" is there a big red button on the museum's exchange to switch this priority system on just in case?

Non lubricated tape?? 😁

Dudes, before you go mental, add a defeat switch for the mic on the monitor box :D Great vid

"0:20 - I'm sorry, but they on hanging up!"

Take the microphone element out of your telephone to get rid of the audio feedback when you call the system.

Much fun!

Awesome stuff. The bloody thing wont even tell you it's not programmed a number in. Hahahah. Technology.

Great work Guys! 🤣🙂😎🤓❤

How about an announcement by the speaking organ…

HEY SAM! I'd love a sample pack of all the electro-mechanical sounds that these machines make. Do you have one, or have you any plans for making one? Even the ambience in the room sounds great.

BEST loops I heard in usa were Horoscope and Weather

Mentel i have seen a few of thease now mad seeing one work like that

the beeping sounds in the intro remind me of being in a hospital

So can one divert to another to another to another.....? :-)

holy shit this is cool!

May be Magnetoresistive MRAM - ferroelectric RAM, or F-RAM (sometimes referred to as FeRAM). and need no battery These do degrade but takes a few years but a strong magnet (DC & AC motor) can wipe them instantly

If they lose memory when turned off, whaat about a rechargeable battery pack just for those units Find out what they draw when not in use, might be a solution if you can't just back up the memory.

Can you try to make a Telephone synthesizer?

Speaking of voltage sensitivity, I once had to deal with an opto isolator board that would shut down if voltage varied +/- .2 volts DC. Design engineers who do stuff like that deserve a special spot in hell.

That ringnote always reminds me of Pink Floyd Brick in the Wall

Hello, this is the United States calling, are we reaching? 0:04

That's just what you need for a complaints department.

Put all the diverters on a diverter loop

Check if the BT Archive have the diagram, I am going to visit thems for something else.I can ask?

You could put in a eprom chip to store the memory so you don't need to keep it powered :)

When are you open again? I feel the need for another look!

In practical terms, what does it mean to have a call diverted? And why would the telco want the customer to know it is at no additional charge? :)

the tones sound a bit like EAS signin and signout tones

I found the number, but I don't know any of the codes to do anything. Dangit.

"We're idiots" Is Sam okay? Other dude saves the day and Sammy lumps him in as a "fellow idiot." Other dude even did a better job, communicating AND documenting the process. HOW MANY RELATIONSHIPS HAVE YOU DESTROYED from your need to be more hurtful than helpful, Mr. Bits and Bobs?

Nice one... My landline is still BT. Haha It's a effin nite mare... Lol

When all else fails read the bloody manual 😅

sorry the number you just dialed .........sorry wrong tape .....

Are you connected to cnet or anything similar?

No cassette in the bottom right, wonder if that is an issue

If all else fails - RTFM!!

Nice vid. To bad it was filmed with a potato

Complete kukuk 😂

FIRST

Definitely RT*M :)

Nice loop with the intro.

Diverters were a great find during the peak of phone pheeaking in the 1980s. If you finessed it just right you could get an open line and make long distance calls at the diverter owner's expense.