The answering machine technically goes back to the year 1898 when a Danish inventor patented the Telegraphone. It recorded the magnetic fields produced by sounds onto a wire. The magnetized wire was then used to play back the sounds recorded. But when it comes to the answering machine that most people are familiar with, the beginning of the species was the Ansafone, which was invented by a man named Kazuo Hashimoto, and which was sold in the U.S. starting in 1960.
But Casio takes credit for offering the first “commercially viable” phone answering machine, the Model 400, which can now be visited at the Smithsonian along with dinosaur bones and 19th century surgical instruments. In 1971, the Model 400 was born into the technology market weighing 10 lbs with the amazing ability to hold 20 messages on reel-to-reel tape and the happy side effect of allowing owners to screen calls. For those who wanted to hear their messages privately, an earphone was included.
Hashimoto, however, made a comeback in the year 1983, with the first digital telephone answering machine. But the now-ubiquitous voice mail beat him by four years when Gordon Matthews patented his technology and sold it to 3M. In press interviews Matthews has said that he doesn’t like making calls that aren’t answered by live humans.
Voice mail Vs answering machine
The difference between voice mail and answering machines is that voice mail is stored in a centralized networked system, while answering machines are individual devices that are attached to landline phones. Answering machines went from using reel-to-reel tape to full size cassette tapes, to mini cassette tapes, to solid state technology.
When it comes to retrieving messages from an answering machine, if you’re at home, it’s a matter of pr essing “Play.” If you’re away, however, retrieving messages usually involves pressing a series of numbers on the phone you’re using. There was, however, a time when it was not that simple. Early models required the owner of the machine to carry a special beeper about the size of a pack of cigarettes. When it was time to call home and retrieve the messages, he or she would press the beeper while holding it next to the phone’s mouthpiece. It would beep at a particular frequency that “told” the home machine to play the messages. If you’ve ever heard the term “beeperless remote,” these old beepers were why the term existed.
Like every form of technology, people will, if possible, use it for pranks. The answering machine was no exception. Answering machine greetings done in voices of famous people or characters were common, as were prank messages purporting to have “infected” the calling phone with a “phone virus.” Of course nobody b elieves them, but how else can a person have fun with an answering machine?
So pervasive were home answering machines in the 1980s and early 1990s that they earned a spot for themselves in pop culture, even inspiring late-night television commercials run in the U.S. for a cassette tape full of funny answering machine greetings you could use. It cost $14.95 and contained seven different greetings.
The answering machine was even the basis of a stand-up comedy career for a New Yorker named Amy Borkowsky, who would take her machine to stand-up gigs and play the messages that her overprotective mother left for her. Eventually Borkowsky compiled the messages into a CD and book that prompts waves of recognition for anyone whose mother has ever left answering machine or voice mail messages.
Answering machines and auto dialers
But with the advent of the answering machine, Caller ID, and voice mail, nobody ever has to answer a phone call they don’t want any more, which, along with things like the national “do-not-call” database have hammered telemarketers and collection agencies. Their answering salvo in this cold war of technology was the telephone auto dialer. Today’s telephone auto dialers have the ability to try 2,000 calls simultaneously and can easily detect answering machines and voice mail. The result is that rather than answering a phone to find a collection agency at the other end, or someone selling light bulbs, we check our voice mail, determine who was calling, and erase the message without listening to it.
The technology of telephone auto dialers, however, continues apace. Some auto dialer systems are able to gather survey information and set up telephone sales without human intervention. People who want to buy whatever they’re s elling are automatically routed through telemarketing structures that arrange sales, collect the data, and arrange shipping.
Inbound callers
Inbound telemarketing, where callers reach a telemarketer by word of mouth, can also be run by machines. The recorded information about products or services eventually leads to an actual sales associate. Inbound callers can be routed using menu choices, meaning that an inbound telemarketing system can be “on the job” 24/7.
Outbound telephone auto dialers spring into action when they manage to reach a person rather than an answering machine or voice mail. The outbound telephone auto dialer can gather or disperse information and provide the person on the other end with selections including purchasing a good or service. Such services make automatic outbound calls to lists of customers or clients. These can also be used in non-sales environments. For examples, school systems often set up automatic calling systems that can quickly notify parents of school closings or other important information.
The arms race quality to increasing technology on the part of consumers and telemarketers is perhaps summed up in the name of one available telephone auto dialer system: Predator-Lite, which has an alligator as its mascot. These are designed to “make contact with warm bodies” and instantly hook them up with a sales agent. The purpose of auto dialer systems like the Predator-Lite is “to keep agents on the phone.”
Similar telephone auto dialer systems have lots of functions: call timing, music on hold, transfers, call recording, and networking in addition to auto dialing capability. But their primay function is using predictive dialing to get people on the phone for sales agents or telemarketers to talk to. Typically they’ll dial simultaneously on three different lines. As soon as a human answers, the call is hooked up with an agent, and the other lines stop dialing. When the agent is through, he or she can click on “dial” to start the process over again. Most auto dialer systems are scalable so they’re easy to expand as needs change.
Modern telephone culture
In many ways, modern telephone culture is machine versus machine. The machines have definitely changed over the years, from the clunky 1971 PhoneMate to the voice mail systems that live “in the cloud,” and from telemarketers dutifully dialing number after number only to be rejected in turn to being able to dial many numbers at the same time.
It’s almost a surprising occurence these days to call a number and be answered by a person. Between voice mails, phone menu selections, and automatically routing calls to voice mail, it’s often the technology that hooks up well before actual people do. It makes even the solid state answering machines of just a few years ago look as quaint as sitting on a front porch talking face to face.
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