From: JOSEPH P. CROTTY BELL SYSTEM EXHIBIT NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR World's Fair, New York Tel: 212-370-9320 HIGHLIGHTS OF THE BELL SYSTEM EXHIBIT Theme: "Communications -- Key to Universal Understanding" The Bell System Exhibit is composed of two mayor elements; a chair ride in the floating wing, and a series of live demonstrations, displays, and audience participation games in the exhibit hall located in the lower level of the pavilion, under the wing. THE RIDE The ride is a new departure in theatrical presentation. Seated in two rows of moving chairs, visitors are transported past a series of scenes and stages. Each person has a separate speaker in his chair, and each one will see every scene in its entirety. The ride takes 17 minutes. Theatrical techniques include three dimensional stage settings, film technique that is three dimensional in nature, front and rear projections of still and motion pictures, narration, original music by Martin Gould, and lyrics by Joseph Longland. The scenes of the ride are developed along these lines: A prologue showing talking faces and busy hands dialing with appropriate sounds over a musical background. But it wasn't always this way. So subsequent scenes show how man in the early days -- frustrated and longing to communicate -- first does so through crude instruments like drumming on a hollow log, smoke signals, etc. Because man can think, he devised ways to compute and investigate, bringing about the sciences necessary to enlarge his communications field. With the invention of the telephone, a whole new era was opened. Man nor finds himself able to talk farther, but soon was confronted with the problem of how to select the person he wants. This leads to switching. The telephone network story is built up through stages developing the national network, its world-wide capability and its extensions into space. THE EXHIBIT HALL The displays, demonstrations and games in the Exhibit Hall are designed to tell the story of how the Bell System, through science and technology, has in the past and will continue to make communicating easier and better for everyone, everywhere. The following describes the major areas of the Exhibit: Lounge The first room the visitor enters in the Exhibit Hall. The walls are lined with photographs of Bell System employees at work. Creatures and Man Area This display consists of a series of light boxes and descriptive prose. There are pictures of creatures of land, sea and air; as well as photographs of some of man's accomplishments in communications. The story told is essentially that all creatures communicate. Some have more highly developed senses than man, but man because he can think and reason, has developed his ability to communicate to a far greater degree than any other form of life. Senses Area In this area we examine speech, vision, and hearing. The major exhibit is a demonstration of Visible Speech, Voice Prints, and the Vocoder. Because the voice is transmitted on the telephone, the Bell System has devised ways of studying it. The Visible Speech Translator helps us to learn about speech by showing us the sounds of the voice on a television screen. Speech patterns of the demonstrator will appear to the audience on a television screen. A Voiceprint showing patterns of a visitor's voice on paper is given to the volunteer as a souvenir. A hostess using the Vocoder shows how this experimental machine samples the voice, selecting only parts for transmission and reconstructing them into a complete conversation at the receiving end. She will actually demonstrate how we can take your voice apart and put it back together again. One wall includes an animated display of the ear, eye and vocal tract with copy explaining how they function. The visitor also is able to test his skill at matching the pitch of a given sound. Extending Your Voice and Electronic Switching System Two displays make up this area. They demonstrate some of the products of over 80 years of Bell System research. The first exhibit illustrates the development of telephone instruments and services from our earliest offerings to the modern instruments and services. The second display is a demonstration of Electronic Switching System (ESS) services. Services provided by an electronic central office include abbreviated dialing, to frequently called numbers, electronic routing of calls to another phone so you won't miss a call, and conference calling. Basic Science Exhibit The major display in this area demonstrates crystal growth. It is supported with displays of the dramatic developments that have been made possible by knowledge acquired through our research on the structure of crystals--the transistor, solar battery, Maser and Laser. One part of the area is devoted to a display of the dramatic impact on our lives that has resulted from these inventions--miniaturization of electronic equipment, use in satellites, computers, transmission, radio and television equipment, etc. Waves Exhibit The waves exhibit features a torsional wave machine that demonstrates the behavior of waves. Briefly we demonstrate that waves carry information and that this fact makes it possible to transmit voice, music and television over great distances. Supporting displays show the various transmission media that we use to carry information--cable, coaxial cable, wave guide, microwave, Maser and Laser. Underseas Cables This exhibit shows the Bell System's underseas cable routes and how they operate. The TASI (short for Time Assignment Speech -almost demonstration explains how utilization of these routes is almost doubled by using the silent times occurring in a conversation (e.g. time spent listening, thinking or pauses) to transmit parts of another conversation. In the foreseeable future, the Vocoder which was demonstrated in the Senses Area will be used in conjunction with TASI to vastly increase the information carrying capacity of the underseas cable. Near exhibits in this area are games which operate using the switches that switch your telephone calls when you dial. There will be an age guessing game, a Roman numeral translator and tick-tack-toe game. Picture Phone Service Here the audience participates in an actual research project conducted by the Bell Telephone Laboratories on TV telephones. There are six picture telephones in this area which are interconnected so that a participant may use any one to see and speak with any of the others. Bell Laboratories interviews participants to determine such things as what kind of Picturephone instruments they would desire, what kind of services they would like it to perform, how they would use it, what the value of a service of this kind would be to them, etc. A seventh Picturephone booth is used for calls to the Bell System exhibit at Disneyland in California. Voice With a Smile Exhibit This exhibit explains how operators are still an essential part of telephone service. A new Traffic Service Position console with push-button operation -- one of the latest types of switchboards -is demonstrated. Manufacturing Exhibit This exhibit will be a display telling the story of precision manufacturing and reliability of equipment using a background photomural of the Western Electric Company plant in Indianapolis. There will be a demonstration of machine testing of telephone instruments which, of course, is used to determine their durability. In addition, an overhead conveyer, about 400 feet long, will carry examples of the products manufactured by the Western Electric Company. Telephone Products and Services This area includes displays of communications equipment for the home, business, and the community. Home-- A series of illuminated panels illustrates the home communications story, emphasizing family use of telephones. Wall displays show new telephones including the Trimline phone with dial-in-handset. Business-- This display is devoted to modern switchboards and the improvements in service made possible with new switching systems, including Direct Inward and Outward Dialing. Community-- This display shows community telephone company services such as Educational TV, School to Home Communications, Group Alerting, and Emergency Reporting Systems. Data Exhibit This exhibit demonstrates the services offered by the 8e11 System that make it possible for machines to talk to machines. Emphasis is on the ways that information may be passed between machines and the tremendous speeds of transmission made possible through the use of this media. Network In a pyrotechnic-like display of moving multi-colored light on a treated plexi-glass wall that wraps almost halfway around a circular theatre, the 8e11 System Network Story will be told. In forty steps the story will build from a single call into the nationwide network. Data, the Defense Lines, the Cable and Microwave Systems will all combine into one vast network which will then expand into its worldwide capability, and with the effect of a shrinking world, will ultimately involve the extension of our network into space through Telstar and the Maser or Laser. This will be a dramatic and inspiring display that will demonstrate that which is unique to the 8e11 System, our network and its vast capabilities. Television Operating Center All television programs to and from the World's Fair will be monitored and controlled here. A 140 foot Microwave Tower outside the Pavilion can beam TV programs to Manhattan for connection with nationwide video networks. The control rooms are visible to visitors. What's the Weather? Visitors can dial direct, using Torch-Tone telephones, to any of 10 cities across the nation to learn what the local weather is. Public Telephone Center Public Telephones are available for calls in the telephone center near the exit to the building. Chatter Boxes for family calling are located there. Telephone directories for major cities are also available.