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The evolution of annunciator signaling for telephones

The Evolution of Annunciator Signaling for Telephones Some of the text and images below are derived from Thomas A. Watson’s book, “The Birth and Babyhood of the Telephone", October 17, 1913.

According to Watson’s reminiscing in 1913, “When the caller operated the Buzzer, it made a sound (at the called side) quite like the horseradish grater automobile signal… and it aroused just the same feeling of resentment which that does.” It worked all right in the shop, so I made and sent out several hundred of them, but soon complaints began to pour in from the agents reciting their woes with the bell which, they said, often failed to respond to the frantic crankings [of a magneto or Watson Buzzer] of the man who wanted you.” “It was months before I devised a reliable bell which, as General John J. Carty, vice-president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, told me recently, has never been improved upon in principle.

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