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John E. Karlin, Who Led the Way To All-Digit Dialing, Dies At 94
First time accepted submitter g01d4 writes "Who was John E. Karlin? 'He was the one who introduced the notion that behavioral sciences could answer some questions about telephone design,' according to Ed Israelski, an engineer who worked under Mr. Karlin at Bell Labs in the 1970s. And you thought Steve Jobs was cool. An interesting obituary in the NYT."
Apparently he did. From TFA... "The rectangular design of the keypad, the shape of its buttons and the position of the numbers — with “1-2-3” on the top row instead of the bottom, as on a calculator — all sprang from empirical research conducted or overseen by Mr. Karlin."
Supposedly it is calculator keyboards that are upside down. Two reasons touch tone phones use the order they do:
Touch tone phones replaced rotary phones, which already had 123 at the top of the dial, and 789 at the bottom. So it made sense to keep the same order that millions of people were already used to, in order to make the transition easier.
Touch tone phones have the alphabet sharing the keys, starting with ABC on key 2. Thus the letters are alphabetic from top to bottom, which also properly follows reading order.
Apparently no real research was done in the choice of calculator keyboards having the numbers descending from 9 down. It just happened, and since calculator keyboard layout was more arbitrary (it had neither a predecessor like touch tone phones, nor the alphabet sharing the keys), it would have made sense for calculator designers to match the touch tone phone layout.
I don't know if any studies have been done, but I don't see any reason why one layout would be more intuitive than the other for pure numerical use to a human than the other. It's whatever you get used to. If calculators matched telephones from the beginning then today no one would feel something was inherently wrong with their calculator or that it is upside down from what it should have always been.
Better known as 318230.
Although it wasn't based on research, it actually is fairly intuitive. Given that calculators were probably most commonly used in finance initially, I would guess that the most common number used (possibly even now) would be 0. Placing that most common number at the thumb position has clear utility, similar to that of the spacebar. My guess is that that served as the anchor, with the other numbers logically flowing from there.
Obviously, all of this is coming out of my ass, but like I said, I don't think it's entirely illogical (though I also think that, for its own purpose, the phone's layout is equally logical, and emulating the calculator on a dialpad would have made the phone look ridiculous when it was released).
No, the 1-2-3 on the top appears to be due to an R. L. Deininger, and probably some Bell execs who figured (npi) that it would look better with ABC at the top instead of PRS.
What Mr. Deininger didn't realize was that the industries that already used keypads with higher numbers at the top weren't likely to change.
Calculators started out with 900, 90 and 9 at the top, and going down to 0 at the bottom. Later digital calculators continued with the high numbers at the top, because that's what calculators (the human ones) were used to. So 7-8-9 went at the top.
Similar for cash registers, which really were just narrow purpose calculators, but here there was also a mechanical reason. Registers popped up plaques with the numbers for the customer to see. The designs varied, but generally these were slotted in order from 0-9, with the 0 and 1 closest to the customer, to prevent fraud where the customer would see (and pay) a higher sum that what was entered. Having the low numbers at the bottom meant fewer mechanical crossings.
Then there's the elevator industry. Buildings in general go upwards, not downwards, and placing the top floors, i.e. high numbers at the top was natural.
So there were at least three examples of higher numbers at the top which Bell ignored.
What bothers me is that ATMs also appear to have 1-2-3 at the top. I cannot get this to make any kind of sense, as they're used to enter sums, not mnemonics.
Did AT&T perhaps "help" design early ATMs?
The system with higher numbers on top goes back to the Roman and Chinese abacus, so it's not arbitrary at all.
Also, push button elevators naturally had the higher floors higher up, so there was precedence for this system with push buttons.
Never really noticed before, but you're right about ATM machines. The millions of POS terminals out there also match telephone keypads with 123 at the top. Guess it makes a little sense. You would enter your PIN into your phone when checking balance via a call to automated support, but you wouldn't ever type your PIN into a calculator. So at least you will always be entering your PIN on the same style keyboard (not counting computer keyboard numeric pads, but I really don't think the average person enters enough numbers to even bother using the numeric keypad on a computer - it would be interesting to see a study showing if the typical person even uses it at all).
Better known as 318230.
Elevators and cash registers did not have 7-8-9 keypads in 1960. Cash registers had 10 keys per digit, and elevators have always had one button per floor.
The only type of machine that had a 7-8-9 keypad was the ten-key machine, used by bookkeepers and accountants to total receipts.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
He was also the Father of the User Interface. He was the first to take human factors into consideration in the design or products.
No, that goes back at least to the Gilbreths. Frank Gilbreth created time and motion study for industrial work. His wife, Lillian Gilbreth was more on the product side. She is responsible, among other things, for kitchens with long continuous counter space with cooking surfaces and sinks at the same level.
The first "intelligent user interface" is hard to pinpoint. Railroad interlocking control boards were close. They prevented the operator from doing anything that would cause a collision (that's why they're called interlockings) but didn't help set up routes. The General Railway Signal NX system in 1936 was probably the first automatic intelligent user interface. Routes were set up by pressing a button to indicate where a train was going to enter the controlled area. Lights on a track model board would then light up indicating all the places it could exit. The operator would select one, push one exit button, and all the switches and signals for the route would be set accordingly. The control system took into account all trains present, and all routes already set up, so only safe routes could be set. The operator could even set track or switches out of service and the system would route trains around the area of trouble.
Sorta, kinda accurate.
The main reason actually relates to the position of the zero. On a rotary phone, the numbers go 7-8-9-0 (phone phreaks should know that dialing 0 generates 10 pulses - just like 1-9 generate 1-9 pulses, respectively).
On an adding machine and other such hardware, the zero is actually beside the 1-2-3. As at the time the numbers were in a vertical column, you'd see them as 0-1-2-3 ... -8-9.
So when they went to the key pad, the phone engineers decided that since the 0 was besides the 9 on every phone they made, it should stay close to the 9 on the final phone layout. Hence 1-2-3 on top, 7-8-9 on the bottom, and *-0-# on the bottom. (Or on old keypads, 0 aligned with either the 8 or 9).
LIkewise, calculator engineers saw that people who used adding machines expect the 0 to be near the 1-2-3, so they designed their keypads with that in mind as adding machine users expected 0 to be near 1.
And look at your keyboard to this day - the number row reflects the telephone layout (1-2-3 ... -7-8-9-0) while the numeric keypad reflects the calculator layout. Presumably, this was because the typewriter guys saw that the telephone kept the 0 near the 9 so they kept their 0 near the 9 as well (being that more people would've seen a phone at the time than a calculator. I'm certain back in the late 19th century when keyboards weren't standardized on QWERTY and the phone was for rich folks, they probably had 0-1-2-3 just as often as 1-2-3..-9-0.
Are you telling me that the Romans and the Chinese are responsible for big-endian ordering?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
When I was a kid, we had a variety of telephones in the house. Some hung on the wall, some had dials, and some had buttons. In the beginning, all of the phones (including those with buttons) used pulse dialing. I remember two distinct conversations between my parents regarding this issue, the first from sometime in the 80s and the second in the early 90s:
1. "Should we pay for Touch-Tone(tm) service?" "It's expensive. We already pay too much for phone service." "It's only a couple of dollars a month, and we can dial faster."
And so it was. We had Touch-Tone(tm), and life was really neither better nor worse, just different. It was a line-item on the bill until
2. "They want to sell us call waiting and three-way calling and distinctive ring services, all bundled up. Can we use those?" "Maybe. Then the kids would have their own phone numbers."
And so it was. With the change of service, the Touch-Tone(tm) item dropped off, though I remember my dad calling to order package and insisting upon it being that way...
And as an adult, I've never been billed for it. And these days, I don't have a land line at all. Come to think of it, it's been years since I've used a real phone that actually used DTMF itself: It's always either a digital office phone, some incarnation of VOIP, or a cell phone.
Kid-proof tablet..
When we were growing up on our little island in the Caribbean we could just pick up the 'phone --- and yes, oh best beloved, in those days an apostrophe would typically precede the word phone --- we'd dial five digits. And the call would just go through.
Not seven, not ten. Never eleven! It is so obvious looking back, the seconds we saved by not dialing those unnecessary digits stretched into minutes, hours, days... by 1980 we were wandering, listless, the burden of those extra hours weighed heavily on us. Many would gaze at their telephones, silently pleading for some sign or answer. But the phones were silent too --- with so much accrued time it was pointless, there was nothing left to say, all had been said.
Then one day a visitor came ashore and asked the number for such-and-such. While dialing the five digits they remarked, "We dial seven. This would not work where I come from."
What an disturbing idea! Ripples of amusement and shock passed through our small society. 'Phones began to ring once again as people mulled this concept. It was unsettling, the idea that should we venture too far from home those familiar numbers we use to communicate would simply not work!
But how far was too far, we wondered? In whispers at first. For now it was possible there was some unknown, invisible boundary surrounding us. For our safety and that of our children it must be mapped. So we asked for volunteers... and sent them out to neighboring islands at all points of the compass, and the US mainland --- and waited by our 'phones.
We sighed with relief when the first reports came in from adjacent islands. Five digits, all clear!
But then our worst fears were confirmed. From Puerto Rico, nothing. From The United States, nothing. We never heard from those brave souls again. Time accrued and the days became longer still.
Then one day a village idiot --- the same who had once suggested we borrow a lug nut from each of the other wheels --- wondered that maybe there are really seven digits... but two of them are somehow invisible. A digits of the land and one of the sky he said, that are unknown to us because we live on and breathe them unaware.
I was intrigued by this idea. What would those digits be? How could one discover them? There are only a hundred possibilities. We all were amused by this but I was perhaps the first one who actually started dialing through them. That is when I discovered that 'phones are patient. Unlike all the people I knew, my 'phone did not seem to mind if I repeatedly dialled numbers that did not work. I had found a new friend!
It is hard to describe what happens after a lifetime of complacent acceptance, as one applies barely an hour of concentrated effort towards some insane idea -- only to reach a moment where you break through and the world changes forever. The call went through and my friend picked up and I heard a familliar 'Hello?' For In those days, oh best beloved, when we answered our 'phone we always said "Hello." We did not bark or grunt, and especially not the impolite "...yes?" or "what the fuck now??" of today.
I shouted breathlessly "I am speaking to you from SEVEN DIGITS! SEVEN! Can you hear me??" Sure, he said, I don't think he knew what I meant and it was past midnight anyway. Being a scientist or explorer of uncharted waters is a heady responsibility. I circled and underlined the two amazing digits and proceeded to complete the sweep. The next combination yielded nothing, and the next. Finally --- the last.
Only one circled pair of digits on my worksheet. I had concieved a simple experiment of technology that was bound to an existential question, performed an exploratory experiment and had obtained a clear and astounding result. We were all saved, we could dial seven digits now like everyone else... and all our time would be spent dialing --- glorious dialing!
I hugged my 'phone.
And in days to come I would discover that dialling a leading '1' forced long distance trunking to occur (Why are these local numbe
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