[BC] AP 10 Bells Survery

[Tom Foty]

This subject line indeed ignores UP/UPI ... whose "ten bell" stories 
carried FLASH designations.
Some of the ones below are on the money ... though the original bulletin on 
the JFK shooting was what UPI called a "PRECEDE" .. an alert to an upcoming 
bulletin. Those would have meant five bells, though I'm pretty sure the 
death confirmation would have carried the ten-bell flash. That was a 
breaking story on which UPI not only cleaned AP's clock, but its teletypes 
as well.
It was probably the coverage highlight of an agency that was AP's equal 
(and in some ways at least temporarily superior)  til probably the mid 80's 
or so.

By then, the bell-ringing teletypes were pretty much history too.
The Extel heat impact printers had bells too .. but without the impressive 
attention-getting noise of the teletypes.
The Extels started coming in in the early 70's ... replaced by "high 
speed"  (1200 wpm or "baud") printers (with no provisions for bells) in the 
mid 70's  and computer delivery in the early/mid 80's .. with single beeps 
replacing the multiple bells.

Tom Foty,
UPI 1972-84 ..
...and sysop of a UPI alum listserv .. where this subject has come up from 
time to time ... with a few other "flashes" in the collection ... Apollo 1 
fatal fire and several other major space stories and 1976 Carter beats Ford 
(it involved a risky UPI "call" giving Carter the presidency)


At 11:40 AM 6/21/2006, you wrote:
>All,
>         Don't remember actually counting, bells, and I think I was working
>with UPI at the time, but how about;
>
>Cuban Missile Crisis?
>First man on the moon?
>Kennedy assassination?
>The false EBS alert back in the late 60's?