Does anybody remember that you could actually lift the handset out of the cradle and tap the disconnect button to dial a phone number (instead of using the dialer)?
When I was in college (late 60’s, early 70’s), that is how I used rotary phones with locks on them in administration offices in the student union building. Worked every time, and I always made my phone calls.
Remember it? I thought I invented it. There was a beer joint (that’s a tavern for you yankees) that had a phone for incoming calls only, as it had no dial. Tapping out the numbers to make a free call was high subversion back then.
Yes, I had to dial a number with a touch-tone phone that was connected to a rotary circuit.