Dreyfuss's designs for the
Bell System, realized in collaboration with the Labs and Western Electric, remain a foundation of today's human/electronic interfaces.
While Fanuc Robotics (Rochester Hills, MI) certainly has one of the industry-leading seven-axis painting robots with its P-200E, and while it is a supplier of both robots and applicators to suppliers of
bell systems, according to Martin D.
Countering that reality, Green maintains,
Bell System managers constructed an idealized image of operators as perfect "ladies" who could placate customers.
Under Vail, however, the modern
Bell System became an innovative business--certainly one of the most technically advanced firms in the United States.
Few today remember
Bell System abuse of more than a decade ago, but it existed.
As the old
Bell System, we were like a football team that went out on the field every Saturday with wonderful equipment and athletes, and we won every game, 100 to nothing.
These findings suggest that a reevaluation of innovation in the old
Bell System is in order.
Others were free spirits who disliked being force-fed only what the
Bell System deigned to tariff.
All four of the histories reviewed in this essay attest to the gradual, plodding, and often disorderly administrative efforts that produced the
Bell System, the telephone network, and the Communications Workers of American (CWA).
Two basic types of ESS were developed: the two-wire office used for commercial
Bell system service, and the four-wire office used for the government's AUTOVON network.
