The Peatrophone - AT&T's First Answering Machine

The Bell System companies (the regional Bell companies such as Southern Bell and Illinois Bell) usually followed the rules laid down by AT&T--but not always. Some of these companies found that renting answering machines was good business, not the potential disaster that AT&T feared. In response to growing demand, AT&T's corporate culture began to change. By 1950s, AT&T announced that it will test the "Peatrophone" answering machine made by Gray Manufacturing Company. Gray was a maker of telephone equipment, and is related to the current Graybar Corporation.

The first tests were made in the Ohio Bell system, and AT&T made Peatrophones available to all customers by 1951. However, the company's reluctance to embrace the new technology was suggested by the retrograde nature of the Peatrophone, which used two phonograph discs instead of magnetic tape. A small disc held the outgoing message, and a larger one was used to capture the incoming calls. Extra disks were stored in the lid.