miket@brspyr1.brs.com (Mike Trout) (08/09/89)
OK, gang, another mystery from the AT&T system of the late 1960s-early 1970s: Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) picked up the phone and dialed: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 Somebody answered, my brother let loose with some good Oklahoma slang, then hung up. The phone rang IMMEDIATELY, and my mother (in another room) answered on an extension. It was a phone company rep (or so he claimed), who was absolutely beside himself with the stunt my brother had just pulled. He refused to say exactly what had happened, other than to say that my brother had called someplace "you weren't supposed to call" and that it had better not happen again. In fact, the rep felt that a personal visit to our home might be a good idea. My mother, understandably bewildered, suggested the rep phone later when my father came home. That later conversation apparently canceled the personal visit. Needless to say, my brother found himself in a wee bit of hot water with my parents. I've always wondered exactly what my brother did. He doesn't remember it well, and my parents don't remember enough details to help. They did emphasize how mad the rep was (although that might have been exaggerated to scare my brother). Any ideas? The first digit dialed--"1"--would obviously open access to direct long distance dialing (which was still fairly new in those days). But the next three digits--"234"--are not, and I presume were not--a valid area code. If they were, the last two digits--"90"--would be ignored. I'm assuming the "234" or some portion of it opened access to SOMETHING. But why would such an obvious sequence of numbers be assigned to anything? The way kids are, I would suspect that the number sequence "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0" is probably dialed several times a day by children--not to mention drunks, curiosity seekers, and the like. I'd try it myself today, but I guess my parents made a big impression on us (I still brush my teeth before going to bed, Mom!). Also note the years involved: Nixon was president, the nation was in flames, paranoia and heavy government control ran rampant, and everybody suspected wiretaps, bugs, and illegal government surveillance. Call me paranoid, but while Nixon was president our phone was constantly clicking, popping, and going dead. -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, SOD & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson [Moderator's Note: I just now tried it of curiosity. Dialing 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 sent me to immediate intercept with a message saying, "When dialing a call outside the 312 area, you must dial '1' before the number. When calling within 312, do not dial '1' first." PT]
cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) (08/09/89)
>OK, gang, another mystery from the AT&T system of the late 1960s-early 1970s: >Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) picked >up the phone and dialed: >1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 >[Moderator's Note: I just now tried it of curiosity. Dialing 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 >sent me to immediate intercept with a message saying, "When dialing a call >outside the 312 area, you must dial '1' before the number. When calling >within 312, do not dial '1' first." PT] Here I got 'the number you have dialed has been disconnected or no longer in service. If you feel that you have dailed the correct number, please hang up and try again. Thank you. -charles -- Charles Daffinger >Take me to the river, Drop me in the water< (812) 339-7354 cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu {pur-ee,rutgers,pyramid,ames}!iuvax!cdaf Home of the Whitewater mailing list: whitewater-request@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com (08/10/89)
Somebody wrote, >>Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) picked >>up the phone and dialed: > >>1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 This was covered in Art Brothers' column "The Party Line" in Telephone Engineer and Management a couple years back. Now Art owns Beehive Tel in Grouse Creek, Utah, which serves zillions of acres of barren desert, with a thousand or so subscribers spread across six exchanges. Seriously remote territory west of the salt flats and along the NV border. And Mountain Bell hates him. (Art's a professional iconoclast who may have gone into the phone business for the sake of being able to argue with Ma Bell. He's the first and often last thing I read in TE&M.) So when he opened a new exchange near some mining camp or other such outpost (using Harris D-1200 PBXs as COs, btw), Ma gave him the prefix "234". Gee, that's a nice one, though Art. Until he noticed thousands of incompleted pegs to a vacant number. Yep, 234-5678. In Utah, as in many other areas, 1+ is used for all toll, including intra-area code. So 12345678 is a valid dialing arrangement. The 90 doesn't do anything. fred
940se@mather1.af.mil (Pete Brown) (08/11/89)
>>Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) picked >>up the phone and dialed: > >>1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 > >>[Moderator's Note: I just now tried it of curiosity. Dialing 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 >>sent me to immediate intercept with a message saying, "When dialing a call >>outside the 312 area, you must dial '1' before the number. When calling >>within 312, do not dial '1' first." PT] In Sacramento (916-364) I get "We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed..." [Moderator's Note: Well here in Eye Bee Tee land, '234' is assigned to the village of Lake Forest, IL. 234-5678 *was* a working number, but now goes to the standard intercept message. Adding the '1' on the front causes the problem, at least until 708 kicks in. PT]
desnoyer@apple.com (Peter Desnoyers) (08/11/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0286m05@vector.dallas.tx.us> cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) writes: > >Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) picked > >up the phone and dialed: > > >1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 I tried it - 9, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 - and got tick, tick, tick... (unusual, regular, call progress clicks) "the person you are trying to reach is unavailable or out of our service area. Please try ..." and I forget the rest. Peter Desnoyers Apple ATG (408) 974-4469
peter@uunet.uu.net (08/11/89)
I just tried 9-1234567890. It was silent for a LONG time then started ringing. No answer. What's weird is we have a ROLM PBX that doesn't allow outside calls without an employee code #. --- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. | "The sentence I am now Personal: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' | writing is the sentence Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today? 'U` | you are now reading"
osm@heifetz.ann-arbor.mi.us (Owen Scott Medd) (08/14/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0286m05@vector.dallas.tx.us> >cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) writes: >> >Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) >picked >> >up the phone and dialed: >> >> >1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 I tried the number here and got: <ring, ring> MichBell: "You have reached 234-5678, a special test circuit. If this is a long distance call, it will appear on your bill. Thank you." At least they're polite... -- USMail: M & S Associates, 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Phone: +1 313 761-6624 FAX: +1 313 971-0804 UUCP: uunet!sharkey!heifetz!osm Internet: osm@heifetz.ann-arbor.mi.us
kent@husc6.harvard.edu (Kent Borg) (08/15/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0288m09@vector.dallas.tx.us> desnoyer@apple.com (Peter Desnoyers) writes: >I tried it - 9, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 - and got > tick, tick, tick... (unusual, regular, call progress clicks) > "the person you are trying to reach is unavailable or out of our service > area. Please try ..." and I forget the rest. Our PBX traps it locally and gives me an immediate busy signal. The phone on my desk says Ameritech on it. The designers knew that people expect to hear tones when they dial a push button phone, but they are not using tones to communicate with the PBX, so they have two single tones which alternate with each keystroke. Are people so tone deaf that they are fooled?? I like hearing the real touch-tones. I get to know frequently called numbers, can dial them quickly, and hear if I make a mistake. Do many people use that as an error checking feature, or is everyone deaf? Kent Borg kent@lloyd.uiucp or ...!husc6!lloyd!kent
merlyn@omepd.intel.com (08/16/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0286m05@vector.dallas.tx.us> you write: |>OK, gang, another mystery from the AT&T system of the late 1960s-early 1970s: | |>Once upon a time, my brother (who was about ten years old at the time) picked |>up the phone and dialed: | |>1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 | |>[Moderator's Note: I just now tried it of curiosity. Dialing 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 |>sent me to immediate intercept with a message saying, "When dialing a call |>outside the 312 area, you must dial '1' before the number. When calling |>within 312, do not dial '1' first." PT] | |Here I got 'the number you have dialed has been disconnected or no longer in |service. If you feel that you have dailed the correct number, please hang |up and try again. Thank you. A local freebie classified-ads paper owner paid $BIG$ $MONEY$ for the right to use the phone number 234-5678 for his paper. Within one month, he had so many kids calling 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 on the phone blocking his lines, he just stuck an answer-only answering machine on the line telling them to call some other number to place a classified ad. Them's the breaks... -- /== Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ====\ | on contract to Intel, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA | | merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | \== Cute Quote: "Welcome to Oregon... Home of the California Raisins!" ==/