dl@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) (07/29/89)
> When we bought the camp, its phone number there was "Eagle Bay 3268."
In 1980, I drove a car out to the left coast. About 40
miles west of Salt Lake City, I stopped to get the oil
changed. There was a Chevron station and some kind of
tourist restaurant. That is ALL. The rest is all sand, or
salt I guess. I noticed the Utah Bell coin slot,
one of the new style (i.e. 1 slot) had a dial blank. The
label on the bottom said "lift receiver, ask operator" on
some such. The number on the center of the dial blank was
Timparie {sp} 2
I asked the pump jockey, and he said something like
"Oh, yeh, EVERYTHING is LD from here"
I walked over to the greasy spoon, and the coin slot
outside it said
Timparie 1
on it.
Now, I said, this is the 1980's- ALL telephones have
numbers in the United States. So I looked up the
Teddy Bear Chevron in the book there, and sure enough,
Ask Operator for Timparie 2
--
Flash! Murphy gets copyright on sendmail.cf
{gatech!} wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFMedg@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Edward Greenberg) (08/01/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0265m02@vector.dallas.tx.us> wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu writes: >... >some such. The number on the center of the dial blank was > Timparie {sp} 2 >I asked the pump jockey, and he said something like >"Oh, yeh, EVERYTHING is LD from here" >I walked over to the greasy spoon, and the coin slot >outside it said > Timparie 1 >on it. > >Now, I said, this is the 1980's- ALL telephones have >numbers in the United States. So I looked up the >Teddy Bear Chevron in the book there, and sure enough, > > Ask Operator for Timparie 2 >-- I've been there... in 1982, and they seem to have connected those phones to the DDD network. We made a call from there, and I'm sure I would have remembered the setup you described. The Salt Lake is actually a historical place. West of the Chevron Station was a rest area which commemorated the golden spike of telephony -- the meeting of the first transcontinental telephone cable. There are also a bunch of "Toll Stations" in the Nevada Bell telephone book that have to be reached by calling the operator. I'm looking forward to visiting some of those areas someday, when I get the time to do some motorcycling in Nevada. I've also been to Moosonee. It's about an 8 hour train ride north of Cochrane Ontario on the southern tip of Hudson's Bay. No roads up that far, and the cars that they have were brought in on the train. There are people living along the rail line and the train brings them their newpapers, groceries, drugs, hardware, etc. They also seem to be hanging on the phone line that parallels the railroad. Once in Moosonee, the phones don't seem to stand out in my memory. We received an incoming call at the motel (although the caller has passed away and I can't ask her how she made it) and we returned the call successfully. There were pay phones. They were not direct dial. I believe that they HAD dials though, and that local switching was automatic. -e [Note to moderator and Mike Trout: The stories of reaching Eagle Bay, and the moderators posting of other barely reachable locations were yummy. I encourage the moderator (and all of us) to reminisce further.] -- Ed Greenberg uunet!apple!netcom!edg
dave@rutgers.edu (Dave Levenson) (08/02/89)
> [Note to moderator and Mike Trout: The stories of reaching Eagle Bay, > and the moderators posting of other barely reachable locations were > yummy. I encourage the moderator (and all of us) to reminisce > further.] When I was a student at what is now called Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, back in 1966 or so, I worked part time as a PBX attendant on the campus switchboard. (It was an old wooden board with six operator positions, and fifteen cord circuits per position. A room full of step-by-step switching machines completed the intra-campus calls, and we did the incoming trunks.) We used to place all outgoing toll calls for university employees as operator-assisted calls, so that we could get a call-back with time and charges, and fill in the toll ticket for the university accountants. One day, I was asked to place a call to Purdue University. The number we called was Lafayette, Indiana, 6. We then asked for extension 2454. I was really fascinated that a PBX with a four-digit dial plan stood behind a local DN of a single digit. -- Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave