Telephone answering machine

A telephone answering machine comprising:

• at least two tapes, a first of the two tapes for recording a subscriber's outgoing universal message (OGM) to all callers and a second of the two tapes for recording callers' sequential incoming messages from callers;
• control means for detecting a tone code defined by, chosen, and selectively entered by a caller in conjunction with recording one of the messages as a massage from the caller;
• means for rewinding the second tape and playing back the recorded caller's message to the subscriber;
• keyboard means enabling the subscriber to input the code and record a response to the recorded caller's message on the first tape along with the universal message;
• the control means detecting the code being re-entered by the caller if the caller has called again in search of the response recorded by the subscriber which corresponds to the code;
• the control means further searching for the code in the first tape in conjunction with the response recorded by the subscriber in response to the caller having re-entered the code;
• and
• the rewinding and playback means playing back to the caller only the response recorded by the subscriber which corresponds to the code.