Telephone bell - the phantom caller

7-64 - elektor july/august 1982 To many adults it is suprising how much pleasure that the youngest members of the house can derive the phantom caller from a toy telephone. In their eyes the use of a telephone is akin to being "grown-up". This is a point for debate and the psychology is a little out of our province but we can add to the realism attached to this "adult behaviour" (?) pattern. Normally the toy telephone just sits, waiting for any one of a vast number of callers (including Santa Claus, the pet dog and even the Queen on oc- casion) to ring with some vitally important information that, seem- ingly, only our youngest and dearest can cope with. The problems that arrive at the local terminal to Imagin- ation are quite beyond the comprehen- sion of adults but we can help to ensure that these strife-torn folk do ring a little more often. The circuit here produces a ringing tone similar to the modern telephone. This occurs every few minutes and stops when the hand set is re...