On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:58:02 GMT, Avery wrote:

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.

When I was a young nerd, I made a telephone using an old carbon mike, a small
speaker, and a home-made telegraph key all hooked in series. Worked great.
What was really fun was listening to the neighbors on our party line!

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:38:07 -0400, Terry
wrote:

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:48:01 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:


It was 5 digits here (east Texas, in a small town where all numbers
used the same "first 3 digits"). That changed to 7 digits around 1990
when they switched to ESS and 10 digits around 2004 with the new
"overlay" area code.

BTW, I still haven't heard of anyone using that new area code, but we
still have to dial 10 digits.

I was very pleased when we went to 10 digits. It was the first time I
could dial out on a modem without it being a long distance call.


Going from 7-digit to 10-digit (for all calls) shouldn't affect what
is long distance.

They gave metro Atlanta our old 404 area code and surrounding areas
took 770 and others.

They should have given the business numbers 404 and residents 770. It
was at least a year before people quit dialing the wrong area code.

When I moved here I kept getting calls meant for some business. They
were still coming 15 years later.
--
76 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

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

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:41:33 -0400, Terry
wrote:

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:01:15 -0700, JLF wrote:

FOLLOW UP: I contacted my phone company (PacBellSBCAT&T) and after
the usual voice mail maze, the nice lady said there should be no
problem if I just plug in an older rotary pulse phone.


I call it menu hell.

I was trying to get the social security office this week and I had to
call 4 times before I picked a combo of menu options that did not play
an self help option and then hang up.


After hurricane Rita passed through, I found the cable TV line on the
ground. When I called customer service, I had to answer several
irrelevant questions before getting to talk to someone.

There was the time when I canceled wireless phone. They cut off the
service right away, but I was still billed for it. After calling the
company and stating the problem FIVE times they promised a credit on
next month's bill. I got the credit and was charged for another month.
I called them again, stated the problem ANOTHER five times, and was
told to call a different number. On that number, I just had to repeat
the problem statement THREE times, before the problem was fixed.

Last year, I sent email to a satellite TV company about an error in
the online guide. They replied with an email giving some info on using
their site, which did not address the problem. I sent some more email,
and they replied with instructions on operating the receiver (even
less relevant than before). This time I tried calling, and that person
refused to do anything but reset my password, which had nothing to do
with the problem. I sent some more email, and got my password reset.
The problem was fixed, although it's quite unlikely the password reset
had anything to do with it. I replied to that email saying the problem
was fixed. They reset my password AGAIN.

Many times I've gotten a voicemail menu where none of the menu items
were appropriate to what I was calling about and there was no stated
option to talk to a person (not even the old "if calling from a rotary
phone, stay on the line").
--
76 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

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

In article ,
wrote:

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:41:33 -0400, Terry
wrote:

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:01:15 -0700, JLF wrote:

FOLLOW UP: I contacted my phone company (PacBellSBCAT&T) and after
the usual voice mail maze, the nice lady said there should be no
problem if I just plug in an older rotary pulse phone.


I call it menu hell.

I was trying to get the social security office this week and I had to
call 4 times before I picked a combo of menu options that did not play
an self help option and then hang up.


Start with zero pound. That was the escape from the old ROLM systems
and a lot of companies adopted the standard. You get an operator
usually.

One who transfers you to someone's voicemail.

On Oct 9, 6:45 pm, Terry wrote:
On Tue, 9 Oct 2007 06:06:08 -0400, "The wrote:

Also, some old rotary phones were setup for party lines. In order to get
them to ring on single lines you have to make a small wiring change
inside the phone. It's easy to do but I haven't done it in awhile and don't
recall where on the internet I found the information -- a bit of Googling
was all it took.

This is way off topic, but it is funny to me.

We were on a party line when I was young. I picked up the phone one
day and a neighbor was ranting to the phone company.

He said........If I can't talk to my mother on Mother's day, you can
just come get this GD phone!

It will be in the front yard when you get here!

Rotary will not work with most call answere supplied thru telco or
will it work with most other features as they are tone based. And most
modern offices will not work with them either as there call answere is
tone based um real live person answeres the phone what do I do

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:42:01 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:08:22 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

A lot of phones (and AFAIK all POTS modems) can be switched to dial
either way.


It is in the Dial command in the "AT string" that wakes up a modem on
a serial port. Option T is tone, P is pulse.

If the modem supports this command set, type "ATDTnumber" or
"ATDPnumber". Also, I seem to remember you could set the dialing
mode without dialing at the time with "ATT" or "ATP", which would
affect "ATDnumber".

Also, some modems would do a self-test with the command "AT&T". Once I
thought they were advertising for the phone company .
--
75 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

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

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 04:40:27 -0000, JLF wrote:

On Oct 8, 9:10 pm, Robert Barr wrote:
So can one jack be set up the old fashioned way with the phone company

Most of my phones are touch-tone (even that term is dated) but I still
have a rotary dial phone. I don't use it often enough to bother
replacing it, and I rarely dial out on that phone. It takes nothing
special, account-wise.

The jacks are super-easy to install. Your local borg or Radio Shack
will have everything you need.

Oh, so it would require installing a special jack? Do you mean the
kind of jack that's the modern cord fits into -- with the plastic
thingee that you press to get into the jack? This phone I'm thinking
of is already adapted for a modern jack.

I was more worried about the pulse vs. touch tone sound issue... have
I confused you? I'm getting confused...

Thanks.

Those old phones were usually hard wired into a wall module. Some
people would add a large 4 pin plug.

Now you can buy a large block thing that plugs into any modern jack.
As you said " with the plastic thingee that you press to get into the
jack" You just connect the wires into that plug, replace the cover
and plug into a modern jack. \

You CAN use a rotaty phone on any modern phone jack as long as they
still support "click dialing". Or some rotary phones do use tone.

My mother still has a rotary phone. It's the same phone she had when
I was a child (50 years ago). She also has several modern phones, and
has replaced every one of them at least once.

That depend what type of service you have

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 04:40:27 -0000, JLF wrote:

On Oct 8, 9:10 pm, Robert Barr wrote:
So can one jack be set up the old fashioned way with the phone company

Most of my phones are touch-tone (even that term is dated) but I still
have a rotary dial phone. I don't use it often enough to bother
replacing it, and I rarely dial out on that phone. It takes nothing
special, account-wise.

The jacks are super-easy to install. Your local borg or Radio Shack
will have everything you need.

Oh, so it would require installing a special jack? Do you mean the
kind of jack that's the modern cord fits into -- with the plastic
thingee that you press to get into the jack? This phone I'm thinking
of is already adapted for a modern jack.

I was more worried about the pulse vs. touch tone sound issue... have
I confused you? I'm getting confused...

Thanks.

Those old phones were usually hard wired into a wall module. Some
people would add a large 4 pin plug.

Now you can buy a large block thing that plugs into any modern jack.
As you said " with the plastic thingee that you press to get into the
jack" You just connect the wires into that plug, replace the cover
and plug into a modern jack. \

You CAN use a rotaty phone on any modern phone jack as long as they
still support "click dialing". Or some rotary phones do use tone.

My mother still has a rotary phone. It's the same phone she had when
I was a child (50 years ago). She also has several modern phones, and
has replaced every one of them at least once.

alvin, I found an old phone with three wires, red, green, and yellow. I
connected the red and green to a regular jack and plugged it in. I could
hold a conversation easy enough (very little static considering I taped the
ends of the phone wire to the "new fangled" jack). I could not get the phone
to ring though. I think I read where you have to ground the phone within the
jack with the yellow wire. Do you know how I would do that?

thanks,

wrote:
So can one jack be set up the old fashioned way with the phone company

[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]

Thanks.

Those old phones were usually hard wired into a wall module. Some
people would add a large 4 pin plug.

Now you can buy a large block thing that plugs into any modern jack.
As you said " with the plastic thingee that you press to get into the
jack" You just connect the wires into that plug, replace the cover
and plug into a modern jack. \

You CAN use a rotaty phone on any modern phone jack as long as they
still support "click dialing". Or some rotary phones do use tone.

My mother still has a rotary phone. It's the same phone she had when
I was a child (50 years ago). She also has several modern phones, and
has replaced every one of them at least once.

mailmansam wrote:

alvin, I found an old phone with three wires, red, green, and yellow. I
connected the red and green to a regular jack and plugged it in. I could
hold a conversation easy enough (very little static considering I taped the
ends of the phone wire to the "new fangled" jack). I could not get the phone
to ring though. I think I read where you have to ground the phone within the
jack with the yellow wire. Do you know how I would do that?

thanks,


Yes, connect the yellow on the phone also to the (IIRC) green.

your the greatest. thanks very much!!

M Q wrote:
alvin, I found an old phone with three wires, red, green, and yellow. I
connected the red and green to a regular jack and plugged it in. I could
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]

thanks,

Yes, connect the yellow on the phone also to the (IIRC) green.

In article vKqRi.1333$H92.796@trnddc07,
M Q wrote:

Yes, connect the yellow on the phone also to the (IIRC) green.

That should work but might cause some "imbalance" hum on the line.

The set must be wired for 2-party service.

Another fix would be to rewire the phone for single-party service. That, of
course, might require digging-up a long-dead phoneman, reanimating him and
asking him to do it. I missed out on that training by about two months back
in 1983.

If the doubling-up of the green and yellow leads DOES make a hum on the line,
simply run a (earth) ground to the yellow lead. That should cause the phone
to ring when called. Have fun!
--

JR

Climb poles and dig holes
Have staplegun, will travel