[GreenKeys] Heavy Metal Usage in the Deaf Community

[Jim Haynes]

On Mon, 19 Mar 2018, Richard Knoppow wrote:

>   The Bell System  has a long history of research into speech and hearing 
> and, of course Alexander Bell was very concerned with hearing impairment.
>
That's true, but as Lang's book explains there was quite a battle with
AT&T before TDD was established as it is today.  When it was proposed to
send TTY messages over the dial-up phone network, AT&T said that they
already had that service, called TWX.  Of course TWX was too expensive
for private individuals to use; it was a business service.  Then AT&T
was trying to establish ASCII, and didn't want to do anything that would
prolong the life of Baudot.  And AT&T was unenthusiastic about a service
that depended on the supply of second-hand Teletype machines.

The TDD modem, invented by the late Bob Weitbrecht W6NRM is much simpler
than the full-duplex modem AT&T was using for TWX.  So that held the cost
down, as did the use of second-hand machines.  Eventually AT&T realized
that the deaf people were spending real money on phone calls, even long
distance calls, and warmed up to the idea.  Then there was a big political
change resulting in the Americans with Disabilities Act, which emphasized
the needs of those people and sought to supply their needs.  And
technology made it possible to produce a compact terminal that could be
sold fairly cheaply, and was subsidized.