TELEPHONE PUSHBUTTON DIAL ASSEMBLY

摘要

There is disclosed herein an improved dial assembly suitably adapted to provide an expanded capability for a TOUCHTONE telephone system or to replace existing rotary dial assemblies in various equipment manufacturers' subsets with a TOUCH-TONE like assembly. In particular the improved dial assembly includes an upper frame and a pushbutton arrangement similar to known TOUCH-TONE dial assemblies. Longitudinal and transverse rods positioned in separate planes immediately below the upper frame convert the downward movement of a particular depressed button into rotational movement. The rotational movement of the rods is utilized by suitably positioned cooperating sets of switches to connect in the necessary manner the various telephone circuits within and/or external to the particular subset. The improved dial assembly above expands the capability of present day assemblies in that it enables the provisioning of ancillary telephones functions, such as repertory dialing, toll restricting circuitry, etc., by the inclusion of an additional plane of switching. This is effected through the incorporation of a "third plane" switching board which contains a plurality of switches which open and close in response to the cooperative action between switches on this "third plane" board and an axial appendage extending downward from each of the buttons. This additional switching capability, together with the utilization of improvements in micro miniturization of electronic circuits, particularly large scale integration (LSI), results in a dial assembly which enables these additional functions to be packaged in the telephone subset itself.