Posted on 11/13/2019 8:44:46 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
“I don’t recall knowing any individual who had their own line.”
My grandfather was the mayor of a small town and had one because “official business” couldn’t wait.
Except for my grandmother using the phone.
In the Southwestern Bell area (within 5 states), all phone books regardless of the size of the city was seeded with a few false names.
This was for copyright protection should it be needed.
One such name (back in the day), was Moody Nunek (or was it Moody Nunik with an “i”?).
You could go to any town or city - regardless of size, and find that name.
There were others as well.
The address shown would be the address of a phone company central office.
The first telephone operators were teenage boys. It was quickly discovered that those boys were troublesome and unreliable, so from that point onward, most operators were females.
We were taught in school to give the person we called ten rings to get to the phone.
Now my phone goes to voice mail after four rings and I am often six to eight rings away from my phone.
The history of early communications tech is fascinating. I really enjoyed "A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable," by John Steele Gordon, 2003. It's really incredible that inventors were proposing undersea, transcontinental cables not long after the telegraph was conceived. It's like how the transcontinental railroad was proposed not long after trains were invented. People have always thought BIG!
Interesting. How did that confer copyright protection?
I remember the ten ring rule! Had totally forgotten that until you mentioned it.
Now you count the rings until you get the phone company voicemail message.
Same here......and you could call a number to get the current time. I think it was 342-1212
I still remember the phone number of my grand parents in Detroit from the 1950's....Tuxedo 5-2303
You ever try calling the first phone number you ever had just to see who has it now?
“you could call a number to get the current time. I think it was 342-1212”
And to get diectory assistance it was (area code)-555-1212, I think.
My parents had the first private line in the neighborhood because my dad was a supervisor in a plant making the Norden
bombsight and he was on call 24/7.
The Whisperer had to call all those different cities at midnight for instructions.
It sounded like he could dial direct though.
The area code was different for all locales but the 1212 was consistent
Don’t forget Captain Crunch, who found that the toy whistle in a box of Captain Crunch cereal produced the same frequency as the touch tones.
Proves the source.
Actually the Cap’n Crunch whistle produced a 2600 HZ tone. That was the “SF” signaling frequency that AT&T used to mark each trunk (circuit) as idle.
I was an AT&T technician for 28 years. When I hired on in 1973 I mentioned to the interviewer that I had read the article in Esquire about the phone phreaks. He said “Are you a phone phreak”? I said “No, but I find it fascinating.” It must have worked in my favor as he hired me and started me at a 3 year pay grade. I worked for them for 28 years and it was fascinating work. Lots of stories I could tell about that experience...
That's just great. My block list is FULL. I can't add any more.
Our little town was HEmlock-5
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