The Bell Labs Technical Journal is the in-house scientific journal for scientists of Nokia Bell Labs, published yearly by the IEEE society. The managing editor is Charlie Bahr. The journal was originally established as the Bell System Technical Journal in New York by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1922, published under this name until 1983, when the breakup of the Bell System placed various parts of the system into separate companies. The journal was devoted to the scientific fields and engineering disciplines practiced in the Bell System for improvements in the wide field of electrical communication. After the restructuring of Bell Labs in 1984, the journal was renamed to AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Journal. In 1985, it was published as the AT&T Technical Journal until 1996, when it was renamed to Bell Labs Technical Journal.
History
The Bell System Technical Journal was published by AT&T in New York City through its Information Department, on behalf of Western Electric Company and the Associated Companies of the Bell System. The first issue was released in July 1922, under the editorship of R. W. King and an eight-member editorial board. From 1922 to 1951, the publication schedule was quarterly. It was bimonthly until 1964, and finally produced ten monthly issues per year until the end of 1983, combining the four summer months into two issues in May and July. Publication of the journal under the name Bell System Technical Journal ended with Volume 62 by the end of 1983, because of the divestiture of AT&T. Under new organization, publication continued as AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Journal in 1984 with Volume 63, maintaining the volume sequence numbers established since 1922. In 1985, Bell Laboratories was removed from the title, resulting in AT&T Technical Journal until 1995. In 1996, the journal was revamped under the name Bell Labs Technical Journal, and publication management was transferred to Wiley Periodicals, Inc., establishing a new volume sequence.
Editors
The journal was directed by the following former editors:
1922 R.W. King
1954 J.D. Tebo
1957 W.D. Bulloch
1959 H.S. Renne
1961 G.E. Schindler, Jr.
Abstracting and indexing
The following abstracting and indexing services cover the journal: According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2015 impact factor of 1.2.
Notable papers
The Bell System Technical Journal and its successors published many papers on seminal works and revolutionary achievements at Bell Labs, including the following:
The journal previously published numerous articles disclosing the internal operation of the long-distance switching system used in direct distance dialing in the Bell System in the 1950s and 1960s. Articles such as those by A.Weaver and N.A. Newel, and by C. Breen and C.A. Dahlbom enabled phone phreaks to develop the blue box apparatus, which mimicked the switching system's signals to allow them to make free long-distance calls.
Many landmark papers from the developers of the UNIX operating system appeared in a themed issue in 1978.
