A Phone of Our Own: The Deaf Insurrection Against Ma Bell

4. The Corporate Windmill

~THE CORPORATE WINDMILL AT&T was not likely to be enthusiastic about the telephone for deaf people proposed by Weitbrecht, Marsters, and Saks. Despite Weitbrecht 's efforts to develop an acoustic coupler that would not conflict with AT&T's rules, the phone company remained concerned about "foreign attachments" (non-Bell equipment) introducing interference into the telephone circuits, but the Baudot versus ASCII code issue was even more problematic in early 1965. Weitbrecht, Marsters, and Saks were planning extensive use of the five-level Baudot code at a time when the telephone company was phasing it out. A long battle over codes among AT&T and other companies had just ended. AT&T saw eight-level ASCII as the wave of the future. Baudot machines were slow, transmitting at a rate ofsixty words per minute compared to the one hundred words per minute rate of ASCII machines. For deaf people's needs, the speed of the machine did not matter, but each TTY had to run on the same speed for a conversation to take place over the phone line. For AT&T, it was important that as much momentum as possible be harnessed during this early stage of the transition to ASCII. Thus, there would be little interest in assisting deaf people in the development of an antiquated technology. Even the promise ofincreased revenue from long-distance calls did not outweigh the importance of the ASCII issue. Ifdeaf people would agree to use ASCII equipment with Bell system "Data-Phone" services , AT&T might have been more interested. But this meant that deaf people would not only have to compete with major industries for the expensive new ASCII machines, they would also have to subscribe to 46 THE CORPORATE WINDMILL I 47 costly services. This was not a solution to the problem of having available and affordable telephone devices. Even a new Baudot TTY, costing $600, was far too expensive for most deaf people, whose annual income averaged about $3,000 in 1965. There was also a backlog of many months for purchasing these machines, which were still in demand in industry. On top of the purchase price would be the cost of the Weitbrecht modem (not yet determined ) and monthly phone bills and other service charges. The overall cost for access to the common telephone for deaf people was still a major roadblock. To ease this situation, Marsters attempted to increase the supply of used TTYs. But when Marsters approached Pacific Telephone and Telegraph to solicit their cooperation, he learned that the company was concerned about violating the Fair Trade Act by competing with Teletype Corporation, a subsidiary of AT&T. Therefore, a pact had been signed stipulating that TTYs would not be resold. Marsters wrote to Saks: "I must advise you that it is going to be more difficult to secure old TTYs, as the Asst. Vice-President of the [Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company] in San Francisco sent out an order as of Feb. 1st not to sell any more TTY equipment to either individuals or groupS."l Marsters nevertheless argued with Pacific Telephone and Telegraph representatives that this pact applied only to TTY equipment made during World War II, about two thousand Model 19s. There were few of these machines left; nevertheless, he lost the argument. The giant corporation stood steadfastly in his way. Thus the dilemma in 1965 was not only that deaf people were limited to the Baudot TTYs, but that they also were limited to used Baudot machines, which were often twenty-five years old, difficult to find, and full of worn-out parts. But Weitbrecht had not made the Baudot decision casually. He had decided on Baudot for good reasons and had been careful to check with deaf leaders as he was struggling with this issue. He also had corresponded with engineers at Teletype Corporation , a leading firm in the telecommunications field, to evaluate the availability of both ASCII and Baudot TTYs. He knew that the use of 48 I TH E CO RPORATE WIN DMILL Baudot was a stopgap measure, but he believed that tens of thousands of affordable Baudot TTYs would become available from AT&T and Western Union as they switched to ASCII machines. He also thought that newspaper alliances, government-military networks, and other groups utilizing teleprinters would soon be giving up their Baudot TTYs. In addition, Weitbrecht was investigating the compatibility between Baudot and ASCII and sought an "electronic handshake," so to speak. He tested his own modem and found it capable of handling ASCII. He...