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Teletype System Conference - (l .to,r.)Jim Petty, Walter Tice, AT&T Engineers; L. A .
Watson, Supt. of Communications; Jim Daly AT&T Senior Engineer and Tal CrewsAT&T
Commercial Representative.
passenger carried.
nation directly on the same circuit or
through automatic relay equipment to
stations on another circuit.
The A T & T's Message Analysis and Study
Group went to work and analyzed the datc^
and their findings togetherwith ourspecifi- Tosend amessage,the originating operator
cations were given to the Teletypewriter
Systems engineers.
On October 1, 1957 the AT&T presented
theirproposol as a result of a careful study
of our intercity teletypewriter communicati
ons. Their proposal showed the system they
proposed was engineered to give us a most
efficient and economical communication
system and one that would be adequate for
our present traffic, our anticipated growth
and a faster system capable of keeping pace
with our new F-27 Pacemakers . This system
will be known as the Bell System 83B1 Auto
matic Teletypewriter System",or,for short
"The 83 System. "
The Automatic 83B1 System permits the
transmissionof single and multiple addressed
messages from the originating station to the
specificdestination station without manual
operation other than perforating the original
message, packing the tape in the trans
mitter, and tearing off the received copy.
simply perforates a message in tape form
with the destination codes in the tape and
then places the tape in the transmitter.
The tape is then automatically transmitted
in a sequence when the circuit becomes
available, thus eliminating the need for
the operator's watching and waiting for an
idlecircuit. Wasted circuit time and gar
bled messages due to operator contention
for heavily loaded services is eliminated
by equipment which automatically controls
the sequence of transmission.
Messages are automatical ly routed through
the relay center at Winston-Salem. This
gives a higher degree of accuracy and speed
in handling relay messages than can be
obtained with manual relaying. Operating
personnel being required primarily for
system supervisory purposes.
Multiple address messages toall or agroup
of stations are handled without special
operator attention.
NEW TELETYPE SYSTEM
(Continued from Page 1)
which will permit it to keep pace with this
growth, thereby upholding its tradition of
providing personal ized and efficient service
on a mass basis.
One of these important tools is our Private
Line Teletypewriter System.Many will re
call that this system started as a dual
circuit, multi-station, 60 words-per-minute
system with manual teletypewriters at all
stations except Winston-Salem where auto
matic units were installed. Progressively,
with the increase in passenger traffic and
route expansion, our teletype systemwas
I ikewise expanded to take care of the need
for more efficient Communication. All
manual machines were replaced by automatic
transmitting machines and the two multi
station circuits were spl it into four circuits,
reducing the number of stations on each
circuit. This was followed by increasing
the circuit speed to 75 words per minute.
It soon became apparent that further ex
pansion of thepresent type system would be
economical 1 y unsound because of the equip
ment limitations and the requirement for
additional personnel. Recognizing this
and with the placement of the F-27 Pace
maker into scheduled operation by the
spring of 1958, time was growing short and
a study of all existing semi-automatic and
automatic teletypewriter systems,was con
ducted. This study soon revealed that al
though the existing systems had certain
desirable features individually, not one
of them had the combination of features
which we felt it must have to give Pied
mont the teletypewriter system it needed
for the future.
Realizing this, there was but one alterna
tive and that was to design a system with
the required features which past experience
dictated we must have,to serve an airline
of Piedmont's present size efficiently and
economical I y and yet be capable of expan
sion at a later date if necessary.
The preliminary phase of the planning was
completed on paper and specified the "ideal"
system wh ich would meet Piedmont's opera
tional requirements. Consultation with the
two commercial land-line companies re
sulted in the need for statistical data con
cerning the traffic flow, accompanied by
circuit word counts which was reduced to
messages per circuit and messages per
With automatic operation each station on
the system would be assigned a two-letter
station directing code. The originating
office types the directing codes of the des-
tinationoffices before each message . These
codes direct the messages to their desti-
- 4 -
Messages are received at the station or
group of stations that they are addressed to
only, eliminating the need for the high
degree of operator attention required to
select pertinent messages received from
(Continued on Page 5 )