[SIGCIS-Members] Looking for info on Bell Labs "Special Systems" team

[Pierre Mounier-Kuhn]

Thanks – indeed the Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company of Antwerp had been since 1925 a subsidiary of ITT, unrelated to AT&T. And unfortunately, ITT archives have been… unevenly saved. Most of our knowledge comes from oral history and from the archives of European partners or clients of local ITT subsidiaries. 





Best, 


Pierre Mounier-Kuhn 




CNRS & Sorbonne Université 

https://cnrs.academia.edu/PierreMounierKuhn 


De: "SHELDON H HOCHHEISER" <SH3710 at att.com> 
À: "Pierre Mounier-Kuhn" <mounier at msh-paris.fr>, "Cassius Adair" <adairc at newschool.edu> 
Cc: "members" <members at sigcis.org> 
Envoyé: Jeudi 1 Mai 2025 15:05:27 
Objet: RE: Looking for info on Bell Labs "Special Systems" team 



There was no relationship at all between Bell Labs (more formally Bell Telephone Laboratories), a subsidiary of the American company AT&T, and the Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company of Antwerp, which since 1925 had been a subsidiary of another company, ITT, that was completely unrelated to AT&T. Thus, the Antwerp company was not a subsidiary of AT&T or Bell Labs. 



As far as the original question, I searched the collection here at the AT&T Archives and History Center and found no information on the “Special Systems Exploratory Development" unit beyond the articles already cited from the Bell Labs Record. 



Best 



Sheldon Hochheiser, Ph.D. 

Corporate Historian 

AT&T Archives and History Center 



AT&T 

5 Reinman Road, Warren NJ 07059 



[ mailto:sh3710 at att.com | sh3710 at att.com ] 





From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> On Behalf Of Pierre Mounier-Kuhn via Members 
Sent: Thursday, May 1, 2025 5:42 AM 
To: Cassius Adair <adairc at newschool.edu> 
Cc: members <members at sigcis.org> 
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Looking for info on Bell Labs "Special Systems" team 





HI. A lateral question: had this Bell Labs "Special Systems" team any connexion with the Aiken-inspired computer, built at the Bell Telephone Belgian subsidiary in Antverp in the 1950s? A reference: Sandra Mols et Marie d’Udekem-Gevers, « Disseminating 





HI. 


A lateral question: had this Bell Labs "Special Systems" team any connexion with the Aiken-inspired computer, built at the Bell Telephone Belgian subsidiary in Antverp in the 1950s? 


A reference: Sandra Mols et Marie d’Udekem-Gevers, « Disseminating electronics: Bell Telephone and the emergence of electronic computing expertise in post-war Belgium, c.1945–c1960 », IEEE History of Telecommunications Conference , Paris, Sept. 2008. 






Although the answer of the archivist at Nokia Bell Labs does not sound very promising… And the archives of the Belgian Bell Telephone have either disappeared, or moved to the US. 


Best, 


Pierre Mounier-Kuhn 






De: "Cassius Adair via Members" < [ mailto:members at lists.sigcis.org | members at lists.sigcis.org ] > 
À: "members" < [ mailto:members at sigcis.org | members at sigcis.org ] > 
Envoyé: Mercredi 30 Avril 2025 22:00:44 
Objet: [SIGCIS-Members] Looking for info on Bell Labs "Special Systems" team 





Hi all, 





I'm looking for any additional information about a team at Bell Labs called " or sometimes just "Special Systems Development." Team was definitely in operation in the mid-1950s, but maybe lasted into the 1970s. I have a few documents from the Bell Laboratories Record that mention it, but I can't work out what its actual scope / mission is, and the archivist at Nokia Bell Labs said they "don't have more to add." 





Anyone heard of this team, or teams with titles like this from this era? Any clue if this mystery indicates important Cold War secrecy or just boring corporate vagueness? 





Cheers, 


Cass Adair 


-- 


Cassius Adair 


Assistant Professor of Media Studies 


The New School 



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