msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (02/04/89)
> * - In Germany, if you use a large coin to make a cheap call, there's a > button on the phone you can push, put in the actual amount the call cost, > and get your large coin back. Only in Germany do they expect people to > understand that. The newer coin phones in Britain, which in the cities means most of them, also have this feature. However its use in this way is not documented; you have to figure it out. Is this a case of expecting people to understand it, or expecting people not to understand it? (The button is marked "follow-on call" and the documentation says it is to let you make an additional call or calls on the same deposit of money. However, it is also noted that when you hang up you get back the largest amount of your unused money that can be made from the coins you deposited, and that you can add additional coins at any time. Hence, the button can be used in the manner described for the German phones.) Of course, this is never a problem in either the US or Canada, because in neither country do the phones take coins above 25 cents ... not even now that we have a circulating $1 coin in Canada. (Well, no phones that I've ever seen, anyway.) Mark Brader "'You wanted it to WORK? That costs EXTRA!' SoftQuad Inc., Toronto is probably the second-place security hole utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com after simple carelessness." -- John Woods