Telephone Technology: Push Buttons and Party Lines

Fishwrap / Newspapers.com ^ | November 4, 2019 | Jenny Ashcraft

[ProtectOurFreedom]

In the Spring of 1963, President John F. Kennedy sat down at his desk in the oval office. With cameras clicking, he picked up the handset of a telephone and pressed the numbers “1964”. The connection activated a countdown clock for the New York World’s Fair, set to open the following year. The photo opportunity was noteworthy, however, because Kennedy’s call showcased an amazing new technology – the push-button dial telephone.

Later that year, on November 18, 1963, Bell Telephone officially rolled out push-button telephones to the public. A push-button interface meant customers no longer had to wind a rotary dial and wait for it to spin back when dialing each number. This technological achievement was the latest in a long line of telephone innovation that dated back to when Alexander Graham Bell received the first patent for a telephone in 1876.

Back then, Alexander Graham Bell and his colleague Thomas Watson shocked the world when they carried on a 30-minute telephone conversation from two miles apart. ...it wasn’t feasible to stretch a wire between every set of telephones, so inventors developed a telephone exchange. Each telephone connected to the exchange by wire. To place a call, a caller would pick up the phone and turn a crank. This illuminated a light at the switchboard at the central station and an operator would plug a wire into your jack and ask who you needed to reach. She then connected a wire to the appropriate customer and sent an electrical current down the line to alert them with a bell.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

November 18, 1963, Bell Telephone officially rolled out push-button telephones to the public.

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[story continued]...Operators became a familiar voice to every telephone user. They generally worked with a relatively small group of customers and often knew each one. In 1903, one mother discovered a new use for her telephone when she opened the receiver and asked the operator to ring her at the neighbor’s house when her sleeping baby woke up! On any given day, an operator might soothe a frightened child, or even save a life. Rose Coppinger was an operator in Webber Falls, Oklahoma in 1914. When a fire raged through town, she refused to leave her post at the telephone exchange and warned neighbors of the approaching flames.

By 1918, ten million telephones were in use in the US. Rotary dials were the norm and party lines were common. A party line was a telephone line shared by more than one user and came at a reduced cost. It was not uncommon to pick up a telephone receiver and hear a conversation already occurring. The town’s news often traveled this way despite party line etiquette which dictated never listening in on another’s conversation. A party line presented challenges during emergencies, though, and tragedies occurred if users failed to yield the telephone during a crisis. The last operating party line in Woodbury, Connecticut shut down in 1991.

Source: "The Brook Reporter," Brook, Indiana. Friday, March 13, 1914, Page 2

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Cool story about the pretty young lass Rose Coppinger. It's amazing how dedicated these employees were to their companies and public safety in times of emergency. It's such a common American theme, though. Just look at the "Cajun Navy" that mobilized to help flood victims in Houston a couple years ago. Americans always go out of their way to help their neighbors in need.

We never had a party line, but my grandparents in Idaho did. We visited them every couple years when I was growing up and it was such a novelty to pick up the phone and eavesdrop on your gossiping neighbors!

When I was about 13 in Ithaca, NY, word got around about a special number you could dial that would patch you into sort of a community group conversation! You'd often have at least 10 people carrying on a simultaneous chat session...sort of a forerunner to FR!

[ctdonath2]

Didn’t have party line, but did have 4-digit local calling.

Now have “Hey Siri, call Mom.”

Progress progresses. Even if progressives don’t like it.

[gibsonguy]

Ask a snowflake what a party line is.

[Lurker]

My grandparents had a party line way back in the day.

L

[MrEdd]

You already know their answer.

"Is that one of those white powder things on a mirror?"

[bubbacluck]

I believe one dialed POPCORN.

[BipolarBob]

Well now, I’m hoping for REAL progress in combating robocalls, especially the ones using spoof numbers. Yesterday I got one that left a voicemail directing to call them back at a number differing from the one they called me with. The spoofed number was from my state (they thought that would increase my chances of paying attention to it) and it called my mailbox directly. So I got a notification but no ring as such.

[Yo-Yo]

Later that year, on November 18, 1963, Bell Telephone officially rolled out push-button telephones to the public. A push-button interface meant customers no longer had to wind a rotary dial and wait for it to spin back when dialing each number.

And ushered in the era of "phreaking."

2600, man!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“Progress progresses. Even if progressives don’t like it.”

They only thing progressives don’t want to progress is government. It must stay huge, bloated, ossified, and dominant over our lives forever. No change allowed there.

Starting in the late 1940s, all local numbering plans were changed to the 2 Letter - 5 Number system to prepare for nationwide Direct Distance Dialing. In small towns with a single central office, local calls typically required dialing only four or five-digits at most, without using named exchanges.

We didn’t have 4-digit local dialing in Ithaca, but I do remember the two-letter prefixes (as do most of us, I’m sure). We had a “BR5” prefix, but, at the time, I had no idea what the name of our “Central Office” was. Wiki says that AT&T in 1955, distributed a list of recommended exchange names that were the result of studies to minimize misunderstandings when spoken. You often heard somebody in an old movie saying “Call Klondike 5...”

In that list of exchange names, “BR” stood for “Bridge.” Now I can die at peace!

[Buckeye McFrog]

They only thing progressives don’t want to progress is government.

They're convinced that artificial intelligence combined with modern supply chain IT systems will finally allow socialism to actually work.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Yep, we dialed POPCORN whenever we wanted to get the real and accurate time. I just found that the telephone companies were overloaded with requests for the time as early as 1918!

[Fiji Hill]

I’m not sure which is worse—the party lines of the 1950’s or the voice mail of today.

[Responsibility2nd]

Later that year, on November 18, 1963, Bell Telephone officially rolled out push-button telephones to the public

All well and good. Meanwhile - in Mayberry.....

 

[SaveFerris]

[I believe one dialed POPCORN.]

Except when Joe Biden needs a ridiculous story for his true believes.

Then Joe Biden dials 1-800-CORN-POP.

[markoman]

Our exchange was Mission-3

There is a website that compiles the different
telephone exchanges that were used all over the country.

Marko

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"Phone Phreaking" -- there's a direct connection from direct digital dialing to our latest Apple devices...The Definitive Story of Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Phone Phreaking by Phil Lapsley, February 20, 2013, The Atlantic. It all started when Steve Wozniak happened to pick up a copy of Esquire from his mother's kitchen table the day before starting classes at Berkeley in the fall of 1971.

[dfwgator]

Yep, we dialed POPCORN whenever we wanted to get the real and accurate time

I would tune the Shortwave to 5 MHz and get the time from WWV.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Wikipedia has a list (Telephone exchange names) and the rationale for some of the names chosen. Turns out the keys without vowels were hard to use in exchange names..

[samtheman]

I remember having a party line as a kid, but only temporary and only because we moved into a new housing development in LV and the phone company had a limited number of lines available so they had to party-line people in groups of 4 (I think) until they ran more lines.

One time a friend of mine was over and wanted to make a call and there was a long ongoing call on the party line and my friend asked at one point “how long are you going to be on” and the other party said, no, they didn’t know how long they would be and my friend said “could you give me an estimate”.

I don’t know why we all thought that was so funny but I remember we repeated that story for years after that.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

All I had was a homemade cats whisker crystal radio set and a 100 foot long copper wire antenna.