Answering machine

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Analogue answering machine with double cassette
Digital answering machine

An answering machine ( AM ) is an electrical or electronic audio recorder that accepts telephone calls and after playing a telephone announcement for the caller, for example with the text "Please speak after the signal tone ...", (optional) records a spoken message from the caller. This happens as an alternative to a phone call if you cannot be reached.

When the device is active, there are the following basic options (circuits):

  • Playback of the vacation notice with recording of a message
  • Play the vacation notice without recording a message

The answering machine can also be deactivated at the push of a button.

Answering machine terminal

Cordless telephone with integrated answering machine

In the fixed network area , an answering machine is usually designed as a terminal device installed on the subscriber's local telephone connection .

With these devices, the called party can still take the call while the caller (A-subscriber) is speaking a text. The time window until the announcement is activated after the call signaling can usually be selected flexibly.

The recording can be analog or digital .

In the original form - mostly designed as a separate device - normal compact cassettes (audio cassettes) or special mini or micro cassettes were used. Better devices had two cassette drives, one for the greeting message and the other for the callers' messages. If one was used for all texts, the rewinding of the cassette meant longer waiting times before the message could be spoken. Devices of this type have not been produced since the 21st century. With digital devices, the voice data is stored in a device-internal memory. In earlier versions with RAM , a battery was integrated to preserve memory in the event of a power failure . Today's devices use non-volatile flash memory technology, which means that a battery is no longer necessary. Analog-digital hybrid forms were also on the market, for example with RAM for the announcement text and cassette for messages from the callers and as a backup medium for announcements in the event of a power failure.

While earlier devices were mostly designed as separate devices in the 1990s, answering machines are now often integrated into landline telephones or their base stations or telephone systems.

Special functions

  • Remote access: Most devices allow you to access recorded messages from another telephone , whereby you can identify yourself using a preset PIN and listen to your messages via the telephone network . In order to send a PIN and commands to the answering machine from a telephone with a rotary dial, i.e. without a multi-frequency dialing procedure (changeover in Austria from around 1985), there were devices the size of a credit card with a keyboard, loudspeaker and rubber studs that could be attached to the mouthpiece of the telephone receiver and around the digits 0–9 and # and * to couple the corresponding acoustic signals.
  • Some devices are able to automatically send a message to indicate the presence of new messages; this can be done by calling a given number, where an announcement can be heard, or by sending a text message as an SMS or via Cityruf .
  • Some manufacturers also offer devices that can receive faxes as well as voice messages .

In the mobile communications sector, answering machines on the subscriber side could not prevail against the usual network-side solution ( voice mailbox ). There are software implementations for smartphones . Answering machines on the subscriber side have the disadvantage that they only work when the device is switched on and has reception, but they avoid the usual costs for querying the answering machine.

Voice mailbox

If the answering machine not an independent device but a system comprising a plurality of telephone lines can operate at the same time, it is called at the virtual answering machine voice mailbox , short only mailbox , or even voice messaging using mobile mailboxes also from mobile box (the term Voicemail mainly used by Deutsche Telekom AG ).

The voice messages are not listened to via the device (possibly just a server ); rather it is called via an access number and then controlled with the telephone.

Voice mailbox in cellular and landline networks

With the mobile phone providers and increasingly also with VoIP and landline connections (for example SprachBox , until July 2008 T-NetBox , at Deutsche Telekom ), an answering machine is provided centrally by the telephone company on the network side .

The voice mailbox is physically located on Audiotex - servers in the network, the telephone company and can also be accessed by telephone, which may be a charge depending on the provider. The mobile box function is massively advertised by many mobile phone providers, as its use generates additional connection minutes. The announcements can usually be selected from the telephone company's specifications or recorded individually (stored).

The mobile box can be switched off in many networks by entering the combination ## 002 # . The setting of the PIN for the mailbox, on the other hand, is usually regulated differently by the network providers. By modifying the dialed number, the caller can immediately reach the voice mailbox without the phone ringing; see the article Mailbox Extension .

Such solutions implemented on the network side currently have the disadvantage compared to the answering machine as a terminal device installed on the subscriber side that a call can no longer be accepted after the fact that the mailbox has taken it over. Furthermore, the time span from the start of the call signaling, after which the network-side mailbox should take over the call, can only be selected with restrictions - for example, with the usual GSM standard, from 0 to 30 seconds in five-second steps, in some cases even longer Restrictions. Local answering machines sometimes have this disadvantage, but you are not contractually bound to them.

Many voice boxes can also receive and store faxes. If, in addition to the usual SMS notification of new messages, such as e-mail notification and forwarding of recorded messages and faxes ( Fax2mail ) are integrated in the Voicebox solution, this is also referred to as Unified Messaging .

Voice mailbox for system telephones

In the case of system telephone systems in the business area, the company's own voicemail services are made available to each user on the system side.

Voicemail is often also integrated in unified messaging solutions, so that in addition to e.g. B. e-mail and fax also voice messages are available.

Voice mailboxes are received, processed and stored either directly by the telephone system, by a modular extension or by a server connected via VoIP.

history

Forerunner of the answering machine. A telegraph by Valdemar Poulsen around 1898 (in the Brede works industrial museum in Lingby, Denmark )

The first devices that came up with this idea in 1898 were the telephonograph and the telegraphone . But they still had numerous technical weaknesses and could not prevail.

  • The telephonograph was an invention of the French engineer Jules Ernest Othon Kumberg and consisted of the connection of a telephone to a phonograph . He used the wax rollers introduced by Thomas Alva Edison in 1888 for recording . However, the handling of the telephone graph was complicated and the quality of the recording was probably unsatisfactory, so that the device was only built in small numbers, mainly for demonstration purposes.
  • The telegraphon was the first functional device with electromagnetic recording on steel wire and thus a forerunner of the later tape recorders . According to its Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen , the telegraphone was primarily intended as an answering machine. But it was then offered for a variety of other purposes, especially as a dictation machine . In addition to the recording quality, the low volume in particular was a problem, so that the technology was only taken up again about twenty years later when the first audio amplifiers were available.

The textophone is the first answering machine today . It was a model of the dictation machine developed by Curt Stille under the name "Dailygraph", improved and expanded by the engineer Semi Joseph Begun for the Berlin company C. Lorenz . Connection to the telephone network was intended by the manufacturer, but it was only one of several possible uses. As a wire-tone device , it was a logical further development of the telegraphone. In addition to the built-in amplifier and an improvement in recording and playback technology, it also revolutionized the handling of recording media. The reels of steel wire were encased in housings specially designed for the textophone, so that the device was not only the first answering machine, but also the first cassette recorder .

At Bell Laboratories in the United States, Clarence Hickman also worked on an answering machine from 1934. For his experiments he first used a telegraphone from Valdemar Poulsen's American Telegraphone Company , but soon changed the steel wire for a narrow steel band. His development of magnetic recording seems to have proceeded very similarly to that in Europe with the “Blattnerophon” or its successors, the Marconi Company, and the “Stahlbandmaschinen” by C. Lorenz . The latter devices were no longer used as answering machines, but mainly for reports on the BBC and on the German broadcasters that were part of the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft. The telephone company AT&T , as the owner of Bell Laboratories, kept the invention under lock and key for years. AT&T feared that an answering machine would lead to fewer phone calls .

Answering machine Ipsophon in tube technology

The inventor Willy Müller developed the first known automatic answering machine in 1938 . It was not until four years later that the Reichspostzentralamt approved it under the name Ipsophon .

In 1953, answering machines for private households were available for the first time in Germany. The devices manufactured by Willy Müller & Co in Munich were initially called voice storage devices and were viewed as simplified versions of the devices used for announcement services by the Deutsche Bundespost at that time:

  • The alibiphon , which appeared in 1957, could only play an announcement of a maximum of 40 seconds in its basic configuration (today it would be called the announcement-only mode). The user could record the announcement himself on a magnetic record and change it at any time. The device was around 30 cm × 19 cm × 11 cm in size and contained, in addition to the power supply unit and drive, two electron tubes , two relays , a switch for the operating mode (recording, playback, telephone) and a display for the speaking time. Messages from the caller could also be recorded using a tape recorder that had to be connected separately. The alibiphon was approved in Germany in 1961.
  • The teleporter could also record a message from the caller lasting a maximum of 30 seconds. First the announcement recorded by the user himself and then the permanently recorded text “Please speak now” was played. The end of the recording was acknowledged with "Recording switched off"; then further incoming calls could be recorded immediately. It was only possible to listen to the messages on the device itself. The teleporter could also be used as a dictation machine .
  • In 1946 a device was already available with the notaphone , a Swiss invention, that offered the function common today (answering machine with remote access). Since this term did not yet exist at the time, the device, which was initially not approved in Germany, was referred to in the specialist press as a "telephone robot". Remote access was possible from any third-party telephone and was protected with a "secret device" (today's PIN). The user had to set one of 63 possible numbers on the device with six switches. The remote inquiry was started by saying a clear "A" after a certain word of the announcement. The notaphone then announced digits to the caller; if a digit belonging to the set number you had to say a clear "A". After successfully confirming the PIN, the received messages were played. At the end you were asked whether all messages should be deleted, which you could confirm with "A".
  • There were several models of the Alibicord device from Alois Zettler, which could also record incoming messages with a second sound carrier.
  • The father of the answering machine is also considered to be the Japanese Kazuo Hashimoto, who developed the Ansa Fone in 1958, the first commercially profitable AB that was sold directly to companies and private households. Corresponding devices still cost around 1,300 to 3,000 DM in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1980. As an alternative, the Deutsche Bundespost offered a telephone order service, which also accepted calls for 3.00 DM per day.

From the late 1980s onwards, answering machines in Germany went from being a luxury item to being an everyday commodity, and the transition from tape to cassette made the devices smaller. Since models approved by the Bundespost were very expensive and had functional restrictions, there were many non-approved devices on the market, but their operation was illegal at the time. Their connection was also not without problems, as telephone sockets were not yet common and opening the screwed connection sockets was not permitted.

symbol

symbol

A delicate circle with a line that crosses the circular line radially to the bottom left, similar to a reversed Q (as a symbol for a (lifted) gramophone box with a needle), can be placed in front of the phone number if an answering machine is connected. The associated Unicode code point is U + 2315 (⌕). On telephones, a symbol consisting of two adjacent circles connected by a line at the top is common (symbolic representation of two tape reels).

Other, GEMA

The recording of GEMA -pflichtiger music in telephone systems , for example on answering machines (as background music audio prompts) or in holding patterns , is registered. This is unknown to many small businesses. To avoid these fees, there is GEMA-free music, i.e. music whose licensors are not represented by GEMA and which expressly document this when they are sold.

literature

  • Rainer Knirsch: Speak after the beep: communication via answering machine; a conversation analysis examination. Dissertation . (= German linguistics. 260). Niemeyer, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-484-31260-2 .
  • De Ipsophoon Robot-Telefoon (Dutch). In: Wereldspiegel (Amsterdam) 1st year 1946/47, No. 3 (December 1947), pp. 42–44.

Individual evidence

  1. How to get rid of your answering machine , babel.de
  2. ^ The Telephonograph. In: New Science. Volume 12, No. 308, November 23, 1900, JSTOR 1628731 p. 812 f.
  3. ↑ Answering machine . On the website of the Museum Foundation Post and Telecommunications , accessed on November 7, 2015.
  4. Eric D. Daniel, C. Denis Mee, Mark H. Clark: Magnetic Recording - The First 100 Years. IEEE Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-7803-4709-9 . P. 38. ( limited preview in Google Book search)
  5. Tim Wu: The Master Switch: Rise and Fall of the Information Empires. Mitp Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8266-9273-4 , pp. 132-134.
  6. Radio magazine with television magazine . No. 8 , 1953.
  7. Barbara Stolba: Notaphon | NZZ . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . September 20, 2017, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed September 27, 2017]).

Web links

Commons : Answering machines  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: answering machine  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations