laura_halliday@mtsg.ubc.ca (01/04/89)
I walked by a shop yesterday that specializes in antique stuff for movie sets (you know, 1959 licence plates and the like) and one of the things they had in the window was a telephone that had a dial on it. Kinda makes you think... laura halliday University of B.C. [Moderator's note: Yep. And people with touch tone phones are still a *minority* in the United States, let alone other countries. Did you know that? For all the to-do which is made of touch tone phones in this country, there are still millions of subscribers with rotary dial service and POTS, which means 'plain old telephone service'. I've had touch tone since around 1967; long before anyone I know had it. Likewise with modems: Maybe five to ten percent of all phone subscribers have one. Another thirty to forty percent have probably never even heard of them, or only know vaguely what they do. Yet we look at an 'antique' rotary dial phone and say how quaint it is. In my collection of old phones here, I have a 'french-style' unit with the fat base, the skinny, short neck, and the four fingers which hold the receiver in place. Best of all, it is a phone without a dial at all, with a brown *cloth* straight cord from the handset to the base and the jack. The bottom of the instrument says it was manufactured by the Western Electric Company, Hawthorne Works, 1930. It still works fine. Patrick Townson]
laura_halliday@mtsg.ubc.ca (01/06/89)
[Moderator's Note: We did not get the original message to which Laura is responding. Apparently someone wrote direct.] > Somewhere I once saw a sheet intitled "Instructions for Use". It went into > some detail on how to use a dial-phone. 'Place finger in slot over the > desired number and rotate the dial clockwise until the stop is encountered. > Lift your finger, releasing the dial. Once the dial has returned ....' > > If anyone has a copy of this, be it serious and wholly tongue-in-cheek, I > would like a copy and I suspect others would as well. I've seen such things in phone books. Try the London (England) white pages - probably the A-D volume. I'll check with the public library here in Vancouver and see what I can find... cheers, laura
jbn@glacier.stanford.edu (John B. Nagle) (01/08/89)
The John Crerar Library at IIT in Chicago had, and probably still has,
a number of classic pamphlets and books on early telephony. I don't have
the titles, but they included a pamphlet for the public describing, in
great detail, with pictures, what happens when various types of calls are
placed in a large metropolitan area with strictly manual boards. The level
of detail is amazing; the functions of A, B and toll boards are covered,
and in one scenario, a line is down, and its use blows a grasshopper fuse,
triggering a minor alarm and sending craftsmen into the frames to fix the
problem.
There's also a large-format book on step-by-step switching, describing
in excruciating detail, over many pages, the Strowgear system of step-by-step
switching. The author wanted a full diagram of the switch on each facing
page, opposite the text explaining the function being discussed, and this
led to much extra space, which he filled with religious homilies.
Are these gems still there? Somebody in Chicago might check.
John Naglemsb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (01/10/89)
Patrick Townson writes: > ... people with touch tone phones are still a > *minority* in the United States, let alone other countries. ... > Yet we look at an 'antique' rotary dial phone and say how quaint ... This, I think, has to do with television and the movies. If you watch a show from the era when "dialing" meant just that, you'll notice that they usually cut away after 2 or 3 digits have been dialed. There's just too much dead time waiting for the character to dial 7 digits (or so), unless the director is trying for (a) extra realism, (b) extra tension, or (c) comic effect. The widespread availability of Touch Tone phones meant that this little distortion could be done away with, and now Touch Tone is almost all that you see. And if you don't see one on TV or in the movies any more, it must be an antique, right? I still remember the scene in ACE IN THE HOLE (1951, a.k.a. THE BIG CARNIVAL) where reporter Kirk Douglas is phoning his editor. He asks the long distance operator for a New York number, say "New York 73204". And then he gives the number he's calling from: "Escadrilo 2"! When I first saw this scene it sounded wonderfully periodish. Then in 1983 I went to New Zealand. The user interface to the phone system there is generally very like the British one, except of course for the dials which are numbered the other way around. Well, my wife and I were with a friend (Robert Biddle) in Te Anau (a beautiful spot), and he placed a call to a hotel in Milford Sound (a still more beautiful spot ... but I digress). He was transferring the charge, so he couldn't direct-dial the call. After it, he reported to us: Robert: I'd like to make a transferred-charge call to Milford Sound. Please charge it to Spencerville 269. Operator: That's Spencerville 269, and you're calling Milford Sound 6. Robert: How did you know that?! Operator: It's the only telephone in Milford Sound. Robert: !! Operator: Except for the box outside the post office, and I didn't think you'd be calling that. As we drove THE road to Milford Sound the next day, we noticed poles alongside with exactly 2 wires on them. Robert noted, "That must be for THE telephone". Antique? What's antique? Mark Brader "That's what progress is for. Progress SoftQuad Inc., Toronto is for creating new forms of aggravation." utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com -- Keith Jackson
nelson@kodak.com (bruce nelson) (01/10/89)
>From the 1953 Binghamton, NY phone book (you never know when you have to look
up someone's 1953 phone number :-)
1. Obtain the number from the directory. For example 7-3245.
2. Remove the receiver and listen for the dial tone, - a steady humming sound.
3. Then place your finger in the hole in the dial over the figure "7" and turn
the dial around until your finger strikes the stop.
4. Raise your finger and without touching the dial allow it to return to its
original position.
5. Then dial the figures "3","2","4" and "5".
Listen for the RINGING SIGNAL, an intermittent burring sound which indicates
that the called telephone is being rug.
If the called telephone is busy you will hear instead the BUSY SIGNAL, a
rapid buzz-buzz-buzz quicker and louder than the ringing sugnal.
If the party you are calling does not answer after several attempts, call
"88" and ask whether the number has been changed or disconnected.
Simple, isn't it?
Bruce D. Nelson | UUCP: ...!rutgers!rochester!kodak!hawkeye!nelson
Eastman Kodak Company | Voice: 716-726-7890
901 Elmgrove Road |
Rochester, NY 14653-5219 |