Phone Tones: The hidden language of phone number beeps
Twenty Thousand Hertz
00:00
Bell's Push Button Phones
In 1948, Bell made a handful of these push button keypad telephones and gave them out to customers. Customers immediately loved the convenience of dialing with a touchpad. The reads weren't sturdy enough to stay in tune after repeated use, and the prototype was shelved. In the 1950s, Bell settled on using transistors to produce those tones for each key.
Transcript
Play full episode
