Tony wrote:
David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 1/28/2010 10:32 AM chaniarts spake thus:

my parents had an edison recorder/player that used wax tubes. he also
had this enormous adding machine with a crank that could also
subtract. he's still using the old black dial phones.

Amazing that the telephone network still supports pulse dialing, ain't
it?


Yes it is. A few years back a friend had a touch tone pay phone someone
gave him. He hung it up and wired it in our "club house" but couldn't
get it to make a call. It had a dial tone but would not work, even with
quarters. Holding the receiver in my hand, I tapped the hang up flap
two times quickly, short pause, 1 tap, short pause, 5 tapps, (215 area
code) then did the rest of my phone number. Everyone thought I was to
drunk and crazy but as soon as I heard my phone ring I handed him the
receiver and he heard my answering machine. The old dial phones are
doing the exact same thing when you hear it click, click, click. That
payphone on the wall then became a sort of drunk-O-meter. It's not easy
to always get the pulses down just right. Ya know, I wonder what it
will do on a public pay phone?

Probably just needed to reverse L1 and L2 to get it to break dial tone
with the TT pad. Some early touchtones were like that. Did he have the
key for the coin box?

--
aem sends...