Definity

An Avaya 9408 on a 19 Year Old PBX

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This video shows how my Definity PBX can handle a fairly recent telset, the 9408. Surpisngly it works pretty well despite the labeling not working at all because the PBX release off a year before Avaya introduced screen phones in 2001. Release 9 was on the market from 1999 to 2001. The 2400s would be introduced to the market by the end of 2001 into 2002, and no one was really using them for a few years later. At that same time 7400s were still pretty common place.

I received this from my friend for Christmas, only because he disliked this model. I could imagine why. Screenphones isn’t for everyone.

I want to be clear with the lawyers or techs: this is installed at a home with a decommissioned switch. BY NO MEANS is this a commercial or used in a production environment. I cannot be held liable to anyone who runs across this page and thinks this is acceptable for use. One an R9 PBX probably shouldn’t be used, and secondly, using some  very new set on an old switch would raise a lot of support tech’s flags. I have to mention this because this site is for educational purposes of historical sense and shouldn’t be used as a resource with current available products. A lot of things happen behind the scenes at The Museum legally, so just want to keep the boundaries clear.

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POTD: Avaya CallMaster IV

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Today’s Phone of the Day is a retake of the CallMaster IV terminal for the use of Avaya enterprise grade PBX systems. These are not telephones, and they are not attendant consoles and while there is an apparent resembelence of the Call Director, these sets would not be used for “answering centers” since Voice mail had taken many of those roles anyways.

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Avaya Red (AT&T) 8434 Brochure

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The Museum is having a low in terms of new features. Here we go with, Stretch, Stretch and Stretch by finding something to fill up for the lost posts. I thought since the 8434 telephone from Avaya was one of the attractions to this site, that I’d post it’s brochure from the time I found deep on the Avaya hosts.

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The copyright is from 1994 from AT&T and it doesn’t indicate the DX suffix. The 7400s were well popular in the early 1990s. The most funny thing about the world of Avaya Red (then AT&T) was most phones used were within that decade from the mid 80s to mid 90s. Many Avaya Blue shops still had those wedge SL-1 telsets in production even past the 21st Century. The MET sets (that kinda had the resemblance the first gen SL1 sets) were made around the same time, mid 1970s. Not sure if AT&T had aggressive buyback offers or just simply those quasi digital sets couldn’t do things like multiple lines.

8434 bro 2

As much as I liked the 7400s because it shared the Merlin shell; the 7400s were kinda like the Ciscos of the 1980s. Overpriced and underperformed. Most first gen sets (made from 1984 to like 1988) had no ability for integrated speakerphone (known as listening only); displays were add ons, and it was known for its proprietary “R” handset and tactile buttons other than the dialpad. Volume was a dial wheel, as well as it’s display contrast. Isn’t that interesting, analog controllers to a digital telephone? By about 1988, the BIS (Built in Speakerphone) series appeared for both Merlin and System 75/85 users, as well as hard buttons for line and features, and models for call center and dedicated display (7406D and 7407.) For the people who didn’t like the futuristic looks, the 1990s came with something that resembled more like an “office telephone” – Enter the 8400 Series.

Similar to the whole AUDIX saga, AT&T’s documentation was very lousy from the 84 breakup to the Lucent spinoff. Because information is very scarce, I’m going to bet the 8400s were introduced to the market around 1993/94; and not 1990. If I am wrong on the year of introduction; then it would be safe to say; by that time; these sets were starting appear on desks as time went on.

To prevent the reader from being constantly bombarded with repetition of history, please click on this link for additional information

Phone of the Day: Avaya Red 7400 Series Voice Terminal – Macy’s 34th Street

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Yours truly was Live from New York yesterday. Put it this way, I saw more Avaya Red sets this time around than Ciscos. A couple Avaya Blues here and there.

I don’t know much of the history of the original Macy’s. Macy’s went under 2 decades ago, and was sequentially boughtout by Federated Department stores that went on a buying spree of regional department stores; then in 2005 made their big buyout of the May Department Store chain of brands. Between the Federated and May buyouts Macy’s was in almost every mid sized city than prior to. Most of the Macy’s around where I live used to be the brands of Jordan Marsh and Filene’s both using/used ROLM CBX switches.

What’s interesting is I’ve been to Jordan Marsh/Macy’s stores and they had resemblance to the flagship 34th Street store, while former Filenes still has resemblance of the pre-Macy’s buyout, but by default all first level stores has that signature all white look. More non telephony related subjects to this store I set foot for the first time on the above link.

Now from what I can tell Macy’s uses an Avaya Red PBX. This one appears to go back in the System 75 days. Now I didn’t see if this thing worked, because in Release 14 (branded as 4.x)  of their enterprise PBX system, they depreciated the 7400s because the four-wire cards carried a lot of legacy code (from what I’ve read on the list serves, just dumping the 7400 DCP drivers gave Avaya some million lines of code removed.)

This particular model I forget, because AT&T made various models in the 10 year period, it may be a 7410 BIS set. Also, just because the 8400s released in the early 1990s, it was not a surprise to still have a part number (known as Comcodes or PECs) – I believe some models of the 7400 were still orderables in the first year of the Avaya spinoff (early 2000-late 2001.) If you were still on the 7400s at that point, Avaya did want you to go to the 6400 series (crap sets.)

More to come throughout the week.

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My Collection: A Definity AUDIX Board!

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Update: 02-23-15 at 9:20 pm We’ve gots some problems… Presently tried to follow all the instructions but the board appears to be booting up but the ASA and even TUTTY (Putty + AT&T Terminal) clients are stuck in the BSOD. According to historic documentation, the LEDs are working as they should after boot, so maybe something failed at the connector side. I sure hope I didn’t “break” it…

So I got another surprise gift from Jason that was sent on President’s Day. I just received it a couple hours ago. This Definity AUDIX board is an integrated voice mail system for the Definity platform. These are no longer available and were designed in small environments. It was on the market for most of the 90s and probably up to 2001. The replacement would be an external PC or now a Modular Messaging running on a server class PC or an Aura virtual appliance. The beauty of this tiny board is it gave customers in small sites the power of the bigger AUDIX system. And hopefully I can hear the AUDIX lady once I get into the thing!

So much for that cutover back to the Cisco huh?

My Collection: The Avaya 8410 Voice Terminal

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Today I’m showcasing my newest phone (prior to the last post) that is the Avaya 8410 Voice Terminal.

I’m not that creative in naming gadgets in cutesy names like dogs or cats like how people name servers, but I’m calling this one The Donald. As in Donald Trump. That guy was a long time user (to this day) a user of the 8410 terminal. What’s funny is the phone still has an AT&T label. He also uses his Spokesman speakerphone adjunct to have clear handsfree communication, even though the integrated microphone does well too.

This was courtesy from Jason, who gave me his old Definity PBX. The terms of the transfer did not include an 8410 set, which came to my surprise. He told me through email that he threw it in because there was space in the large package. More on this at a later time.

 

 

 

A closeup to that mic.

8410s were originally sold by AT&T, then sold by Lucent and then to Avaya. First generation sets were made in the States (likely at the Shrieveport Works – where most of the enterprise sets were made); when the End of Sale was issued by Avaya around 2003, the terminals were made in Mexico, despite plastic molding stating it was made here.

My Collection – AT&T (Avaya) 7102 Analog Voice Terminal

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Here is another private collection of another office telephone. It’s an AT&T (now Avaya) 7102 Analog telephone.

These were made by AT&T in the mid to late 80s, sports the “R” handset (Merlin style) while having a basic featureset with a 12 digit dial pad and a “Recall” (read: Flash) to use additional features of the PBX or “Call Waiting” as this terminal can – in fact – be used for residential landline services.

In fact, the ringer is much like the very old AT&T 1810 digital answering machine/house phone I had at my family’s house. It doesn’t have the sound of the digital telephones unfortunately.

I bought this on eBay a while back, and here is the gallery

It was made in Korea, kinda odd for phones to be made out of the States at that time. Maybe this was built in the same plant as the other consumer phones that AT&T continued to produce leading to the spinoff to Lucent in 1996.  I opened the phone and the guts looked like a cheap Asian produced device.

This phone however, is a shell of a BIS-10 (or a 7410 Plus), take the DESI paper off, and you’ll see the empty spots for those buttons. It was kinda surprising to see, but I guess since there was a membrane cover, it didn’t matter. I’ll post that picture (and redo the picture gallery in a neater workspace) at a later time.