A tape cartridge for the Ansafone KH85, the first commercially successful answering machine in the United States. Incoming messages were recorded on a cartridge like this one (the original Ansaphone had a cartridge with the "Ansaphone" logo on it, as in this video (Battle 2023)). The outgoing message was recorded on a hand-threaded tape loop. It was invented by Kazuo Hashimoto and patented in the US in 1968 (Hashimoto 1968). Hashimoto received numerous patents related to telephony, including caller ID and a digital answering machine.

When the Ansaphone came out, Bell Telephone didn't let customers attach their own devices to the telephone line—ostensibly because it would degrade service. Even the telephone itself was rented from the phone company. Hahimoto's solution was a device with no electrical connection to the phone line at all. His answering machine interacted with the phone the same way a human user would: by lifting the handset, speaking into the microphone and capturing the caller's voice through the speaker. The phone sat on top of the machine with two prongs that lifted the handset when the ringing of the phone was detected by an electrical sensor under the phone (Battle 2023). The outgoing message was played through a speaker below the microphone and the incoming message was captured by a pickup coil fitted to the speaker end of the handset.