john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (09/15/89)
Something never mentioned is the different dialing technique required
for different offices. From the time I was wee todler my family had
telephone service provided out of common control offices. Panel in
Oakland, crossbar in San Jose. (A brief stint of "number please", but
we won't get into that. Besides, that's common control, isn't it?:-)
Anyway, In my late teens I spent some time in Norfolk, VA and the
surrounding areas. Got the phone installed and discovered that I had
very lousy luck getting my local calls to complete. Never having been
subjected to SXS (which is what my phone was served by) I was not
familiar with the necessity for each stepper to "find" a path to the
next level. So I would dial the number at warp speed, and as a result,
pulses would travel down the line before the next level was ready to
receive them. Result? No call.
It took a few days to get used to this. I was even treated like some
backwoodsman. "Don't you know you have to dial slowly and carefully?
All us big-city people know that!"
--
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !