Making your phone ring

[SteveB]

I lost mine about three months ago, and I don't miss it one bit.

Steve

[Don Wiss]

There are plenty of people without cell phones. They will tend to be older. They will tend to be male. In my case I don't own a car. I'm either next to my office phone, or my home phone, or on public transportation (or my bicycle) where I don't want to make or take a call. And for the rare occasion of coordinating a meeting with someone, it is a rather high expense.

Don (e-mail link at home page bottom).

[DerbySon01]

Dad, you never told me about this before. Do Grampa and Gramma know?

I'm sure I won't have to go to that much trouble to go out for the night, right, if you don't want them to find out.

[aemeijers]

Did anybody else, in the pre-ESS days, ever deliberately call a busy number (like your own), and then have conversations with other people doing the same thing? Back then, the busy signal for each switch came from a common source, and you could, sort of, talk between beeps. We called it the 'beep line', and their was much mourning when the electronic switches made it go away. Remember, this was small town, pre internet, pre chatline, pre-blog, pre-chatroom, pre cellphone, pre CB radio, etc. If you couldn't drive, and it was too far to walk and too crappy out to ride a bike, you took your social contact where you could find it.

Yeah, we were pathetic.

-- aem sends...

[mm]

Hey, that works great. And since it's provided by MCI and not a local phone company, it probably works for everyone in the USA (and Canada).

This will be great when I'm delivering groceries. There are a lot of hot-looking chicks on my route, and and I can ask to borrow the phone and find out their number. Then I can give the number to my friend Pete, and he can call them and pretend her father gave him her number. He'll do the same for me.

Just kidding. I don't deliver groceries.

[Terry]

I think there is a law against having a hot looking chick route, without actually having a job.

[Floyd L. Davidson]

I doubt it. As you noted in your discussion, it is not economical, and hasn't been since the 1980s.

Trust that that is not the case; it is indeed very common. For example, Nortel DMS systems implement it that way.

Yours is different; but that doesn't change the fact that most digital switching systems implement reverting call in that way.

My memory is foggy on that, but wasn't 958 a Wire Chief's line on the CO's 2-wire board?

I'm fuzzy on some of that because in Alaska we were virtually 100% digital by the mid-1980's, and at that time the US in general was only about 33% digital. So it has been more than just a couple decades since I've seen a Step office, for example.

Different LECs invented different policy.

For example, the damnedest on I can remember is a private network (within the Oil Industry) where they chose to have *all* of the test numbers utilize the extra 4 digits from a 4x4 keypad that are not on a 3x4 keypad. If I remember right, they are commonly called 'A', 'B', 'C', and 'D'. But with a DMS-200 if one enters "907852AAAA", it doesn't dial it. I don't remember now what the offset was, but something like starting at 'K' instead of 'A'. It was annoying.

With the PSTN we could have Carrier Relations simply tell them that was unacceptable, change it or else. But on a private network, they could do as they wished.

True.

[gpsman]

Ditto. Party line and private line. I'd get a busy signal, hang up, and the phone would ring.

Dad...? I'm stupid, not crazy.

But for little sisters midway between cycles waiting for a call from a older boy... nnnn... wait for it.... Priceless!

I wrote that... still in court... -----

- gpsman

[KLS]

A voice of reason! I resisted getting a pager for many of these reasons: I'm near a computer most hours of the day, so why pay $30+ a month just to be bothered at others' whim? The only time I really like the pager is when I'm traveling, and that's not very often (but I will be traveling quite a bit later in the year...).

[Don Wiss]

When I'm traveling I cut myself completely off. No telephone calls. No e-mail. The only electronics I carry is my camera.

I do leave an itinerary behind. So if something important happens, e.g. a death in the family, I can be reached.

This is, of course, personal travel. You may be referring to business travel.

Don (e-mail link at home page bottom).

[hallerb]

analog service is ending, if its a old analog phone it may not work when you need it the most:(

[DerbyDad03]

:

re: They will tend to be older

We will all tend to be older...hopefully.

[DerbyDad03]

How did you arrange these "beep talk sessions"? Did people just hang around listening to busy signals hoping someone else joined the party?

"We were pathetic" might be the understatement of the year!

[DerbyDad03]

Go ahead and tell Grampa and Gramma, you little snot faced brat.

I think you'll find that adults stick together, especially when they see a kid trying to usurp the authority of their parents.

Let me know how that works out for you.

[dpb]

DerbyDad03 wrote: ...

We just cranked the handled and "Central" picked up and would plug us onto the line--normally whether they were already talking or not... :)

And, of course, w/ the party line, all you had to do was pick up and join in almost any time... :)

[Stormin Mormon]

Do you have a link for the computer that determines your phone number? Used to be 511 in Rochester, NY. And 993 or 998 in Wayne County (east of Rochester).

[Stormin Mormon]

That's MCI computer, but it does give the number you're using. Thank you.

[larry]

This worked best on old step offices (Stroger) since busy tone was delivered to groups of 8 lines. The tone level dropped as each new recipient was added, so it was easier to talk over it. You all called the same busy number at the same time to end up on the same tone source.

The "feature" didn't last long in college towns. It caused all circuit busy for all 100 numbers in that group, ie: the busy target was 555-1234, when 8 calls were setting on busy, the rest of 555-1200 to 555-1299 couldn't receive calls.

Easy fix, busy tone was raised 20db, eight pairs of resistors dropped it back to normal. That put 40 db loss between each busy. Soldering resistors was a welcome break from replacing relay contacts, washing the racks and floors, for the new guy in 1968 ;-)

-- larry/dallas

[DerbyDad03]

Unless you're behind an office phone system (or whatever the technical term for that is).

I just tried it from my office and it returned the main number for the complex, even though you can direct dial into my phone.

[Don Wiss]

Well, on my Ireland trip I did not leave a detailed itinerary behind. I spent two weeks driving from B&B to B&B, with the next selected each afternoon. I had no contact with home. My parents (at the time 84 and 86) later said they did not realize I had not left a detailed itinerary (just the flights and the first night). Would they have waited? Or held the funeral without me? I guess I'll never know.

Don (e-mail link at home page bottom).