I was hoping for this style of video for quite some time. This system was definitely ahead of its time! That delay is probably because it’s expecting the caller to press something, but none of the additional features/prompts were enabled/recorded at that time.
The BOGEN has a machine that looks identical to this one except in a dark color and with its own brand on it (I think it's called the Bogen Friday or something) so it's no surprise they made this machine, but I believe it's the only piece of equipment they made for AT&T. And this is before AT&T started outsourcing its consumer equipment to companies like Lucent and vtech. That would explain why this unit looks so different from AT&T's other offerings. Bogen is a well known name in amplifiers for store intercom/paging/music systems too, and their products are very reliable so this machine should be an outlier in terms of the average longevity of AT&T equipment (except for maybe the power supply or rectifier, which is what it sounded like the buzzing may have been coming from). Volatile memory at the time definitely was cheaper, so it makes sense for the recording memory, but the configuration memory really should have been nonvolatile; that can't possibly have taken more than a few bytes. Should the power ever go out or get umplugged and the battery not have a charge, it would take all day to reprogram it, so that's perhaps its biggest downside. Otherwise this thing is absolutely fascinating. I was not expecting a voice, let alone such a sophisticated one, and despite its convoluted appearance it appears to be relatively simple to use. This is probably the first machine with a voice guided setup. Extremely impressive piece for 1994, I imagine that would have cost hundreds or more.
I suspect it probably is a failing power supply, and this is exactly where my frustration with it being AC to AC comes in as finding another is not easy. Even if the battery does have a charge, it only lasts at most 12 hours--that's not even particularly useful. It's not at all uncommon in many areas to have a power outage that lasts more than 12 hours after a storm. After going through the whole video and starting to understand some of the logic, it is more intuitive than it initially appears. The small font and lengthy array of buttons certainly gives a daunting appearance. The voice guided setup is very neat, and the voice is quite decent too. There were only a few words I found difficult to understand, and had they just slowed it down a bit, that likely wold have fixed it. I've tried to find the retail price for this thing and have been unable to, but I too suspect it was well into the triple digits, if not more.
Weird how it's manufacutred by Bogen, a company who typically manufactures paging and commercial 25V/70V audio equipment. It's definitely a very interesting piece, and you can tell it was made to look like the AT&T Partner phone systems of the time period, so it was likely made to integrate with them. Very cool. BTW that's definitely a TI voice chip in there.
Bogen made the same exact same one called Bogen FR-2000 Friday Personal Office Receptionist. I wonder who really made them and who just stamped their name on it.
They've been making 2-line telephone equipment since before the 90s. More like in the 80s when AT&T bought up the manufacturing side of the Bell System/Western Electric.
I was hoping for this style of video for quite some time. This system was definitely ahead of its time!
That delay is probably because it’s expecting the caller to press something, but none of the additional features/prompts were enabled/recorded at that time.
Bingo.
Thanks for letting me know.
The BOGEN has a machine that looks identical to this one except in a dark color and with its own brand on it (I think it's called the Bogen Friday or something) so it's no surprise they made this machine, but I believe it's the only piece of equipment they made for AT&T. And this is before AT&T started outsourcing its consumer equipment to companies like Lucent and vtech. That would explain why this unit looks so different from AT&T's other offerings. Bogen is a well known name in amplifiers for store intercom/paging/music systems too, and their products are very reliable so this machine should be an outlier in terms of the average longevity of AT&T equipment (except for maybe the power supply or rectifier, which is what it sounded like the buzzing may have been coming from).
Volatile memory at the time definitely was cheaper, so it makes sense for the recording memory, but the configuration memory really should have been nonvolatile; that can't possibly have taken more than a few bytes. Should the power ever go out or get umplugged and the battery not have a charge, it would take all day to reprogram it, so that's perhaps its biggest downside. Otherwise this thing is absolutely fascinating. I was not expecting a voice, let alone such a sophisticated one, and despite its convoluted appearance it appears to be relatively simple to use. This is probably the first machine with a voice guided setup. Extremely impressive piece for 1994, I imagine that would have cost hundreds or more.
I suspect it probably is a failing power supply, and this is exactly where my frustration with it being AC to AC comes in as finding another is not easy. Even if the battery does have a charge, it only lasts at most 12 hours--that's not even particularly useful. It's not at all uncommon in many areas to have a power outage that lasts more than 12 hours after a storm. After going through the whole video and starting to understand some of the logic, it is more intuitive than it initially appears. The small font and lengthy array of buttons certainly gives a daunting appearance. The voice guided setup is very neat, and the voice is quite decent too. There were only a few words I found difficult to understand, and had they just slowed it down a bit, that likely wold have fixed it. I've tried to find the retail price for this thing and have been unable to, but I too suspect it was well into the triple digits, if not more.
Weird how it's manufacutred by Bogen, a company who typically manufactures paging and commercial 25V/70V audio equipment. It's definitely a very interesting piece, and you can tell it was made to look like the AT&T Partner phone systems of the time period, so it was likely made to integrate with them. Very cool. BTW that's definitely a TI voice chip in there.
Thanks for letting me know.
Interesting piece of technology for the 90s. It’s a shame they discontinued it.
A whole lot of options! That is one feature packed answering machine. If you can overlook the HUM. 😊
Indeed.
um... I'm almost half an hour into the video, and the only hum I can hear is the furnace running. Nothing on the answering system is humming.
@@HappyDiscoDeath Upon playback of his voice greeting then it buzzes.
I'm interested in the videos showing the instruction manual and showing off every feature
OK
What was that tone at 1:31:15 ? Sounded like an oldschool cell phone no service error tone except lower pitched.
A busy tone produced by the PBX.
Where did you find this equipment
I don't remember.
Bogen made the same exact same one called Bogen FR-2000 Friday Personal Office Receptionist. I wonder who really made them and who just stamped their name on it.
AT&T is notorious for putting their name on other company's material. In this case I'd put Bogen as the OEM.
@@JordanU I think the reason for the delay on leaving a message when you called the machine was no voice prompts was recorded.
I never knew at&t made 2-line telephone equipment in the 90s
They made tons of it.
They've been making 2-line telephone equipment since before the 90s. More like in the 80s when AT&T bought up the manufacturing side of the Bell System/Western Electric.
I like it
OK
Kill-A-Watt meter ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
OK then
My grandma died
It doesn't appear as though you grasp the depth of that situation.
dieselducy
That doesn't make sense.
Battery are junk
Your comments are junk.