Ericsson Dialog is a Swedish

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into el ...

model by

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Sweden, Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in ...

, released 1964. Millions of the model were sold and it retained its place in homes well into the 1990s. The

company presented King

Carl XVI Gustaf Carl XVI Gustaf (Carl Gustaf Folke Hubertus; born 30 April 1946) is King of Sweden. He ascended the throne on the death of his grandfather, Gustaf VI Adolf, on 15 September 1973. He is the youngest child and only son of Prince Gustaf Adolf, ...

of Sweden with a unique handmade Dialog telephone on his 40th birthday. In the early 1960s Ericsson hired the Swedish

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

and

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

company Ahlgren, Olsson & Silow (AOS) to develop Dialog, a new

standard Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object ...

telephone that was to apply high end technology and reach international markets. Dialog attained great popularity and maintained its place within homes into the 1990s. This design classic has become an object of desire amongst collectors and telephone enthusiasts. New technology and the increased liberties in form resulted in the end of the era of number disc telephones. The 1972 version of the phone, equipped with buttons in place of the rotary dial, never became as popular as its predecessor. The Norwegian telephone 11AB22 introduced by Elektrisk Bureau in 1967 used the same shell as Dialog, but had different electronics. The 11AB22 was the world's first transistorized telephone, and unlike the Ericsson Dialog used an electronic ringer instead of bells, and was equipped with a dynamic microphone.

Design process

Due to the massive amount of telephones intended to be produced, uncommonly heavy emphasis was put on design. The exemplars for the future basic telephone of every home were Ericsson's own models from the 1930s. Dialog was to be modern, yet follow Ericsson's design tradition. The

ergonomics Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...

of the handle was a focal point in the design. Additionally, the acoustic,

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

, and

aesthetic Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

aspects needed to be resolved. The handle was fitted in size according to the dimensions of an average face, which had been taken as the starting point of the design process. In the completed product, the distance between the transmitter (mouth piece) and the receiver (ear phone) was noticeably shorter than earlier models. The handle was made as light as possible to minimize the stress inflicted upon the

wrist In human anatomy, the wrist is variously defined as (1) the carpus or carpal bones, the complex of eight bones forming the proximal skeletal segment of the hand; "The wrist contains eight bones, roughly aligned in two rows, known as the carpal ...

and blood

vein Veins are blood vessels in humans and most other animals that carry blood towards the heart. Most veins carry deoxygenated blood from the tissues back to the heart; exceptions are the pulmonary and umbilical veins, both of which carry oxygenate ...

s of the speaker during long calls. The weight of the base unit was also minimized especially for

logistical Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

and packaging reasons. The dial finger wheel and face plate consisted of several parts and was designed so that it could be replaced with a set of buttons in a later version of the phone. The depth and thoroughness of the design is perhaps best depicted by the fact that even the inner lighting of the phone was taken into account: the inside was not left completely dark, to avoid

insects Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

inhabiting the product.Ericsson Review, Vol. 41, No. 4 (1964) pp. 142

Materials

The material of the telephone shell was

acrylonitrile butadiene styrene Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) (chemical formula (C8H8)''x''·(C4H6)''y''·(C3H3N)''z'' is a common thermoplastic polymer. Its glass transition temperature is approximately . ABS is amorphous and therefore has no true melting point. A ...

(ABS), a

thermoplastic A thermoplastic, or thermosoft plastic, is any plastic polymer material that becomes pliable or moldable at a certain elevated temperature and solidifies upon cooling. Most thermoplastics have a high molecular weight. The polymer chains associat ...

polymer with high impact strength and glossy appearance. The use of plastics offered new possibilities as to the form and color of the product.

References

{{reflist

Other sources

* Lasse Brunnström: Svensk Industridesign – en 1900-talshistoria. (Norstedts) Telephony equipment Ericsson