GOOD-BYE TO THE TELEPHOHE GIRL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue X, 28 August 1897, Page 300

GOOD-BYE TO THE TELEPHOHE GIRL.

The office of the ‘hello’ girls at telephone central stations will soon be an institution of the past if the new invention of Herr Apostoloff, a German engineer, proves a success. This mechanism permits every subscriber in the circuit to make direct connection with any other subscriber, and without the intervention of a third party. Conversation cannot be overheard nor interrupted. To each telephone is attached a small apparatus which automatically makes the desired connection. Suppose the subscriber wishes to put himself in connection with No. 3,896 On the left of his telephone are two rows of numbered buttons. He presses the 3in the thousands’ row and the Bin the row of hundreds. These numbers appear in the mach’ne dial. Similar rows of buttons on the right give the 9 and the 6. A central disk then announces the completion of the circuit, and whether or not the desired telephone is in use elsewhere. The apparatus is simple of manipulation and cannot get out of order.

At the central station the connections are made by an automatic switchboard, which takes up little space and requires no superintendence. The room can be locked and the present large corps of assistants dismissed. If this invention proves to be all that is claimed for it telephoning in the future will become a simpler and less expensive matter. The little instrument will enlarge its field and become a household necessity.