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.
I thought this was an 8410. Till I zoomed in. I did see 8410s (ether D or B as in Blank) throughout the 34th Street Macy’s.
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.
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.