Message Register
Electromechanical pulse counters counted "message units" for message rate service lines, in panel switches and similar exchanges installed in the early and middle 20th century. The metering pulses were generated in a junctor circuit, at a rate set by the sender, usually one pulse every few minutes. Every month a worker wrote down the indicated number of message units, similar to a gas meter. In the middle 20th century it became customary to photograph the meters, about a hundred per film frame, for examination in comfort. Since they were only used on local calls, and most residential lines didn't pay for local calls, American message registers generally showed four digits.
Despite the arrival of STD, Europe continued making and using message registers in the 1970s, designing ones that could register more than one click per second on a trunk call and display five or six digits.
Read more about this topic: Automatic Message Accounting
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