Obscure Research Help

[Vondy]

I'm working on a noirish Jewish pulp story set in Dec 1913. The story is occuring in Budapest. My ordinarily strong search-fu has failed me. I need info on Budapest's telephone exchanges. See, I told you it was obscure. I know the exchanges were established in 1893, that by 1913 they had 6,500 subscribers, and that they had an innovative pre-radio "telephone broadcast" you could call in and listen to. I don't have any information on the names/neighborhoods of the exchanges, or whether you called the operator with the exchange and number you wanted (like in the US) or just manually dialed.

 

Will rep for answers.

[Neverway]

Re: Obscure Research Help

 

I'm working on a noirish Jewish pulp story set in Dec 1913. The story is occuring in Budapest. My ordinarily strong search-fu has failed me. I need info on Budapest's telephone exchanges. See, I told you it was obscure. I know the exchanges were established in 1893, that by 1913 they had 6,500 subscribers, and that they had an innovative pre-radio "telephone broadcast" you could call in and listen to. I don't have any information on the names/neighborhoods of the exchanges, or whether you called the operator with the exchange and number you wanted (like in the US) or just manually dialed.

 

Will rep for answers.

 

Hmmm. Budapest telephone exchange was opened in 1881, Chief Electrician... http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla/Early_years

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=SnjGRDVIUL4C&pg=PA247&lpg=PA247&dq=budapest+telephone+%22automatic+switch%22&source=bl&ots=qHdVlEg-U9&sig=5ewYLu5xDyCZhY7t1rvuZ9GAQZY&hl=en&ei=3BRuSre3AZPgsQO3iqTKDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1 states that Budapest pioneered (locally, not globally) an automatic switching system in 1910 and had a full comercial system by 1928 (scroll down a couple of pages to the tables). So no manual dialling in 1913, you'd call into the exchange and have someone complete the call for you. Also note that AT&T provided all telephoney equipment to Europe for a while

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=ajeNDt-QsyIC&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=budapest+telephone+numbers+historical&source=bl&ots=mp7Coz9JQw&sig=RVl2-TrOQE4A188QipQ-qoI_dPg&hl=en&ei=TRluSq-hN5TgtgPl8qXKDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9 States that in 1913 there were over 27,000 subscribers (page 61).

 

http://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/91/ is mostly about Russian phone service, but shows the influence of AT&T on early European phone numbers (especially the letter-numberr comnbination for phone numbers) although it only gives Russian examples.

 

Hope this helps

[Basil]

Re: Obscure Research Help

 

http://july.fixedreference.org/en/20040724/wikipedia/Telephone has the first telephone exchange in Budapest being opened in 1881.

 

If you go to http://www.archive.org/details/developmentoftel00webbuoft and d/l the PDF file (or one of the other formats if you prefer), you can get a British book from ~1910 that has a brief mention of the telephone situation in Hungary (esp. Budapest) at that time.

 

I haven't found anything else about exchanges or what-have-you, but I found I reprint of a Scientific American article about the "telephone broadcast" (which actually considered itself a "telephone newspaper")

 

http://earlyradiohistory.us/telenew5.htm

 

BTW, the "exchange(s)" mentioned in the example daily schedule would be stock and commodity exchanges.

[Neverway]

Re: Obscure Research Help

 

My first post on this didn't seem to take, so I'll have another go at it.

 

As Basil stated, the first telephone exchange in Budapest was opened in 1881, and guess who the Chief Electrician (and later, the company engineer) was?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla (last paragraph in the section "Early years")

 

 

http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Publications/Documents/WP-83-020.pdf includes a short history of telephony in Hungary in the first few pages. The document requests no quoting without permission, so you'll have to read the four or five pages of interest yourself; however, it corroborates the 1881 date and adds a few facts. For instance, it was required to give both the name and number of the party being called, indicating that you picked up the phone and rang an operator. Also, it states that fully automatic switches (direct dialing) were not installed until 1928.

 

The number of subscribers varies per source, but http://books.google.com/books?id=ajeNDt-QsyIC&dq=budapest+1900&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=tVhuSoCOMYfGMN2CqeQC&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4 cites > 27,000 in 1913 (page 61)

 

Interestingly enough, for a city that claimed it's own telephone inventor, Budapest was one of AT&T's customers for telephone equipment.

In the early 1900s, AT&T engaged in businesses that ranged well beyond the national telephone system. Through the Western Electric Company, its manufacturing subsidiary, AT&T affiliated and allied companies around the world manufactured equipment to meet the needs of the world's telephone companies. These firms also sold equipment imported from the United States. By 1914, International Western Electric Company locations included Antwerp, London, Berlin, Milan, Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Budapest, Tokyo, Montreal, Buenos Aires, and Sydney.

http://www.bizaims.com/coffee+break/curiosities+events+funny/the+history+att so you ought to be able to use American sources for hardware of the age if it becomes important.

 

I couldn't find anything on actual exchange names, but the people at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TENproject/ might be able to help (their web site/database didn't include anything on Budapest, Hungary, or Austria-Hungary). About the only thing I can say with confidence is that they would have been in Hungarian.

[FireTiger]

Re: Obscure Research Help

 

I've not found any direct info yet, but I have found that there is a telephone museum there. So if all else fails, contacting them might provide the information you're looking for.

 

http://www.budapestinfo.hu/en/things_to_see/museums/telephone_museum

[Vondy]

Re: Obscure Research Help

 

Thank you all for the links.

 

To clarify one point, when I talk about "exchanges," I'm probably using an American term. It used to be, when you picked up the phone, you got the operator and asked them to connect you to the desired line (as some of you noted above). A person's number was their "exchange" (a menmonic for a two digit prefix, which later became the three digit prefix we dial today) followed by a four or five digit number (depending on the period) that represented the specific subscriber line. So, for instance, Microsoft's main Redmond number would translate to "Tuxedo-8080." Oddly, if you call the operator today and give them a phone number in this format they can theoretically still connect and are supposed to (though it might annoy them: "sir, why don't you just freaking dial the number?!"). So, while I go through all these links, if anyone comes across the Budapest mnemonics for neighborhood prefixes, let me know.

 

Thanks again!

[Basil]

Re: Obscure Research Help

 

Thank you all for the links.

 

To clarify one point, when I talk about "exchanges," I'm probably using an American term. It used to be, when you picked up the phone, you got the operator and asked them to connect you to the desired line (as some of you noted above). A person's number was their "exchange" (a menmonic for a two digit prefix, which later became the three digit prefix we dial today) followed by a four or five digit number (depending on the period) that represented the specific subscriber line.

 

Very, very early on, at least in some places, you didn't ask for an exchange, as there was only one place that had a patchboard; or, in other times/places, you asked for the town/neighborhood you wanted, by its common name.

 

Oh, and I know of one area (the one I live in, in fact) that used to have a single digit as the exchange, and that followed the use of the first letter of the exchange name (which wasn't the town name). This is in an area 30-40 miles east of Seattle; it was originally covered by a telephone co-op, but that couldn't make ends meet so they sold it to a utility company.

 

When the company went to the by-then standard 3&4 structure, they simply tripled the "original" single digit. So there's a 222, and a 333, and an 888 exchange around here. Yes, 888; confuses newbies at times.

 

BTW, for those who don't know: it used to be there were 3 letters for each of the numbers 2 through 9; no letters for 1 or 0, and no Q nor Z. There used to be, 40+ years ago, advertisements than told you to call "Zenith 9-XXXX"; this meant call the operator and ask for that number; it was some kind of special hookup that gave businesses a decreased rate. That, or it was a forerunner of the WATS line system, which was the ancestor of the 1-800 (1-888, 1-8XX) system. I've never been clear on that.

 

So' date=' for instance, Microsoft's main Redmond number would translate to "Tuxedo-8080." Oddly, if you call the operator today and give them a phone number in this format they can theoretically still connect and are supposed to (though it might annoy them: "sir, why don't you just freaking dial the number?!"). So, while I go through all these links, if anyone comes across the Budapest mnemonics for neighborhood prefixes, let me know.[/quote']

 

That's what I figured you were after. Unfortunately, I still can't find anything like that.

 

Thanks again!

 

You're welcome! Glad I was of some help.

[Vondy]

Re: Obscure Research Help

 

That's what I figured you were after. Unfortunately, I still can't find anything like that.

 

I appreciate the effort. Its easy enough to write around or fake up a non-existant exchange. I just enjoy getting the little details right.

[Lamrok]

Re: Obscure Research Help

 

The problem here is that this sort of information tends to be too mundane to be written down and recorded. You need to go to contemporary sources. In the US, old movies are a treasure trove of this sort of info, since when a character uses a phone, they'll typically need to show the process of making the call. You might have some luck at the Internet archive looking for something along this line, but, frankly, I'm not sure such a movie even exists.

 

On the other hand, Google Books is a much overlooked treasure trove of technological information from around the turn of the century. I didn't push in too deep, but a few minutes of trawling turned up this interesting interview of a Hungarian "Telephone Official" from 1914. You could make some inferences from that article that might give you what you're looking for. I imagine you could probably turn up some other relevant information just combing through "Telephone Review" magazine, since it looks like Google Books has full text images of this publication.

[Lamrok]

Re: Obscure Research Help

 

One more link. This book has some information about the Budapest telephone system in the time from you're interestied in. It might also have other details you can use in your novel. Google books only offers a "preview" of it, but you might be able to find a copy in a library.

 

The book quotes an except in which someone describes using a telephone. The caller picks up the phone and hears a woman's voice say "Jozsef" (the name of a telephone exchange), then the caller gives the operator the name of the person he wants to talk to. By 1913, I expect the caller would have needed to supply a number.

 

While I didn't easily find a list of telephone exchanges, "Joszef" does seem to have been one of them.

[Vondy]

Re: Obscure Research Help

 

The problem here is that this sort of information tends to be too mundane to be written down and recorded. You need to go to contemporary sources. In the US' date=' old movies are a treasure trove of this sort of info, since when a character uses a phone, they'll typically need to show the process of making the call. You might have some luck at the Internet archive looking for something along this line, but, frankly, I'm not sure such a movie even exists.[/quote']

 

You would think so. But I've found extensive internet nostalgia sites on the American/British exchange systems right down to listings of exchange mnemonics for neighborhoods in major cities, subsriber counts, and the like. There are even a few books written about them. I did manage to find a site, in English, that had a detailed history of the Budapest train system, including schedules, lines, and when they became operational and/or defunct. It was truly amazing and mundane all at once. The problem I'm having is: if such a resource exists on their phone system its probably in Hungarian. Its not a huge problem. I can handwave it and write around it extrapolating from American sources. But I've got a bee in my bonnet: when my hero picks up the phone and says "Taban-XXXX" I want it to be an exchange that existed, and have it be correct that he spoke to the operator. Its gamer pedantry gone totally wrong, I know. But then, stories set in historical periods often get dinged on the weirdest things...

 

On the other hand' date=' Google Books is a much overlooked treasure trove of technological information from around the turn of the century. I didn't push in too deep, but a few minutes of trawling turned up this interesting interview of a Hungarian "Telephone Official" from 1914. You could make some inferences from that article that might give you what you're looking for. I imagine you could probably turn up some other relevant information just combing through "Telephone Review" magazine, since it looks like Google Books has full text images of this publication.

 

I'll take a look. I've found some interesting information on the history of cabaret (and proto-cabaret) in Budapest, as well as extensive information on the Jewish nightclub owners and the like. More than I needed in the end. Thanks!

[Egyptoid]

Re: Obscure Research Help

 

here's an interesting file:

 

Inventors