BSRS - Bell System Repair Specifications
Incredibly hard to find documents. Formerly D-series BSPs. Scope and plan: "These documents are primarily intended for use in Western Electric Company Service Centers in the repair of apparatus and equipment removed from Telephone Company plant." As documents are scanned and added to the Library, they will be filed here: BSRS Thanks for the scans to Astrid Smith - Connections Museum, Seattle (THG). OCR by TCI.
Each document uses a novel issue control process, updating each page individually. An index page has an issue number and date, with the current revision level of each page in the document!
Categories for Automatic Electric Catalogs and Brochurres
Browse the Library > Document Repository > Catalogs, Manuals... > Automatic Electric > AE Catalogs
Browse the Library > Document Repository > Catalogs, Manuals... > Automatic Electric > AE Circulars/Brochures
Shortcuts: AE Catalogs, AE Circulars/Brochures
SWITCHERS! Find switching documents faster.
Use these Menu Bar entries:
Browse the Library > BC Switching Library > Western Electric > WE Switching Docs
Browse the Library > BC Switching Library > Automatic Electric > AE Switching Docs
Updates Wanted for “Dials and Pushbuttons”
by Stanley Swihart
The TCI Library provides a page to collect comments and new original research related to areas covered in this monumental 584-page dial reference.
Go to "Dials and Pushbuttons"
Thanks to Terry Michaels for contributing 29 issues of "AT&T Radio Notes," spanning 1959 - 1966. More issues and more periodicals are welcome.
Go to "AT&T Radio Notes"
Western Electric Card Catalog, ca. 1989
Thanks to Astrid Smith, Connections Museum, Seattle (THG), a database of over 18,000 cards in over 500 categories, and dating from 2/28/1913 to 9/30/1989 is available on their site here:
Also available here: (Thanks to Sam Etler.)
Sam also added an OCRed pdf version to facilitate searching:
Filenames in the index indicate Category, Part Number, Card No for part, Card Date. e.g.
ringers, , 1, 1964-04-30.jpg
ringers, , 2, 1985-11-29.jpg
ringers, C4A C4B C4C, 1, 1983-04-29.jpg
Where:
ringers, - card catalog section heading
C4A C4B C4C, - list of coded part numbers that apply (i left out color codes)
1, - card number, in the sequence for that part number
1983-04-29 - date of issue of the particular card
Where the part numbers field is blank, that's supposed to be the
front-matter for that section.
Use a Control-F search in the index to help find a keyword, category or model number of interest.
Also see the related TCI Library pages: WE Card Catalog and Northern Electric Catalog Cards. Links are under "Browse the Library" in the black Menu Bar.
Bell Laboratories Record Cumulative Index
Chuck Hensley has compiled a complete index covering material in all BLR issues! (September 1925 - December 1978)
This monumental 422 page work was completed by scanning individual index documents, appending them into a single file and sorting them by keyword. It is fully searchable by keyword, making research a lot more effective. Thanks Chuck!
Find it by searching for Complete Index BLR
Go to the Complete BLR Index
Bell Laboratories Record articles
There are a lot of scans from Chuck Hensley's collection of BLR magazines in the Library.
You can easily navigate to the BLR folder by starting at "Browse the Library" in the menu bar and selecting Document Repository / Catalogs, Manuals... / Western Electric / Bell Labs Record.
HINT: A neat way to see articles on a topic in chronological order is to go to Search / Basic Search and enter a BLR subject query using a keyword or keywords describing a topic of interest. This is great for researching the evolution of products or services. For example:
- BLR Dialer
- BLR Picturephone
- BLR PBX
- BLR Payphone
- BLR Speakerphone
Experiment with other subject keywords.
(If you enter these queries in the search box in the upper right corner of the window, the results will be sorted with Newest additions first. You can change ordering to alphabetical to sort the results in chronological order.)
Ericsson Historical Documents
Product Catalogs from 1886-1976, LME Review issues from 1924-2003, annual reports, and other publications can be downloaded directly from the Ericsson site: