Chapter 816 "19491001"

Mr. Feng couldn't bear this. "Chief Engineer Gao, what are you talking about? If you have to personally handle all these tedious matters, then the dozens of people in our Communication Institute's research group will be embarrassed."

In a hurry, he even used honorifics. Mr. Gao really couldn't afford to say that.

"No matter what, you guys have put in more effort in this job than I have. So how about it, are you confident today?"

"We sweat a little, while you rack your brains, there's no comparison, no comparison. But I'm still confident in today's meeting, hahaha." Speaking of this, Mr. Feng was no longer modest. You are on our side, and big things will be decided.

The process of the entire acceptance meeting was exactly as Mr. Feng had expected. From the moment the results were reported, the acceptance staff basically gave the green light all the way.

It’s not that there were no questions raised, but these questions were more like consultations than inquiries.

The questions asked by acceptance experts are probably the following.

"What's going on in this place? Explain it to me so I can learn."

"So this problem can be solved this way? What's the principle? I want to understand."

"I've learned it. It turns out this is how to solve this kind of problem."

"Is it really that fast? Is the performance really that good? It's amazing."

"..."

Gao Zhendong sat in his seat, basically saying nothing. He was not needed.

The atmosphere in the entire venue was harmonious and cordial.

The atmosphere reached its climax when the meeting process entered the presentation phase.

There is no visible effect when making calls outside, because outside the Communications Institute, all telephone exchanges are still manual exchanges, and the feeling is not obvious.

However, if you want to see the effect, you don’t need to make a call outside. The comrades from the Communications Institute directly put the phone in the meeting room.

If the expert comrades attending the meeting did not have any direct feelings when the Communications Institute was making its report and introduction, then when the comrades from the Communications Institute took out the telephone, placed it on the test bench and started to connect the wires, they had already felt the difference of this switching system.

——Except for a few, most of these telephones have neither the hand-cranked generator handle for generating electricity to connect to the telephone exchange, nor the more advanced dial.

Instead, there is a sixteen-key, mostly numeric keypad.

"Push-button dialing?" an expert asked in surprise.

"Yes, comrade expert, the standard configuration of our system is this kind of push-button dialing keypad, which has a fast dialing speed and a low error rate. An ordinary person can dial a six-digit number in two seconds, and the dialing speed is not affected by the number of digits in the phone number." A comrade from the Institute of Communications introduced.

In the past, even if it was the most advanced dial-up phone, if you dialed six "6s", the speed would be enough to drive people crazy. This is why the first two digits of our emergency numbers are usually 9 or 1, a legacy from the dial-up era, which allows for fast dialing. As for the last digit being "2" or "0", it is mainly to prevent accidental dialing.

Several experts pressed the buttons on the push-button phone with great interest, like children who had got a new toy.

"Hey, this is convenient, this is convenient."

"Even if you dial the wrong number, it's very fast to redial it, good!"

They have not yet personally experienced the advantages of program-controlled automatic switching, but a simple change in the terminal equipment has made them feel that this system is really different.

"If I dial too fast, will the device not be able to respond?" An expert who is familiar with dial phones.

"In order to be compatible with dial-type phones, our local-side switches do make the upper limit of the dial pulse width relatively large. But don't worry, we also make the lower limit relatively low. Theoretically, you have to press more than 40 keys in one second to exceed its design limit." The comrades at the Institute of Communications are full of confidence.

"But if this happens, will the old dial phones and hand-crank phones have to be replaced?" Equipment compatibility and reuse is a big subject and also a very important feature.

"Don't worry. We have specially designed compatibility for old dial phones at the local end of the program-controlled exchange. They can be connected smoothly. However, manual phones are more troublesome and require an artificial front end to connect. Therefore, if the user terminal under the program-controlled machine is a manual phone, it is recommended to replace it. But this is not a big problem. The lines of this system are fully compatible with the previous phones. The production cost of key phones is much lower than that of manual phones. After the local end exchange is replaced, it is not a big problem to replace the user-end equipment 1:1."

This is one of the truly terrifying aspects of microelectronics technology. Once a product is scaled up, its actual cost is often much lower than that of a purely mechanical device with the same function. Maintenance is also much simpler, and the cost advantage over the entire life cycle is extremely obvious. "What is the technology of this dialing keypad called? I just heard you introduce it as dual-tone multi-frequency, right?" An expert seemed to remember something.

"Yes, dual-tone multi-frequency recognition technology."

"Our unit has recently started using a remote control device. I remember it also uses dual-tone multi-frequency technology for identification and control. I didn't expect that you have used this advanced technology in such a detailed place. The speed of technology digestion and absorption is very fast." The expert praised the speed at which the Institute of Communications digested and absorbed new technologies.

When these words were spoken, the comrade from the Communications Institute showed a subtle expression on his face. After thinking for a while, he still said it out loud.

"Comrade Expert, you actually got it wrong. This dual-tone multi-frequency technology was first developed by our Chief Engineer Gao Zhendong to solve the problem of telephone dialing speed. Remote control and low-speed data transmission are actually its side businesses. They are some additional applications that we have expanded after obtaining this technology."

This is strange to talk about, and it certainly wouldn't feel that way a few decades later, but in this day and age, it's hard for most people to accept the fact that a cutting-edge technology capable of remote control and remote data transmission is actually a by-product of telephone dialing.

Sure enough, this incident made all the experts silent. After a while, the expert just now said in shock: "Ah? So this is the origin of this thing? Such advanced technology was just used to dial a phone number in the beginning? This is a reverse example of buying the casket and returning the pearl."

The comrade from the Communications Institute nodded and didn't say much.

There was nothing they could do. Who knew Chief Engineer Gao was so generous? He didn't even think about the advanced features you mentioned at the beginning. He just made this thing to speed up dialing.

However, some of them were from the 12th Ministry of Machine Building. Electricity and telecommunications are inseparable. It was normal to have someone from the 12th Ministry of Machine Building to inspect the results of the Institute of Communications. When these comrades heard the inventor of the dual-tone multi-frequency technology, they were relieved.

"Ah, it was Chief Engineer Gao who did it. No wonder, he has the confidence. Many things that seem like trivial matters to us are not a big deal to him." Looking at Gao Zhendong who was sitting aside happily and basically said nothing, several comrades from the 12th Ministry of Machine Building showed a look of understanding.

Did they say nothing? They didn't need to speak.

As they were talking, all the phones had been connected and placed in front of the experts. There was a piece of paper attached to each phone, which was the telephone number assigned to each phone by the programmable switching system.

A red telephone was left on a separate stand.

The comrade from the Institute of Communications said to the acceptance team leader: "Comrade team leader, you can try it now. Use the phone in front of you, or any other phone, and dial 19491001. This is the number of the single phone."

In order to highlight the advantages of push-button dialing, comrades from the Institute of Communications assigned a very long 8-digit number to each phone despite the upper limit on the length of the phone number. For the single phone, they specially assigned a very special number.

"19491001? Ah, I see, I see."

Under the guidance of a comrade from the Institute of Communications, the expert group leader picked up the phone in front of him and pressed a series of numbers with a trembling hand.

What happened next felt extremely unreal to all the acceptance personnel. Just after the head of the expert group pressed the last button, within a few seconds, the red phone 19491001 made a "beep, beep, beep" sound.

The speed was so fast that everyone even had the illusion that "What a coincidence, someone actually called in at this time."

It was too fast, really too fast. Although they knew that programmable switches did not require human communication, exchange, and connection, the speed still greatly exceeded everyone's expectations, to the point that they had the illusion that a call could be connected in just a few seconds.

But people soon realized that there was no way a call could be connected. This was a test device and was not designed to be connected to any external devices.

An acceptance expert strode over and answered the phone.

"Hey……"

The clear sound coming from the microphone, intertwined with the original sound in the same space, gave the expert team leader a wonderful feeling.

The other acceptance personnel then reacted and said, "Fuck, I miscalculated, I miscalculated, he got there first."

If this happened decades later, various related research materials would probably write like this: "As Comrade XXX solemnly pressed the number '19491001', Comrade YYY answered the phone on the other end. This meant that my country's first program-controlled telephone exchange officially stepped onto the stage of serving the masses."

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! The chance to go down in history was snatched away just like that. Although this "history" is not yours and it is only a historical document of an industry, I still want to ask you whether this name is yours.

The expert who reacted the fastest and got the first one had a smile on his face that was so bright that it was blinding.

(End of this chapter)