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Old 2nd Jun 2020, 6:36 pm   #1
Graham G3ZVT
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: Greater Manchester, UK.
Posts: 18,676
Default First generation credit-card terminals...

...and the lines they were connected to.

When I made the transition from TV repair to a broadly IT environment in the early '90s, one of my duties was commissioning some of the first Electronic Fund Transfer terminals in high-street shops.
The machine was the Racal TCL200. It was the size of a small EPOS (cash register) and had dot-matrix printer with a typewriter style black & red reel-reel ribbon. It also had a customer PIN pad on a curly cable, but this was not used in the UK and hidden away in a recess in the base.

Anyway, my reason for posting was the special lines some of these were installed with.

Most were just on normal PSTN lines, but some, in big city centers were on something else, the machine dialed "11" to connect with the far end modem, it was also possible to dial "9" and dial a PSTN number.

I don't think these were Centrex lines using the main exchange, does "Monarch Cardway" mean anything to anyone, I seem to recall that being mentioned.
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