gaarder@theory.tn.cornell.edu (Steve Gaarder) (03/19/91)
Sean Williams writes: > ...my local telco, United Telephone System, volunteered to answer > phones at the Dec., 1990 [PBS pledge] drive. They were matching > viewers' pledges, and offered Northern Telecom phones to new members > who pledged $60 or more. I remember UTS. I went to college in Carlisle, Pa., not far from where Sean lives. Unlike any other phone company I've known, they actually acted like they gave a darn about the community. They actually gave public tours of their central office and their maintenance facility. They also had some bizarre equipment. When I moved there, Carlisle (717-243, -245, -249) was served by a Kellog K-60 crossbar switch. That was an unusual beast. Even though it was a crossbar, you had to dial 112 plus a party ID digit ( 1 for single-party lines) to call long distance. 113 got you directory assistance, 114 repair, and 116 ... well, that was weird. At first, it was some sort of dial speed test, responding with a dial tone and accepting one digit. One day, though, the dial tone stopped happening. The switch would accept quite a number of digits, then I'd get recordings from other places. It finally dawned on me that it was acting just like 112 - making a long distance call! So I went and tried it from a pay phone - bingo! I even got my dime back. Only catch was that only one person in town could use it at a time. So, when word got around about this, the circuit was constantly busy. Finally, it stopped working, and I heard through the grapevine that someone had been ordered off the circuit by a rather gruff craftsman. To this day, I have no idea why that circuit was ever set up. Perhaps it was a mistake. If you think that switch was strange, wait 'till I tell you about its replacement! Steve Gaarder gaarder@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu [Moderator's Note: Please do tell us about it! PAT]