On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:34:25 -0500, Jim Redelfs
wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

The strange thing about phone companies and tarrifs is that they
actually charged you an extra buck for touch tone.

When I was a Service Representative for Northwestern Bell Telephone Company in
1977, Touchtoner was $1.25, plus tax, per month.

Not many years later, the added charge for Touchtone was eliminated. I
suspect that is the case virtually everywhere by now.


When I moved here (in 1988), tone dialing was supported but not
directly. After pushing the buttons, you'd have to wait through some
"click-click click-click-click click-click".

Rotary dial is/was the default.

It certainly WAS. It isn't anymore.

Trivia: Did you know that you can actually call/dial a number by "flashing
the switch hook"? It's true. This is 1876 technology, folks. "Make/break"
6th grade circuitry. The technique (spoof?) works to this day. You have to
be really GOOD at it and get it right but, 3 "flashes" of the switch hook
equal a "3", 5 flashes = 5 and so on really works.
--
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Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligable. Early
in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies."
-- Benjamin Franklin