On Sat, 08 Apr 2006 22:32:57 -0500, Jim Redelfs
wrote:


At some point touch-tone became available, but Illinois Bell stuck you
with an extra 70 cents per month to be this modern.

Did you know that, for the first couple of years, there was no * or # on
the Touchtone keypad? They were 10-button phones. The * and # were added

I had one of those.

early on but did *NOTHING* for YEARS - until Call Forwarding and Speed Dialing
became available as Central Offices were upgraded to electronic switches.

By the time I was using it much, I missed those two buttons, so I
found key pads at hamfests or rummage sales before then and put in the
12 button pad. The first one didn't work at all, but the second
different one worked well. I used a hot knife from a soldering iron
to cut 2 more squares in the face plate. Hardly noticeable that the
holes were new.


JR